May, 2018

May is a month of preparing for summer trip.  We did continue our morning and afternoon routine.  Dave rode his bike about 5 miles and Barb walked 3 miles each day (if it wasn’t raining).  We had to do this earlier in the morning due to rising temperatures (before 6:00 a.m.).  We swam each afternoon if weather permitted.  Barb finished a last quilt project – made placemats for the lanai.  Barb also finally finished a jigsaw puzzle started in April with Penny (a friend who was visiting).  Dave started to order items for the boat that we would need.  Amazon Prime is great!  We also made calls to various people about boat projects that Anchorage couldn’t complete with the boat out of the water.  We spent time each day either making lists, or working on lists of things to do in preparation for summer cruising.  We finished our dental work (both needing crowns) and hair appointments along with last of medical checkups.  We are good to go physically and mentally!  About May 10 we started packing and closing down the house – doing a little each day.  As the countdown continued (we would leave on May 27) the daily activities increased.  It seems we don’t want to live in a cave or have disorder until necessary.  Starting May 22, we were in closedown mode – shutters were being put up, and items below 3 feet were moved up on shelves (don’t want to worry like we did last year with Irma).  May 26 came quickly and we were watching Tropical Storm Alberto as it came into the gulf and headed north – it was off shore but we got a lot of rain.  We were able to finish the shutters, pack the car and drive to the condo on May 27 – not too much rain to contend with.  We continued driving north while Alberto continued to follow us all the way to Michigan.  We arrived on May 29 and went out to dinner with good friends – Patrick, Amy and Aspen Avery.  May 30 we went to see Hallelujah and found that she wasn’t ready for launch on May 31.  Anchorage Marine needed another day.   This may have been fortunate as we had a dash light indicating something was wrong with the brake system on the car.  So the car went in for repairs on May 31.  We had time to relax and rest.  The boat is to be launched on June 1.
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April, 2018

April seemed to slip away.  We have a regular routine that we follow which includes Barb walking 3 miles and Dave riding his bike about 7 miles early each morning.  Then we do computer work and or house maintenance items.  We end our day with swimming – the water has been great.  Barb continues to do quilting projects and is even experimenting with doing her own quilting.  We spent the month saying goodbye to many winter friends with invitations to visit them up north if we travel near them.  We also had dinner with DeFever friends as they came down to cruise on their 44DF.  We went up to the condo for spring maintenance only to find we needed a new A/C unit (not really unexpected as the current unit was installed in 1975).  So we made three trips up to St. Pete this month. We invited friends to use our dock – not a DeFever though.  Shell and Penny just bought a twin to their boat up north and they were heading west across Lake Okeechobee when the weather changed.  They had hoped to make it all the way north on the Gulf shore, but ended up with us for three days.  We had a great time – Penny likes jigsaw puzzles so we started a 2000 piece puzzle.  Not done yet.  We are thinking boat and starting to work on lists so we can leave in May (hopefully).  April had good weather except for the strong winds most of the month and a number of fronts that came through.

Barb's latest wall hanging.

Penshell, Mainship 38 that Shell and Penny bought in NC ad brought to FL