Birthdays and travel

Both Kermit and I have birthdays in February, mine at the beginning of the month and Kermit at the end.

NOTE: We have a ton of pictures but they won't load right now. I will load them when I can. In the meantime, no sense holding up the posts.

For my birthday we went to a movie in Stuart then to dinner in Conky Joes along the ICW in Jensen Beach. It was a wonderful day!

Conky Joe’s is one of those old time fish shacks all over the Florida coast. At least the east coast. Marissa and I found one in Melbourne when she visited. This one is built right over the water with a bar in front and the restaurant with isinglass windows in the back on the water. There are docks that extend out into the ICW in case we want to stop in, although I think Good Karma will dwarf those docks.

We spent Kermit’s birthday in West Palm Beach at North Port Marina, our last stop prior to crossing to the Bahamas. We had a celebratory dinner with our travel companions that we talk about in the blog about crossing to the Bahamas. It was a nice quiet day of boating to celebrate!

The Dolphin in Jensen Beach

One day in February we called Bunny and Evan to go for a boat ride to test the auto pilot. Unfortunately that trip revealed that the problem still existed. Ivan the Auto Pilot was still fussy, wandering all over.

So we steered ourselves and traveled south down the ICW which is the Indian River down here to Jensen Beach, just past Conky Joe’s to Dolphin, Frances Langford’s resort and restaurant. You can see the blue and white stripes of this restaurant from a long ways away.

Frances Langford was a singer and actress from the 40s. If you didn’t know who she was before you visited the restaurant, you sure did afterwards. This is a log cabin type place, pretty rustic with a huge fireplace. You smelled the smoke when you walked in, like walking into a smokehouse. But that is part of the charm. The food was good.

After lunch we walked through the restaurant to read the posters and notes posted all over the entry way. Actually we are familiar with Frances Langford from other ways. Before she died in the early 2000s, we would see her yacht, Chanticleer, anchored in Put-in-Bay as she traveled north to the North Channel at the top of Lake Huron.

Frances Langford was married to the fellow who founded a famous boat engine. She had the place in Jensen Beach and he had a place in the North Channel at Baie Fin. We visited Bay Fin in 2014 and anchored outside of her home in the bay. That was a rustic log type place too.

The Dolphin had the main lodge and a bunch of “cabins” placed around the property. Plenty of celebrities visited The Dolphin. They say that Jackie Gleeson requested Cabin #1 for his frequent visits because it was closest to the bar!

Paul and Maeo Bates visit

In late January Paul and Maeo Bates visited from their snowbird hangout in Sebring FL. We visited the Stuart Boat Show with the Bates and the Pankeys. We met up with Dick and Dee from Sareanna and Darrel and Lisa from Why Knot. This is a really big boat show. 

We found a beautiful boat that Kermit pursued a little. It was about 60 feet and 18 feet wide, custom designed for a shipping family in Florida. The boat was flagged for Bahamas and the US. It was definitely a live about with a big salon and a custom kitchen. It had two berths, a V berth forward and a huge aft cabin aft with two heads, one with a toilet and sink and another across the cabin with a full shower and sink. The aft cabin had a closet that extended at least 8 feet across the center of the room. There was a beautiful window and an access door across the back so you could slip out onto the back deck. 

But that wasn't the only back deck. There was a sitting deck on the salon level big enough to comfortably accomodate a party of about 20 with seating for at least 10 and a real Jenn-Air grill built in. It had all sorts of cool features like blue lava countertops in the heads and kitchen. This stuff is found in France at about $300 per square foot!! Each sink is different because the lava is different shades of Caribean blue. Cabinets were built in with enough storage in the kitchen area to fit my entire Ohio kitchen. No more convection microwave for me!! 

I bet we were on that boat for at least 30 minutes. Kermit talked to the salesman at least 3 or 4 times in the following weeks. Now THAT is a live aboard. Best part, comparable boats were only priced a little more than Good Karma because it was from the early 1990s. Very tempting. In the end we decided to come back to the real world and stay with the boat that Kermit has worked so hard to customize to our needs. But every time that auto pilot gives out we say, "Wow, we could be on that boat with the blue lava countertops!"

Paul and Maeo came back to visit one day later in the January and we took them out to the jetty. Kermit wanted to show Paul that Fort Pierce is a wonderful alternative for wintering. 

It was another windy day but we saw lots of birds, a couple prepping their catch to the delight of the pelicans. 

We watched the tide come in and out. It was nice being with old friends. 

·       Bob and Judy Babik – North Port FL 

In late January / early February we decided to visit friends on the West Coast of Florida. Everything was going fine with plans in place when we had a sudden change in plans due to weather. Boy, that weather really impacts a lot of things. Anyway, we had to change our plans and missed a few folks, particularly the folks from Trinity UCC. We will try to circle back in April if they are still in Florida but like most snowbirds they are probably gone already. 

We headed out directly west from Fort Pierce on US 70, pretty much a two lane road passing an orange truck. I didn't really understand what is between the west coast and the east coasts of Florida. Well, it is scrub, oranges, and a lot of cowboys. We saw signs for bears. No bears but we saw their crossing signs. They had to be there somewhere!

We stopped for lunch in Arcadia at A's Giant Sandwich Shop because it seemed local and got good reviews on Yelp. This was a diner, probably smaller than a diner but the sandwiches were wonderful. The place was filled with locals (ok maybe 6 or 7 people) who drove huge pickup trucks with real bales of hay in the back and said stuff like, "Hey Joe" and "yup" and "yes ma'am". Evidently this is a town with a lot of money, lots of crackers, and lots of agriculture. It was a taste of a completely different world!

First stop was to visit Bob and Judy Babik, old boating friends from Canton. We haven't talked to them in years. But the minute we walked in the door it was like being home again. We talked and talked and talked. They made a wonderful steak dinner and we talked some more. Then we went to bed and talked some more over breakfast. It was wonderful catching up. We will never let that much time lapse again!! Thank you for your hospitality!!

·        Next stop was brunch with gold loopers in Fort Myers, right across the street from Laura and Ross's house. We saw Patsy Conrad and Joyce and Bob from Carried away and met three other couples. We were the junior loopers in the group so we just listened a lot to these experienced boaters. I think we might try the loop again. Evidently there is more to see than we saw. 

Next stop, Fort Myers Beach to have drinks with Skip and Eileen from Mentor Harbor Yacht Club. We see these folks a lot in Put-in-Bay where we often run into them at Miller's and at the Pat Dailey Show. We had dinner at a really cool beach front place around the corner from their condo that they didn't even know was there! It was another one of those beach shacks right on the water with ambiance and style and great drinks. 

Then it was back to Fort Pierce for the evening. 

·         Eileen and Skip – Ft. Myers Beach