Florida - still cold weather, but heartwarming experiences

We stayed in Fernandina Beach on a mooring for five days.  I needed to fix a leak at the hot water tank and we enjoyed the quaint surroundings.  In talking with a young teen-aged girl we learned that she was a dog lover.  We mentioned that we had borzoi and she said that she knew a woman who has them as well and rescues them from bad situations in Florida.

"What is her name?"

"Ann Marie Wiseman."

Well, we know Ann Marie from when she lived in Colorado.  We called her and she returned the call.  We got together at the marina and we got to put our hands on a borzoi again for the first time in several months.  Ann Marie is doing well and several of her friends and family have moved to the area so this is definitely home for her now.  It was good to see her and another affirmation of the fact that the older one gets the smaller the world becomes.

Now that we were in Florida, we had two major projects on our plates.  Getting our leaking dinghy replaced and getting our life raft re-certified.  I had spoken with the Winslow life raft representative at the Annapolis Sailboat Show in October and knew that we could find them in Florida and be able to check that task off our list.  The Mercury dinghy issue could have been addressed in Washington, DC just down the dock from the marina, had we known, but we had been so occupied with family issues that boat issues were hardly addressed at all (once the brightwork varnish had been completed.)  The location of a Mercury inflatable boat dealer nearest us now was in Jacksonville.  We called MarineMax and a gentleman got back to us suggesting we pull into Jacksonville Beach at the Beach Marine Marina and he would come to the boat and check out the leaks and have a recommendation for us.  We and he did this and it was determined that we would be able to replace all the Hypalon rubber parts under warranty (10 year warranty!) except for the inflatable floor, which is PVC and has a one year warranty.  We have opted for replacing the the floor and paying for that and getting a new boat under the warranty.  It is expected to take four to six weeks to get the new parts.  MarineMax has a store in Pompano Beach farther down the coast so we have transferred our transaction to that store.  Now we wait, but we do not need to stop moving south in search of warmer weather.  S/V Nightingale has moved on to do some business and we will meet again in St. Augustine.

St. Augustine has installed two mooring fields since we were there last time.  One is south of the Bridge of Lions and the other is north of it, near the historic fort.  Since we hoped to leave St. Augustine and put to sea via the inlet instead of motoring the ICW when we headed farther south, we elected to take a bridge opening out of the picture and stayed on a mooring near the fort.  We enjoy St. Augustine and felt good about being there.  Photos of the city are in an earlier blog and I will just point there instead of showing them here.  The Christmas decorations were still up and the city was as beautiful as ever.

St Augustine-December, 2007

In a few days we were joined by S/V Nightingale.

We had been dressing for the cold weather both inside and outside the boat.  Stephen had demonstrated their heater, "Mr. Heater Little Buddy", for us back in Fernandina Beach and we had been in search of this device ever since, but to no avail.  After searching and bicycling all over St. Augustine, I finally ordered one from the Ace Hardware site online and had it shipped to Satellite Beach, our next stop.

The weather was still cold and we had two days to travel before arriving in Satellite Beach.  The winds were not good for sailing south in the ocean so we opened the Bridge of Lions and got ready to motor the ICW.  The journey went as planned and we piloted our way through the canals behind Merritt Island to Jim and Kathy Lee's dock in their back yard.  Kathy had a wonderful dinner for us and we got caught up on our lives since our sailing adventures together as they had sailed aboard S/V Stardust.  Reunions are great!