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Day Twenty Six
Entry 25 of 66 | show all | print this entry |
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We left our beautiful marina in Sanibel (after receiving more hot blueberry muffins) and arrived in Venice, Florida early this afternoon. Gene FINALLY got to see his first Florida Gator (see photo)...so in honor of that, we named it Boudreaux. It was floating in, appropriately, Gator Bay, and we thought it was a log at first. Then, shortly after seeing it, a couple of kids came zipping by on a jetski, one riding while the other was on waterskis. We pointed at the gator and the kid fell at that moment, just feet away from the huge thing. The gator went underwater and we thought the kid was a goner. Luckily, he got up quickly and took off waterskiing again...
That was the most eventful part of the day. We are here at the Crow's Nest Marina and they have put us on a dock which is outside the marina and down a ways from the jetties...so we will be rocking and rolling all night long. Small marina with free internet, bikes and a boater's lounge (if you don't mind sitting next to the five bathroom doors. I "blew out my flipflops" yesterday (no, not on a poptop), so had to ride into town on the free bikes to get more. Gave us a chance to see the downtown area...everything was buttoned down at 5. This seems to be a real retirement town...saw lots of elderly folk.
Why the urgency for my flipflops? For those of you who might think this is a glamorous life, there are a few things I can share with you to dispel that theory. The flipflops are for wearing in the different public showers you use every evening when you are in a marina. There is no quality control...some of them are really bad. As nice as the ones at Sanibel were, for example, there was no a/c in the bathroom and by the time you finished dressing after your shower, you needed another shower due to the heat. And then there are the gnats. I am covered in bites from head to toe. In Florida they call these bugs "no see 'ems"...cause you can't see the darned things. The other night I tried some new bug repellent which I also gave to Catharina, but that only made them more attracted to us...it was awful. When we started the trip my head was covered in bites and I actually thought I might have lice...but after checking it out, found out they were "no see em's" So I had to revert to Cactus Juice which Joe gave me and it actually worked. Today we had to clean out the ice chest because as we came across some rough water the bottles of Heineken broke and dumped beer in our water. The laundry areas are always interesting. They may be rusted, and you may have to wait for others to finish, but we eventually get the clothes done. And as transient boaters, we often get docked a long distance from the bathrooms and showers...sometimes 1/2 mile away...makes for an interesting walk. Sometimes I just figure I'll never see these people again, so I will shower and walk the 1/2 mile in my pyjamas...And we are getting too much sun despite the gallons of sunblock and the hats we wear...there's just no avoiding the sun...
But, that's really nothing...my mantra, borrowed from the Pier 15, is still, "It Doesn't Suck To Be Us". More thumbnails ...
Where I stayed:
Crows Nest
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