Our final week in Florida was a compressed version of the first four weeks, gratefully staying with Karen and Bill while dashing around to various doctors' appointments (eye and dermatologist) and meals shared with friends. There was less shopping than during our earlier stay, largely because our bags were already looking pretty full, although there were a couple of last-minute orders from Amazon for specific eye-drops and vitamin supplements recommended by the respective eye and skin doctors.
Karen and Bill our wonderful, gracious hosts
Randall had two more small Mohs surgeries on his left cheek and temple but the right nostril that had be treated earlier had healed very nicely. Thus, he had more stitches (for me to remove back in New Zealand) and dressings on his face, which seems to be an almost constant state for him when we visit Florida.
We treated (punished?) some of our friends with shows of some of our photographs from our travels. We showed Martha and Tom a selection of pictures from New Zealand; some of places that they remembered from their sabbatical there in 2016, and some of places that they did not know and could look forward to seeing on a return visit. When we arrived that their house, Tom had just got home from a day of volunteering at the St Augustine Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. He was still in his costume as one of the colonial Spanish soldiers of the 1740s who fires the cannon and demonstrates other weapons of the period. Construction of the stronghold began in 1692, when Florida was part of the Spanish Empire. St Augustine, was already 107 years old by that time and it is the oldest, continuously occupied, European-established settlement within the borders of the continental United States. The core of the fort was completed in 1695, and with expansion and modifications over the following centuries, it is the oldest masonry fort in the continental US.
Alison, Tom in his colonial Spanish soldier costume, and Martha
The slide-show of our decade on Tregoning was presented to Karen and Bill, to our Wild Women Group, and to Susan and Jeff. Jeff had made the original suggestion that we put a show together (not an insignificant task with my estimate about 48,000 photos to pick from) so when he was unavailable for the Wild Women gathering, we made sure that he had another opportunity to be subjected to our talk.
The Wild Women Group (without Susan - photographer - Doria and Kaoru) with spouses at Linda's. L to R: Tom, Martha, Linda, Griff, David, Katie, Alison, and Randall
On our way to see friend, and former colleague, Lisa at her adorable cracker-style house north of Gainesville, we drove past what used to be the Hunter Marine boatyard in Alachua. This was where our previous boat (Steda Rings) was built and we had once toured the factory with our boat club. Hunter Marine was bought by Marlow Yachts in 2012 and their production fell from a peak of 2,000 boats per year from three plants, to just 16 boats per year in 2016 produced only in Alachua. It is suggested in Wikipedia that "Marlow Hunter and Marlow Mainship have no interest in high volume cheaply made value products, preferring the pursuit of the industries (sic) highest standards similar to the Marlow Yachts" but as we drove through the parking lot of the factory, it did not look as though anything much was being produced at all...although, to be fair, it was a Sunday morning.
Lisa seemed to be in fine fettle as were her mules, chickens, dogs, house, and various tree-plantings. Being Easter morning, we exchanged various chocolate bunnies and eggs, and she gave us a box of multicolored, multi-sized eggs fresh from her chickens to take back to Karen and Bill (with whom we had already exchanged chocolate goodies).
Lisa outside her adorable cracker house
And we were not only catching-up with Florida friends. Terry, Gretchen and Emme were visiting Florida from Bellingham, WA, while Emme was looking at potential universities to attend. After viewing a college in Boston (with the recent series of nor'easters she got a good taste of winter weather in New England), she decided to commit to Stetson University in central Florida where she would be able to follow her passion for rowing all year long. She is an experienced coxswain, a position on the rowing team that would be immediately available to her, so we could see why she would be keen to select Stetson, in addition to it being a fine university.
Emme, Terry, and Gretchen
After visiting the Stetson campus and making her decision, they kindly drove up to Gainesville for a night so that we could get together. In addition to an excellent tapas dinner at Emiliano's, near their downtown hotel, during the afternoon we went in search of alligators at Payne's Prairie Preserve State Park.
Forming the southern boundary of Gainesville, Paynes Prairie is a 21,000-acre (85 km2) savanna that is both a State Park and a U.S. National Natural Landmark. The primary drainage of the basin is Alachua Sink and occasionally when this sink becomes blocked, the prairie has become Alachua Lake. During one such blockage, between 1871 and 1891, shallow-draft steamboats plied the waters. Although water levels had slowly begun to subside in 1889, a sudden drop of 8 feet (2.5 m) over just 10 days left huge areas of dead fish and alligators in 1891. That cannot have smelled very good.
