Day 125, Year 10: Provisioning, Planning, and Bidding Farewell to Family
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2015
Weather: Mostly Sunny, High Temp 70 degrees F but Feels Cooler
Location: Fort Myers Beach Mooring Field
It was another busy day. Public transportation is wonderful but it does take extra time when you have to transfer from one bus to another. Mark took me to shore to catch the 8:20 am bus going over the bridge away from Fort Myers Beach and toward Fort Myers proper. By 8:35 am I was at the location to transfer to another bus going to Costco. According to the schedule, I would not have made the transfer, but there was absolutely no traffic going into town this morning, so the beach bus arrived early. That made the connection possible. Once on the next bus, it took a circuitous route to Costco, but still I was there by 9:15 am. Ahhh . . . time to get a cup of coffee while waiting for Costco to open. And there just happened to be a Bob Evans restaurant sitting right there. So a second breakfast later, I entered Costco just after 10 am. Thankfully they give you a one-day pass if you don’t have your card with you. My card is actually back in East Falmouth somewhere at Heather and Jed’s and Mark’s card was in his wallet, not mine as it has been for months. Somehow when we went to Costco in Fort Lauderdale, Mark got it back and I didn’t realize it until I was already on the bus and off the island. Using my temporary pass, I entered Costco and gathered all the things on my Bahama provisioning list. I was done shopping by the time Mary Ellen and Jeanie arrived. They came from Jeanie’s doctor in Fort Myers who gave her good news. The infection from her recent surgery is gone and she is well on the road to full recovery. Hurray for Jeanie. But now back to Costco. Since I was finished shopping we quickly headed to Fort Myers Beach. Well, we started out quickly. In season traveling to and from the beach is always a traffic challenge, but we made it and met Mark at the dinghy dock. We unloaded Mary Ellen’s van and transferred the load to our dinghy. We had things to pick up at Mary Ellen and Lee’s and had decided to drive back to Bonita Springs with ME and Jeanie. But first we had to travel to Windbird and put the groceries away. It takes about 15 minutes to get from the dinghy dock to the boat and it took us half-an-hour to put things away. Mark had defrosted the freezer while I was in town which made the job super easy. Thank you, Mark!!! Windbird’s freezer is now full to the brim so I don’t think we will starve while we are in the Bahamas. Once the job was completed, we headed back to shore and walked up to the Gulf side of the island to meet up with ME and Jeanie. We met Lee at a restaurant in Bonita and had a delightful late lunch, went to ME and Lee’s and did one more laundry (blankets and sheets), stopped at a supermarket for a few more supplies on our way back to Lover’s Key to catch the bus, and watched the red sunset over the Gulf as we rode the bus back along Fort Myers Beach. Our days here have been jam-packed with activity and tomorrow will be no exception. We’ll head into town early for the Friday morning Farmer’s Market, do the last laundry, bring things back to Windbird, and then turn around and go back to the dinghy dock. We will take the bus to meet our friends Helaine and Alan Kanegsberg in Fort Myers for lunch. They arrived in Florida yesterday from the cold and snowy northeast and are visiting with friends in Punta Gorda, just north of here. We’re meeting them in town to spare them the pain of fighting Friday afternoon traffic on Fort Myers Beach. We’re looking forward to the visit and then it will be back aboard Windbird doing the final preparations for our return trip to the east coast of Florida. Take off time is set for early Saturday morning.
In between all of the above, Mark and I have been tracking the weather for our return trip. I now have four pages with three columns on each page of wind information from one source and Mark has almost the same from another source. We compare and look at our proposed sail plan. As always, the weather is not going to cooperate all the way from here back to Miami and we are going to have to make some choices. At some point we have to get together with Lee and Lynda and see what they are thinking and then be flexible enough to make adjustments as we go. Right now we know we will leave here on Saturday morning, but where we end up on Saturday night is up for discussion. Very strong winds are predicted for mid-week and we have to decide where we want to be at that point. The winds will be from the west and south which is perfect for sailing east and north–BUT–the problem is where to anchor at night. Lee and Lynda might choose to go the inside route, but we can’t do that due to our deep draft. We’ll just have to figure this out day by day.
If anyone out there can use Hewlett Packard computer printer ink cartridges, HP 60XL series, please let us know. I purchased the wrong cartridges for our printer today and we didn’t realize it until we had them out of the packaging. Hate to throw them away as they are so expensive, so let us know if you can use them.
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| 150213 Day 125 Florida, USA–Fort Myers Beach Farmer's Market |
