Thursday 12 December 2019

Sigh! Cloudy and overcast. Another generator day. Although, there was enough wind to get the wind generator making a decent contribution to things. I got up a couple of times during the night to check on the site by and that nothing was blowing around and saw the Windy Wendy was kicking out over 5A which, without conditions being uncomfortable, is quite acceptable. As well, it poured rain in a succession of deluges. Enough that I went on deck in the middle of the night to perform our trick with the water standpipe and scuppers to fill up the water tank which it did in just one of the downpours. Thank you nature.

I forgot to mention that there was some excitement yesterday in the mooring field. While we were off at Bank America the boat on the mooring directly behind us, a 47' Oceanis , somehow came loose from its mooring and made a break for it. A couple of the guys on nearby boats noticed and chased after it managing to corral it and hold it away from other boats until the marina's skiff arrived to take it back to the mooring. The owner wasn't around but, just to show that no good deed goes unpunished, a friend of his, who arrived after all the excitement was over, saw people on the boat and came rushing over to challenge them. It took a bit to get things calmed down. No damage done neither to the wayward boat nor to anyone else. I would have liked to have been available to have helped but in a way I'm glad to have not had to deal with the friend. My temperament would not have lent itself to diplomacy. People tend to carry sidearms in this state! And, I believe, they have stand your ground laws. Ya gotta keep a grip on your mouth.

The weather left us in a bit of a quandary. The plan had been to go to one of the local beaches with Carl and Linda but with overcast skies, torrential rains, thunder and lightning, and to top it off, a high and dangerous surf warning, it doesn't seem like sunbathing weather to me. Instead we are going for a tour of some museums and of the surrounding area.

We visited the Elliot Museum and took a tour of their collection of antique motor cars. This was a great experience that I would recommend to anyone. They start off with bicycles and explain how they morphed into the earliest horseless carriages and onward to Rolls Royce. Did you know that at first there was competition between steam, electric and gas as a preferred power source for the early autos? I didn't. A Stanley Steamer was an actual car! Whoda thunk it? They even started up one of the old Ford single cylinder cars and drove it around for a bit. Neat doesn't begin to describe it.

Then we went off to the Florida Oceanographic Institute and had a sea turtle presentation, a wildlife walk and a good feel about in a touch tank.

And finally we had a trip to Home Depot where we bought a solar powered light for the cockpit.

But our adventure wasn't over yet. When we got back to the marina our dingy was considerably under inflated. At first I thought that one of the other boaters had Accidentally shoved us us against the oyster encrusted pilings and caused a puncture but we couldn't find any leaks so we reloaded things and came back to the boat. I guess it might be simply because it was cooler and wet and the air in the pontoons shrank in volume. At a precaution we put the outboard back up on the boat for tonight.

All in all a great day thanks to Carl and Linda. I will repay them in a small way tomorrow morning by bringing them in to shore after they stow their dingy aboard while they go home to Saskatchewan for Christmas.