MIDORI ADVENTURES

We have been listening to NPR (National Public Radio) every morning and hearing about the new Corona Virus. Typically, we head back after the Seafood Festival which is still scheduled for March 14 and 15 although many public events are being cancelled further north. There is a lot of “chatter” on the daily VHF Cruisers’ Net. The grocery stores are running out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. We start watching for a weather window, but another northerly front is forecast for March 7 & 8.

In the first week of March, we hosted a Happy Hour on MIDORI with new Canadian friends Jim & Linda from sv GYPSEA and Colin and Catherine. Dinghy races were held in the harbour on March 3rd. You can see the beautiful photos of the colourful umbrellas in the album. On March 6th, Jim & Linda treat us to a fish fry on their boat just as the next front was brewing.

I am starting to worry……thinking that there is no hospital in Marathon anymore. What if one of us gets sick? When I hear that our Prime Minister has requested that all Canadians should come home as quickly as possible, I realize how serious this is. I WANT TO GO HOME!

We attend the Seafood Festival and try to maintain social distancing. There are hand washing stations set up all over the grounds and hand sanitizer at most of the kiosks. We can tell that attendance is way down. I think we were lucky that the virus had not reached The Keys yet! In retrospect, it was not the wisest thing to do.

Many marinas are starting to take the pandemic seriously and are not accepting new bookings. The Boot Key City Marina is going to be closing the lounge and setting up hand washing stations. The grocery store shelves are getting more bare each day. We start preparing for a departure by topping up our water & fuel supply and running our motors. Others are doing the same - especially the Canadians who need to take their boats to their summer boat yards……..some up the east coast and others, like us, up the west coast of Florida.

A weather window starts to appear. ESE winds are forecast for the upcoming week.

At 7:00 a.m. (dawn) on March 17th, we departed Boot Key Harbour and travelled all the way to Duck Rock off the Ten Thousand Islands. We anchored at 8:00 p.m. (dusk). At dawn on March 18th, we travelled through the Big Marco River out into the Gulf and sailed past Naples and Fort Myers Beach, and anchored at dusk off of Ding Darling National Park. At dawn on March 19th, we travelled from Ding Darling to Charlotte Harbour Boat Storage arriving around suppertime. WE MADE IT IN THREE DAYS! On March 20th MIDORI was hauled out before noon. We then proceeded to put her away for the season in a record four and a half days!

There were very few people in the boatyard and social distancing was recommended so the central gathering place (The Hut) was not the usual happy place to be. Old boat buddies, Steve and Mary Ann arrived on LIVING WELL, but, sadly, we could not do our usual “go out for dinner”. And, we were on a mission to get home.

We left the boatyard at 8:30 p.m. on March 24th and stayed at the Sleep Inn in Port Charlotte. We managed to find decent accommodation following the new protocols (sanitized rooms, bagged breakfast) for the next three nights along the way. Travel during the day was strange as most restaurants were closed. Macdonald’s offered food and bathrooms, but Wendy’s closed their bathrooms. (We had lots of food from the boat anyway.) That left Service Stations and, luckily, Rest Stops were still open, until we got further north.

When we stopped at the border, we were asked to state verbally, i.e. “repeat after me” that we would be going straight home with no stops and self isolating for 14 days.

We arrived in Ninette at 3:00 p.m. on March 28th.

Self isolation was not a problem because WE WERE EXHAUSTED!

In follow up to my Facebook post, friends Erich and Barb offered to pick up and drop off groceries to us. We gratefully accepted their kind offer.


LYNN