Maintenance

Yes that is me buried in the bowels of the boat

Not my major strength.   I blame my Dad.   His idea of fixing something broken was to hit it with a hammer.  Needless to say I, nor my brothers spent hours of our childhood tearing engines apart and rebuilding them.   Well that is too bad because that would be pretty helpful if you live on a boat.   Actually I let the professionals do that kind of work, but there are some other things that I can do.

These hoses I am removing are part of the raw water cooling system.  After 10 years these hoses are cracked and near the point of leaking.   Not good.   So out they come, and new ones go in place.  

I had the yard pull the boat out today so I could repaint parts of the bottom.  That took all morning.   It also let us drop the anchor down to the pavement so we could paint the anchor chain every 20 ft.  This is handy when we are anchoring.   It helps Shelley determine how much chain she has let out based on the depth of the water.  If I tell her we need 60 ft. of chain, well now she has her marks.  

Just another day of boat life.  Daddy would be proud.        Hmmmm   fun.

Okeechobee 2013

We have crossed this central Florida waterway four times now.  I never tire of the wildlife and scenery seen along the banks.  Some people see it as a ditch, but I really like   the variety of human and animal life that populate the shores of the channel and the lake. Here are some of my favorite sights.

Sunrise on the edge of the Lake

 I love to get up early and see the water world that I live in.  The halfway point across the Okeechobee is Moore Haven.  We stay at the city dock, which is just 200 yards from the lock that opens into the Lake.  The best views are just through this lock.

Looking for Breakfast

It is two days to cross from the Gulf to the Atlantic in Rock Chalk.   You have to keep a sharp eye.

Looking for Lunch

These markers help us navigate from point to point, but these guys are just waiting to go fishing again.    And the human fisherman below are lost in the grasslands that cover the edge of the open lake water.  

Looking for Fish lost in the grass.   They are actually on their bass boat.  

  After sitting in Ft. Myers for three weeks, it was nice to be moving.   Both Shelley and I like to be moving.  It is so hard to sit in the same place day after day.   We crossed to Stuart Florida on the east coast.   With the planning to take Rock Chalk north to Canada this summer, I needed to get some maintenance done on the engines.  The best place for that is Whitcar Boat Yard in Stuart.  This is the outfit that did the major service on the engines a 1000 hours ago.   It is always something on the boat.   But once this is done, we should be ready to go.    I'm ready.                

Ft. Myers (still)

Yes we are still here.   Can you believe it.   It is Super Bowl Sunday and we are enjoying the sunshine of south Florida.   I think this is some kind of record for being on Rock Chalk, but not moving.  

There is a whole culture on the docks.   This marina is full of people doing the Great Loop (Loopers) and winter snow birds on their boats.  The dock is humming with excitement today as we have all been invited up to the Tiki Hut on shore for a Super Bowl party this afternoon.   They have serveral big screen TV's ready to go for all to watch.  The bad part is that you cannot hear the commercials, but it is fun to meet all the boating crowd and just hang out.

But the need to move is quickly overtaking both of us.  (dahhh is anyone surprised here?)  We are ready to head south to the Keys and then get to Ft. Lauderdale by the end of February.  We have a friend there who lives on the water.   We have kept the boat at his dock before when we needed to fly back to Austin, and that is the plan again.   Caitlyn and Lukas will be in Austin on March 1 so we are heading home to see them.

You know the saying that long range plans for a boat are made in sand.  It is hard to plan past tomorrow.  But I am a planner so it is hard to just live day to day without my long range goal.   That goal is to get to Canada this summer.   I want to do one more trip to see all the places we missed the first time.  That 6000 mile journey starts in mid-March as we will start north up the east coast of Florida, as usual at the speed of a golf cart.

Ok so much for long range plans.   Now it is time to get ready for the Super Bowl party. Lets see, we have plenty of chips and beer.  The TV's are on with the 5 hour before kickoff coverage of everything about past Super Bowls.  I have reheard the past history of New Orleans again.   Yikes, let me out of here.   I need to go walk the docks.    See you, and stay tuned to see what is next for Rock Chalk.