Details of pictures in February

First picture is at Dockside Bar & Grill right in the harbor where we go on Saturday nights and eat prime rib which is delicious!
Next, girls dancing to the Jimmy Buffet music at Dockside- Ondra, Susan Perry, and Susan Cole
Our friends from New Bern, NC Dennis & Suzi Lawrence on boat, Thate Wata who are moored close to our boat
with their boat guest
Dean and Susan Perry and their friends also at Dockside. We have known the Perrys since our first trip south. They are from Buffalo, NY.
The band was great! They played lots of Jimmy Buffet, Beatles, and Eagles songs.
We enjoyed having Ed Dooley and Connie visit us here in Marathon this week. They were not staying on our boat, but at the Black Fin motel but we saw them daily and enjoyed having them with us on our boat and appreciated them taking us to the grocery and other places we needed to go while they were here. They are from Washington, DC and have their sailboat. Surprise, in Brunswich, GA.
This was a beautiful sunset in Key West at Mallory Square while we were there with our friends Dave and Margaret. We also saw lots of roosters crossing the streets and sidewalks everywhere.
This is a picture of Dave and Margaret from our docks in Jordan Creek, NC. They were with us on our boat last week for several days. We also enjoyed having them on our boat and the trip we had with them to Key West.
One night, we went over to the boat, Autumn Bourne, Susan & Dean Perry's boat and enjoyed hearing Dean play his guitar and singing along with he and Susan and four other couples from here in the mooring field.
Every Sunday morning, many of us walk over to the American Legion for a wonderful breakfast. They have a large variety of things to choose from. Dennis and Suzi Lawrence were sitting at our table when I took this picture of them.
Another afternoon, several of us went our to Sombrero Beach where we got to hear Dean playing his guitar and again, we all joined in singing to his music. They also cooked dinner on the beach that night.
Bob and Susan Dawson were the first guest we had on Last Boat this season. We had a great time also when they stayed with us on the boat. While they were here, they drove us over to Geiger Key where we met other friends, Bud Sealing and Brenda for a delicious meal on the water front restaurant. We then went to Buds boat at Boca Chica and had a nice visit.
We see a beautiful sunset on our boat almost everyday here in the harbor. When the sun sets, Ondra blows a conch with many other boat owners. It is really neat to hear all the conchs blowing after sunset.
On February 11, Nelson and Ondra celebrated their 46 year anniversary. What a great day! Bob and Sue Dawson came to visit us and brought us a beautiful flower arrangement with six beautiful red roses and six star gazer lilies.
They were pretty for over a week. Thanks, Bob and Sue. That night, we had seven other couples who we know here in the harbor join us at Dockside to help us celebrate. The band announced our anniversary and say a song for us. You can see the table with our friends that night at Dockside. It was a great night!
See the beautiful flowers that we got for our anniversary!
Bob and Susan Dawson were our first guest this year and they are also the couple who we traveled with back to NC last year. This month has been a fun and busy month here in Boot Key Harbor for the Gaineys. Life is good!

February - Last Boat on the mooring at Boot Key, Marathon

Dockside - dining & dancing

band playing Jimmy Buffet music

Pictures from Last Boat

Joe & Bunny from Kansas Cty, Mo on Motor Home at Ft. Myers

Robert & Susan Cole, Kansas Cty, MO on sailboat, SuzyQ

same but with their dog Abby who loved to ride in the dinghy

the most beautiful rainbow I ever saw on the water

Cruise ship in Ft Lauderdale

beautiful night on the water

AICW cruiser

the largest and most expensive sailboat we ever saw

one of 20 double bascule bridges we past under and waited for one day going from Lake Worth to Ft Lauderdale

wow, a beautiful lighthouse near Lake Worth

We are on a Mooring!!!!