By 1637, Rancho La Chúa had been established in the area and, by the end of the 17th century, it was the largest cattle ranch in the Spanish colony. After various raids by native groups and French buccaneers, the ranch was abandoned in 1706, leaving the area to the Alachua band of the Seminole tribe. William Bartram passed through the area in 1776, noting that the Prairie was a grazing ground used by the local Seminoles.
By the late 1920s, ranchers had dug various canals and dikes to provide more reliable drainage to the area and US Highway 441 had been constructed on a levee across the basin. The Interstate Highway I-75 corridor was added in 1964 and with storm-water runoff increasing from Gainesville, the water entering Alachua Sink was becoming increasingly polluted.
An anhinga (that appears to have a Mohawk hairstyle) drying its wings at Paynes Prairie
The State of Florida took over the ranch areas in 1970 and there has been a gradual program since then to restore Paynes Prairie to its pre-European settler condition while maintaining two major highways. Thus, aspects of the basin's hydrology have been restored, invasive plants have been removed, and large grazers have been reintroduced including a few bison. Small herds Florida Cracker horses and Florida Cracker cattle, first herded by the Seminoles, were also introduced.
We visited La Chua trail on the northern side of Payne's Prairie where you can usually walk along the bank of an old canal and see numerous large alligators sunning themselves. I had forgotten that since Hurricane Irma, the Prairie has been flooded and most of the trails were underwater. Luckily, there is a long boardwalk around Alachua Sink from which we saw several alligators and a good variety of wetland birds.
Leaning over the boardwalk rail, we were able to watch a harmless banded water snake slither across the surface of the floating plants. This was shortly followed by meeting a woman on the boardwalk who had found a small red corn snake lurking behind the rails. I had not realized before how beautifully these non-venomous snakes are patterned in black-and-white on their undersides as well as the orange/brown patterns on their backs.
A small red corn snake at Paynes Prairie
As we continued back to the car, we were surprised to see a third species of snake being held by a young man who had found it by the trail and wanted to take a photograph of it on his arm. This was a larger, yellow rat snake which is also non-venomous. Like the woman with the red corn snake, this young man was keen to show the snake to visitors as they walked by, allowing those who so desired to touch it.
It not only struck me as surprising to see three different snake species in the wild in such a short period of time but it was amazing that two people had the knowledge and interest to pick two of them up. I am not sure that this is the kind of interaction with wildlife that the park rangers usually encourage but in both cases the snake handlers knew the species of snakes and what they were doing. They were also both keen to educate other visitors about them and, again to my surprise, nobody seemed to shy away but many were enthusiastic to learn more and take the opportunity to touch these reptiles. Of course, visitors to a State Park are a pre-selected group of the public but, even then, I would have assumed that some people would be more squeamish about snakes...or maybe those folk had already hurried away...
A yellow rat snake on a young man's arm at Paynes Prairie
Finally, by Thursday morning (April 5th) we returned Katie's car with much gratitude, and then set-off in a rental car for the Orlando Airport. Our flights went very smoothly but the trip from Orlando to Los Angeles (about 5 hours), LA to Nadi, Fiji (about 11 hours), Nadi to Auckland (about 3 hours), and Auckland to Whangarei (20 minutes) is a long time to be sitting in airplane seats, plus 10 hours or so of airport layovers. Still, we were glad that we flew into Whangarei instead of trying to drag our luggage on and off the buses, and the airport shuttle efficiently whisked us back to the marina.
All was well with Tregoning and we were happy to see our Whangarei friends again. We are not sure if Sue and Larry will be returning to our neighboring boat SV Serengeti anytime soon. We had just missed seeing Larry as he had returned to join Sue in the Florida Keys following the death of his father. Between having to return to Florida to repair their house after Hurricane Irma and coping with Larry Sr.'s decline, Sue and Larry are probably exhausted and may be in need of a period of calm before they resume cruising. Even if we miss them this year, we hope that we will cross routes again in the future.
Our wait to see Vandy and Eric, however, will be much shorter because they are returning to Whangarei and SV Scoots on April 23rd. We are very excited about seeing them again and showing them our great appreciation for allowing us to use their car, Baxter. It is probably just as well that they not returning this week because Randall is currently rather indisposed. A small muscle in his back was getting grumpy just before we left Gainesville and all the sitting, moving luggage, etc., not have helped, so by yesterday (Monday) he could hardly move. He is staying in bed for a couple of days and with muscle relaxants and use of his back-brace he is starting to get better but he will have to take it very easy for several more days, even once he can climb on and off the boat. We are supposed to haul-out for a bottom clean and review of the bottom-paint early next week but, if necessary, we may have to postpone that. And so we return to changing plans and the somewhat unpredictable life on board a boat...