Time spent settling into life at the marina. Beautiful weather - not to hot – at least not compared to last May when we were putting the boat away.
Opened up the boat and set about tidying things up a little, designing and starting work on a shelf to hold our auxiliary batteries in one of the lockers.
Lots going on in and around the marina. We’re heading up to the US Thanksgiving and there’s free food and live entertainment every night outside on the patio which was (and still is for Xmas) decked out with lights.
Thursday 26th November
It’s Thanksgiving and Ira and Ann made the trip from West Palm Beach for the big meal with pot luck stuff plus free smoked turkey and hams – not for us alas – we brought some cold salmon to the feast.
Great live music with a jazz guitarist.
The food people brought was very good and we ended up pretty stuffed.
(photo copyright I. Russianoff)And Carol made a new friend.
Friday 27th NovemberA relaxed day with Carol and Ann playing cards while Ira and I went cycling around Indiantown. The free food was over so it was BBQ time for supper.
Saturday 28th November
An early start for me but not our guests.
We had breakfast in town at Crackers – THE breakfast place in Indiantown. We took a walk to the Seminole Inn which is a very nice hotel in a very poor town. Carol found another feathered friend.
Ira and Ann headed back to their place in West Palm to continue preparing to leave their place with a renter while they spend the winter in Sydney, Oz.Sunday 29th November
Carol must have eaten something she shouldn’t have at the Thanksgiving meal and is in pain. Since we know what this means (diverticulitis) it’s off to the hospital at night. So we packed up the RV for travel. We didn’t get too far because as soon as we got up to speed there was this horrible thumping coming from the rear passenger side. Inspection of the underneath revealed that the outer rear tire had blown out on its inside and the only thing stopping it from blowing completely was the fact that it was pushing against the inner tire. So we bumped our way back to the campsite and called for a taxi to take us to Stuart, 20 odd miles away.
$70 later, (for the taxi), Carol was being treated in a hospital. After 2-1/2 hours of tests and antibiotics the bill came to $3,000 but oddly enough it was reduced to $1,000 because we were ‘from out of country’ – go figure.
We got home before midnight – a long day.
Monday 30th November
We had had originally planned to drive the RV into Stuart for some shopping but the RV was going nowhere until we got a new tire and Carol wasn’t exactly feeling top notch. Fortunately Indiantown does have a tire store so we ordered a couple of new tires.
Tuesday 1st December
Up early and off to the tire store (very very slowly).
Afterwards we headed off for a day of shopping in Stuart. Groceries, epoxy resin, boat parts, all the things you can’t get in Indiantown.
Wednesday 2nd December to Thursday 12th December
A bleak time for Carol living on Jello and veggie bouillon for several days and no alcohol while the antibiotics do their work.
I spent my time doing odd boat projects and working on glassing in my battery shelf, punctuated by trips into Indiantown on my bicycle.
As we mentioned back in May, the bugs here are something to be reckoned with. From our constant battle with invading ants, flying cockroaches, mosquitoes, no-seeums (very very small mosquitoes - or at least they bite like them) and then less annoying things like this one which I thought was leaf on top of our BBQ.
