We thought that it was time for a little summer blog update.
We returned to Twin Dolphin Marina in early June after 7 months away, 5 1/2 of which were in the Bahamas. We had a great cruise this year, but that is well covered in previous posts.
The good thing about returning to the dock is air conditioning - it starts to get really hot in Florida. We have air conditioning, but we can only run it when on shore power at a dock; we cannot run it at anchor.
The bad thing about returning to the dock is that it is the beginning of 'work' and 'checkup' season:
- For a number of reasons it is much more difficult to get many maintenance items done when we are anchored or moored, so we try to get as many things as we can done in the summer while we are docked and have shore 'resources' (a car, good nearby stores, easily accessible garbage, and other things we lack when away from the dock).
- We have retained our doctors, dentists, and other professionals that we saw for years in Syracuse, so we return each summer for a whirl-wind tour of appointments.
We did have some fun in that period, taking a trip to Miami for a Marlins baseball game and some Cuban food - we had a great time. The new Marlins stadium is fantastic!
In early July we took the boat down the river to Snead Island Boat Works. The major project scheduled there was replacement of our waste holding tank. This entailed taking up the floor in both the forward and main cabins - they don't build boats for easy maintenance! Additionally we had our batteries replaced, some rewiring to get a dedicated starting battery, had our bottom touched up (thank you crab pots), and few other small items.
Shortly after dropping off the boat, we flew back to Syracuse for our annual visits with doctors, dentists, and friends. All visits were good. My worst outcome was a filling in a wisdom tooth. The dentist was not sure if it would be a filling or an extraction, but succeeded with the filling. I don't think there are many people my age with all their wisdom teeth - does that mean I have a lot of wisdom? :-)
The trip north featured a little fun with a one week trip to Quebec. We love Quebec, it is like a cheap European vacation. We first stayed in a B&B in Sherbrooke, a town in a region called the Eastern Townships. The area was first settled by English-speakers, but now, like most of Quebec, is heavily French.
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| One of the murals in Sherbrooke. You can see some of the the 3-D effect in the picture, but it is amazing in person |
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| Beautiful flower at our B&B in Sherbrooke |
We then traveled to Quebec City. Quite by accident, we caught the first day of Les Fetes de la Nouvelle-France (The New France Festival). This is a fun celebration of all things French. People dress up in period costumes (some 'performers' yes, but also just ordinary folks attending). It is not uncommon to see whole families dressed up in 17th century garb. The music is great - it is all in French, so we don't understand a lot, but it is definitely toe-tapping.
We have been at the festival before, but for the first time we caught the opening fire-works (highlight was the aerial Fleur de Lis display) and the parade of Geant (Giants). I don't fully understand the origin of the Giants, but they are very large figures, some on stilts and some just located on a rolling platform. Early explorer and religious figures (actually often one and the same in history) are common.
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| Also many drum and bugle corps |
We returned to the boat in Bradenton in early August where we are hard at work on many boat projects and provisioning for our winter cruise. Diversions tend to be of the air conditioned kind, like movies.
We are getting a new genoa (headsail) and a new staysail this year. Although finding tears and UV damage on almost 20-year-old sails can hardly be called unexpected, it was an unplanned expenditure this year. The new sails are being made by Mack Sails in Stuart, FL and we should have them in a couple of weeks.
We plan to leave here in early November. Currently we are not planning on spending as much time on the west coast of Florida as we have in the past, but rather traveling to Miami via the Dry Tortugas, a fascinating location about 60 miles west of Key West. We have planned to go there several times before and it has never worked out for various reasons, primarily weather-related. Maybe we will get there this time!
Tom
Docked Twin Dolphin Marina
Bradenton, FL