We got our call on Tuesday, January 30 that we could connect to mooring ball number U-2. We were so excited! Our friend, Robert, on SuzyQ came over and helped us getr up both anchors and rode with us over to our mooring as the winds were still blowing like crazy. We were glad to have his helpand made it there safely without any problems. We went to the beach later that afternoon. Even though the winds continue to blow, we are still having great sunny weather. On Wednesday, our two other boat friends got moorings also. We went over to help Robert since he was nice to help us the day before. We had all planned to go to the Fisheries Fish Market for dinner when we all were on moorings to celebrate being off the anchorage. What a delicious seafood dinner. Nelson had stone crab claws and I had Mahi finger basket. Both were excellent! After getting back to the marina, Nelson and I decided it was a good time to do laundry. So, we came back to the boat and gathered three pillow cases to do. We had three machines going and finally finished and were back on the boat by 10:30. Glad to have that chore done. Thursday, we went to the beach with three other couples and two dogs. One of the dogs, a white lab named, Sidney, was chasing and swimming her toy through the water and fell in the water and cut a place on her cheek and also hurt her back leg. They are taking her to the vet Mon. to make sure she did not damage any bones. She loves to swim in the water and Abby, the boykin spaniel has learned to swim and fetch this week also. Nelson and I have enjoyed watching them both. Life is good here in Boot Key as we do something fun everyday and continue to meet new friends daily who enjoy being here as we do and also like being on the water on a boat of some kind. There are more than three hundred boats here either moored or anchored. Today, we had friends over for a good ole Smith's country sausage breakfast. Later, we went to a restaurant to celebrate Captain Jack's 90th birthday who has lived here in the harbor for over 30 years on his 29 ft. sailboat. He really doesn't look that old.We met him the first time we were here four years ago. After lunch, we walked to Publix and bought groceries as we were out of several items. We and another couple paid for a cab back to the Marina so we did not have to drag all the grocies back as it is a good mile or more there and we had walked enough for the day. Nelson and I stayed on our boat tonight and enjoyed doing nothing but being lazy. In fact, he is outside on the deck sound asleep now. Should I wake him up, or just let him sleep outside tonight???? Hope to start downloading some pictures tomorrow. Take care and let us hear from you!

Last Boat Journey to Marathon, FL

LAST BOAT and SUZYQ departed Cape Coral
on Wednesday, January 18th and motored (wind on our nose) down to
Ft. Myers Beach and took a mooring ball around 3:30pm. After we put our outboard motor on our
dinghy, we found that our motor had a fouled carbuter and had to take it to the
Salty Sams Marina for a repair. I was very
pleased that they were able to fix it within 24 hours. Not having a running dingy is a major problem
when you are cruising. This is when
having a buddy boat like SUZYQ really pays off.
Robert and Susan joined us for a grilled salmon/tuna dinner this first
night. Ft. Myers Beach is a neat place
to visit, the beach has white powered sand and there are shops, restaurants,
and bar/grills along this beach. Robert
and Susan introduced us to their friends from their home state MO (Joe and
Bunny). They are land cruising on their nice motor
home. The six of us went to the beach
every day for the four days we were there.
We also had dinner toghther two of these nights. We stayed there longer than we had planned,
but we had a very enjoyable time.

On Monday, January 23rd we
departed and arrived in Marco Island about 3:45 and anchored in Factury Bay
. This was a great trip, we were able to
actually sail with no engine for most of this trip. We also fished with nothing to show for these
efforts. Ondra polished the stainless
steel stantions as we sailed along. We
had a delicious steak dinner with Robert and Susan on SUZYQ that evening. The
weather has continued to be great (80 degrees).

On Tuesday, January 24th we
departed Marco Island and motor sailed down (light winds)to Indian Key,
anchoring about 2:30. We enjoyed seeing
the many dolphins swimming around our boats.
Robert and Susan joined us for a grilled fish dinner. Our plan was to travel up the river to
Everglade City on Wednesday, but the weather forcast caused us to change our
plan.

On Wednesday, January 25th we
departed Indian Key and motor sailed (winds on our nose) down to the Little
Shark River, anchoring about 5:00. We
joined Robert and Susan for Hamburgers that evening.

On Thursday, January 26th we
departed the Little Shark River at 6:30am due to the low tide and motor sailed
(high winds on our nose and rain showers) down the Gulf to Boot Key Harbor,
Marathon, FL. There were crab/lobster
pot markers everywhere so we had to be very vigilant all day long. SUZYQ hooked one on it’s prop, thank goodness
their motor was off at this time. Robert
had to jump into the water with his mask and free the line for the buoy. As we left Little Shark River, another
sailboat named ZEPHER traveled along with us.
The winds really began to build the closer we got to Marathon. When we passed under the Seven-Mile Bridge (the
last leg to enter Boot Key), the wind clocked up to 29 mph (rocking and
rolling). We arrived in Boot Key around
4:00 to find all 240 mooring balls were occupied and we would have to anchor and report to the marina to sign up
for the waiting list (we were number 13).
After anchoring, Robert and Susan joined us for a spagetti dinner.

On Friday, January 27th we had
a nice breakfast and listened to the morning radio NET for the harbor. Later we were visited by our friends (Dean
and Susan Perry of AUTUMN BORN) and discussed all the happenings since our last
visit last year. They had their yellow lab,
Sidney, with them. Sidney wanted to swim
and she swam around and around Deans dinghy while they visited. After lunch, we took our dinghy over to
Sombrero Beach for a little sunning. We
joined Den and Susan, Robery and Susan, John and Carrie for dinner at the
Dockside Bar/grill for a nice dinner.
They had a live band that was very good.
We are still waiting for a mooring ball…..

