Day 183: Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Port to Port: Fort Myers, Florida

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 0      Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First time getting the bottom of the boat scraped.

Mile to Mile: A front moved through and kicked up a cool wind. The boats anchored out in the bay were rockin’ and rollin’ again. We’re just feeling the cold breeze making a pants wearing day (yes Eddy, I wore pants today). I feel sorry for the Spring Breakers who are hoping for bikini weather on the beach.

We have been in the water for six months and never had the bottom professionally scraped. I have been putting it off but now that we are going to be traveling again, it may be a good time to consider it. As luck would have it, a couple of guys were up at the marina this morning getting their gear ready to do several large boats in the harbor so I asked them to take a look at Aurora. Her hull wasn’t too bad surprisingly (especially given the murky water at Fort Myers Beach), but the bare spots and the rudder (which doesn’t have any bottom paint on it), needed some work. We lucked out and he was willing to do us first so we didn’t have to come back in a couple of hours, and 25 minutes and $50 later, we have a clean bottom for the next couple of months. Maybe that will help us go “fast” now. (Hey, 1/2 mph make a difference when you are lucky to go 6 mph).

After the bottom job, I headed to the library to work on the internet ( blog, taxes, route research) and Cindy headed off to take the bus to a nearby mall to look for better walking shoes.

For those who are interested, we found out from Bill and Kate II why Dark and Stormy’s are a sailor’s drink. The ginger in the ginger beer is for mal de mar (sea sickness); the lime is to avoid rickets (sounds ugly); and the rum is for the daily allotment of rum each sailor was entitled too (I didn’t know we have a daily allotment). Sounds like a good story to me.

On our way back from the grocery, we lucked upon a party getting ready to start – Ford’s Garage was celebrating its one year anniversary with free beer and sliders. As luck would have it, we like free beer and sliders. So we got in line and soon were enjoying a nice meal we didn’t have to cook and wishing Fords Garage a Happy Anniversary. They have been so successful in their first year, they are building two more somewhere in the Fort Myers area.