Rain..rain..go away

We are still docked here in Carrabelle Fl. With the weather and all we are not going to move.We are fair weather sailers. Getting a lot done on the boat, so that is good.
We worked on the autopilots and got one of them working, Pierre is glad for that, we only have 5 things left on the board, but the boat keeps added more.
I noticed the bilge pump came on the other day and I was worried, but, we had worked on the air conditioner because the water flow had not been right and it was very clogged up with grass and such, but in doing so, we had gotten water in the bilge, so Pierre said to me that is why the pump came on. Now you have to know, the fist thing I do in the morning when I get up is check the bilge pump meter to see if the pump has come on. It had...not once but twice..that is bad. Pierre went down in the engine room and the hot water heater was leaking. REALLY..we had just replaced that thing in March. I called West Marine and they will replace it, but we have to wait a week for a new one to come in. John, (a very nice man) just a couple of boats down said he will take use to Tallahassee to get the new one. But this sets us back some. Bummer...
On a lighter note...we are having a blast!! Life is sweet on board..

Sad day

Pierre and I have some good friends, David Dykes and his wife Rosemary, they have a 70ft schooner "Nina". They asked us to sail with them a few years ago, but I told Pierre, if they can do it we can too, so we told them no. They set sail a few years ago with their son. I heard they were in New Zealand not to long ago and they were going to sail to Austrailia. They have been lost at sea now for three weeks, I am hoping they will be found. They ran into a bad storm and they have not been heard from since. Every cruisers nightmare.
We are still here in Carrabelle, get things ready for the crossing, we had about 12 things on the board and now we down to 7. Sweet!

Partay

John at the grill

This is John @ the BBQ pit cooking the chicken, we borrowed this from James, he works here at C-Quarters. The party was fun for all, at first the fishermen that hang here stayed at the other end of the dock, but as Keith sang his songs, they wandered over to us. By the end of the night they were singing and hanging out.

Sleeping Inn

We have been so lazy...I slept in till 9am the other morning, we are in fresh water here in Carrabelle so I have not been as worried.

  We are still working on the boat... getting the list smaller and smaller. We walked to the store yesterday and then we went to the "The Fisherman Wife" restaurant for lunch, as we were eating the rain started...and it was a deluge, the lady that works there, her husband works here at the marina, George..she told me she would drive use back, but the rain had let up and we headed back to the boat. When we got back..the cockpit was a awash. So today we took up the teak deck and we found a bunch of rust spots, they were bad! This was not on the list....we fiberglassed them and tomorrow we are going to paint them and replace the teak deck. 

John..he is a couple of boats down from us, invited us to go to dinner with him. He has a car..sweet...he is from Kentucky. He and his wife have a Hans Christian, Cristina, they only made 14 of these boats, they are not double Enders, that was a change for them. But anyway..he took us to a really sweet restaurant, over the bridge.

 Tomorrow we have the BBQ going on the dock and John bought 5lbs of chicken and he is marinating them as we speak..will let you know how it goes!!

What fun!!

We are having a blast here at C-Quarters Marina, our neighbors here are the coolest, they have a 1981 36ft Hunter, and have come all the way from Port Isabelle, Tx. He has a Kareoke Machine on board..yes they do..did i spell that right? Well.. He sings..love it..so we have talked to Kim, and we are going to have a sing-a-long here Saturday night. Ok..Tip jar..Keith...we went to the Doc today and Pierre has some sort of weird sport injury on his knee..yes a sport injury..go figure.. We are going to treat it with Methylpredniolone tablets...Codi is that right? We have to go back tomorrow, and we have to walk there..hmmm..he has a knee problems...but ok...they are going to show us on the x-ray they took today...hey Codi...Tillys are still alive..there was a huge 75ft houseboat that came in yesterday, they are on the way to Tampa to get that houseboat on a ship for a trip to Russia..4 guys...they had NO idea what they were doing...we hope they make it...they had no plan..no live raft..no dingy..and they were drinking!! Sweet..I so love this life...We slept in till 8:30 this morning..I told Pierre, I may never return to land life. When you stop the clock..life just gets sweeter!!

Carrabelle History

Carrabelle's  first post office was founded in 1878. This new federal facility served the fifty families living around the mouth of the Crooked River.
  Lumbering and the timber harvesting industry soon came to be the mainstay of this struggling but optimistic settlement. Vast quantities of logs and loads of turpentine were floated down the river and dispatched aboard sailing vessels, which anchored in the secure coves of Dog Island, hence the name Shipping Cove. The captains of these vessels also left their crew on the Island. Most of their crew were men that had been shanghaied, so they did not want them to run away!
  A severe hurricane in 1898 destroyed much of the town. The lumbering business fell off and the local economy was depressed for a time as the residents strove to rebuild their community a bit farther upstream. The new version of Carrabelle rose on the shores of St James Island, sandwiched between the Crooked and New rivers. The town continues to occupy this site today.
  During WWII, Carrabelle experienced a short lived boom. Camp Gordon Johnston was established five miles out of town and new recruits trained for amphibious landings on the shores of Dog Island.
  Following the war, Carrabelle lapsed more and more into the role of an isolated but charming fishing village. Shrimp, crab and freshwater fish are harvested for sale locally and they are shipped out. Grouper, snapper and other deep water fish are fished offshore. There is also a lot of commercial, charter and recreation fishing.
 This weekend they hosted the Big Bend Saltwater Classic Fishing Tournament.  So we walked down yesterday to see the weighins, they caught some really big fish...today they auctioned them off. It was cool. See ya on the water!

Squirrels in the trees

Pierre and I walked about five miles today, looking for the local doctor, but no luck, we did see a white squirrel in a tree and I got some pictures. I need a better camera! But after we got back to marina, I talked to Kim, she is the local expert here, she told me there is a story about the white squirrels. There was a lady here and she and her son raised white squirrels and sold them as pets, when her son died, she had about 30 of them and she just let them go. Kim has three of them in her back yard. She did help us find the local doctor and loaned us her car to get there, but they do not have a doctor till Monday, so we will go back then...