This was the first of many parties. WE had a progressive dinner where we had Appetizers on an assigned boat, then went to another boat for dinner and then back to the “HUT” for dessert. ( I had standing rib roast prepared on a grill…it was magnificent) On another night we were invited to the yard owners house in North Ft .Myers for a Lasagna Dinner (About 80 people in a huge log home with lots of beautiful Christmas Decorations, and even Santa attended). We had a breakfast on Christmas eve morning, then a dinner at night and another /breakfast Christmas Day and another dinner that night…whew! All we did was eat. Then came New Years with an appetizer party, sang Auld Lang Syne at 8:30 and went to bed at “Sailors Midnight “ or 9:00 for you land lubbers.
We made a return trip to Bruce and Nancy’s in Palmetto on Dec the 29th. Nancy had breakfast waiting, we met up with Mark and Trudy Litz , and Bruce took us all on a great boat ride out on the bay (to look at the Sunshine Bridge from the water), and we all went out to dinner. Steve and I went south that night to Siesta Key and stayed with Mark and Trudy at their vacation condo…Another THANKS, guys!
We finally left the boat Yard on Jan 6th . there was a Spaghetti dinner on the 5th and heaven forbid we should miss a party! So Early on Sunday the 6th we pulled out on to the canal and headed to the lake then to the Myakka river, through the locks and into salt water at high tide at 6:00 in the evening. We traveled about 6 miles after dark and dropped anchor. In the morning we found we were sitting on the bottom at low tide and we had to wait for the tide to come up before we could move. Then we headed to Cayo Costa State Park. We sat there the rest of Monday and did minor fix it jobs. MIDORI with Brian and Lynn came into the anchorage after dark, about 8:00. They left the boat yard about 8:00 in the morning, got through the locks, realized they had motor mount problems, went back through the locks, back to the boat yard, “got hauled”, fixed the mounts, returned to the water, back through the locks and on to Cayo Costa. By the way, IT IS a big deal to go through the locks, and three times in one day is more than any relationship deserves.