Sun, Jan 17, 2010 - Ft Myers Beach, FL

There was a little bit of rain during the early morning hours. Several times during the night, we were bothered by the mooring ball hitting the hull of the boat – it seemed the tide and the wind were working against each other and we were sideways to the mooring ball. By 8:30 am we were on shore and ready for showers. Maureen had brought the dirty clothes in for washing and did several loads of laundry while Gale ran over to Publix for some distilled water to add to the battery bank. At 11 am, he picked up Maureen with her bag of clean clothes and brought her back to begin putting things away.


At 12:30 pm we headed over to Liz and Steve Kemper’s boat, Shingebiss, to watch the Vikings beat the Cowboys in a big playoff game. If the Vikings can beat the Saints next Sunday, they’ll be in the Superbowl on February 7th!! We toured their well-maintained trawler, shared some snacks and conversation, got to know their cat, Lucy, and cheered on Brett Favre and the Vikings. Liz and Steve are from Newport, Minnesota, where they have a nice home on a canal leading to the Mississippi River. We first met them at the marina in Port St Joe, Florida.

At 5 pm we were back at our boat to pick up Lucy and go for a little dinghy ride. We still wanted to check out the channel where there were so many derelict boats anchored. There wasn’t much daylight left so we weren’t out long, but we did see many abandoned boats as well as some that looked abandoned, actually were inhabited, but hadn’t been moved for a very long time.





After dark, Steve and Liz stopped by in their dinghy. They had made a trip downtown and were on their way back to their boat. They had just met another couple from Minnesota who had just started their sailing adventure and had questions about doing the “Loop” in a sailboat. Liz called them over to talk to Gale about our trip, and we invited both couples aboard for a quick tour and a short visit. The second couple from Minnesota, Bob and Ilona Rouda, s/v Maija Lisa, had trailered their 23-foot Precision sailboat from Minnesota to Florida where they had recently put in.