On Saturday, January 28th we
had a nice breakfast and listened to morning radio NET for the harbor. Nelson took the dinghy into the marina to drop off the garbage and pick up 10
gal of water. When you are anchored or
moored, you have to do these chores daily.
When he returned, he ran the gen-set to charge the battery and provide
power for the vaccum cleaner for Ondra to clean the boat. These chores still have to be done…. After lunch we dinghied over to the beach
with Robert and Susan (and dog Abby). Abby
is a nine month old boykin spainiel. She
was introduced to fetching a toy out in the water. We and other onlookers were all cheering for her
as she accomplished this. We are enjoying our time here thus far. Till waiting on a mooring ball………..

Return to Last Boat Jan.12, 2012

We departed Rocky Mount on Thursday, Jan. 5th headed for Morehead City, NC to say our goodbyes to Will, Stacey, and Jackson . We had a good overnight visit with them and headed the following day to Wilmington, NC to do the same to Justin, Lindsey, and Mya. It is difficult to leave them knowing it will be April before we see them again. We had a great visit with both our sons and their wonderful families. On Monday morning, we headed over to Hamlet to see our parents. They are doing great thus far and we pray and hope that they will continue to have good health while we are away. My Dad, has been short of breath and had to have fluid taken from his right lung after we left on Tuesday but is now doing much better. We left hamlet on Tuesday and drove to Jacksonville, FL where we visited Nelson's sister, Loretta and her husband, Mac. until Thursday, Jan. 12th. We drove on down to Cape Coral, FL, which is Nelson's brother, Ike and his wife, Babs house and where we left our boat docked during our holiday home visits. Nelson was like a little boy as he was so excited to see his boat again. We stayed at their house for several days and Nelson completed several projects while we were there. Ondra's job was to prevision the groceries that were needed for our continued trip south. On Sunday, Ike carried Nelson to Punta Gorda where he got on the sailboat, Suzy-Q, our friends, Robert and Susan Cole, who traveled from Wilmington, NC to Titusville, FL on our way south in November. He rode with them back to Ike's house and his neighbors let them tie upto their dock until we departed on Wednesday, January 18th for Ft Myers Beach. It only took us 3 hours to get here. We love it here and stayed much longer than we intended because of the wonderful 80 degree weather and their beautiful beaches. The sand on the beach is snow white and feels like baby powder. We have stayed on the beach for the last three days. Yes, we are getting a great tan. We are departing here tomorrow, Jan. 24 and are going south to the Keys. It will take us at least three days to get there, but as we say, we are retired and it does not matter when we get there. We might find another place we might want to visit. It is great to be back on the boat and on the gulf waters. Hope you are doing well and you are enjoying life as we are at this time.

Last Boat's final trip until the New Year

We were awake by 6:00 Saturday morning so we started getting the boat ready for our trip over to Marco Island. As Nelson was checking the oil, he noticed that all our engine coolant had leaked out and was in the bottom tray under the engine compartment. We begin checking and found that the hose to the radiator had rotted and had come off the engine. So, Nelson quickly repaired this problem and we pulled the anchor in Little Shark River around 6:45 with very little water depth and slowly moved out into the gulf for our day to Marco Island. Yea! We did find enough water and did not run agound. It was a much better day on the water as the winds were only blowing 10 knots most all the day until late afternoon. We had to go way out into the gulf because of shallow water so it took us longer to get into Marco than we expected. We did arrive around 3:00 and anchored at the Factory anchorage. It was a pleasant place to anchor and there were two other boats anchored there also. We had drinks and a snack, later had dinner, and watched two movies before going to bed.
Sunday, November 27, we pulled our anchor for the last time in a while and headed out into the gulf for Cape Coral, where we plan to leave the boat when we go home for Christmas. What a wonderful day on the water! The weather was perfect! I actually lay in the sun for two hours while we motor sailed most of the trip. We made it there in less time than we had expected. We were tied up to Nelson’s brother, Ike’s dock by 2:30. We are so thankful for the wonderful trip we have had coming south. We hope to be back in NC by the first of next week. Ike is letting us drive his car back home for Christmas. He and Babs are so kind to let us leave our boat at their house and then use their car to drive home. Plus, they are feeding us so well while we are here and we also are doing our laundry. Better than Marina life! Thank you, Ike and Babs! We are looking forward to seeing our friends and family when we get home.