Delilah's Meanderings

It has been a really long time since our last post. Last year's cruising season was cut short when I ruptured my Achillie's tendon playing pickle ball in Marathon in the Florida Keys on Feb 18th. We flew home and I had surgery March 1st. The surgery went well and 6 months later I was mostly back to normal. A special thanks to Gene, Charlene, and Chatty their cat for sailing Delilah back to boatyard.

I was excited for Season 7 to begin and make up for the shortened season 6. An added bonus is I am retiring for good at the end of February and hopefully will be working only a little until then. Delilah was launched Thursday 1/6 on a sunny windless day. We motored south and anchored in Pelican Bay off Cayo Costa. Shortly after anchoring my youngest sister Elaine texted that our dad was put on hospice care! They didn't know how long he had, but thought it was not imminent. We of course were in shock. He had been failing gradually for years and recently was put in a memory care facility in Evansville. Immediately we discussed options for returning home and decided to take the boat back to the boatyard, have it hauled out, and fly home out of Punta Gorda. The earliest we could make this happen would be to fly home the next Wednesday.

With the haul-out scheduled for the next week we had some time to spend in the Cayo Costa area. We went ashore and walked to the beach and enjoyed a nice stroll. It was warm for January and we were wearing short sleeves. We returned to the boat and decided to dinghy to Cabbage Key for lunch. Just after we ate Elaine called and said that dad was fading fast and probably wouldn't make it past a few days! We walked on the trails on Cabbage Key and discussed how to get home faster. We decided to head south and leave Delilah tied to our friend's dock near Fort Myers Beach and fly home from Southwest Regional.

The next day we sailed south down the ICW and tied up to Michael and Linda's dock. How fortunate we are to have friends with available dock space. We prepped the boat to leave it. Other boating friends Bill and Rose near by on a mooring ball kindly drove us to the airport Sunday and took our perishable food. My daughter Allison picked us up at the airport and we were home around 10:30pm. Monday morning first thing we drove to Evansville and had 2 hours with dad before he passed. He was a wonderful father and I try to pay forward what he and mom did for us ... a very high bar. The funeral was perfect, held Saturday, January 22 at their church in Darmstadt and was similar to my mom's 6 years prior.

January 24th I flew back to Southwest Regional (Fort Myers), took a bus and trolley back to where Delilah was docked. Kim followed me a week later, staying behind to watch grandkids while our daughter helped our son-in-law through surgery. Delilah looked good, it didn't take long to get her back into shape to sail. Kim had ordered groceries, so I wasn't going to starve. The next day I motor sailed 6 hours south down the coast and anchored next to Osprey (Tammy and Jerel) in Factory Bay, Marco Island. The next 3 days I spent quality time with Tammy and Jerel, including eating out at Snook Inn where you had to wear disposable plastic gloves at the salad bar, walked to Tiger Tail park, and a game night on Osprey where we played monopoly card game and dominoes.

A strong cold front with high winds was coming. I moved Delilah 3 hours south into the Ten Thousand Islands (Everglades) to ride it out with two anchors set. I'd prefer to drag into mangroves than boat docks and boats that surround Factory Bay. On the way down I saw several dolphins and ray with at least 4 foot wing span jump out of the water. Delilah was anchored behind Four Brothers Key and saw little wave action when the wind came. The anchors did their job and held! Wish Kim was there to see that, she hates it when the anchor drags. I motored back to Factory Bay and anchored near Osprey the day after wind blew through. The next day I waved goodbye to Tammy and Jerel as I moved Delilah to Kim's favorite anchorage Smokehouse Bay and Osprey sailed north and anchored off Saint James City, Pine Island. We are all on a very long waiting list to get a mooring ball at Ft. Myers Beach/Matanzas Pass.

This post is getting way too long, so we will pick the story back up when Kim gets to the boat on the 31st.

fair winds,
Mark