Hanging out in Oleta River Park

Saturday January 7 thru Wednesday January 11, 2017

The last 5 days have been idyllic.  Aside from our semi-daily trek to the marina across the ICW for a pumpout, we've been hanging out here "on the hook" having a good time.  The time of the next possible weather window has pushed off till next weekend or later, so a number of sailboats have been anchoring here to wait it out.  We've gotten to know Most of them, and have sundowners and snacks aboard a different boat almost every evening.

On Monday morning, Bill arrived, with our packages of "stuff" and his own bag.  We met him at the marina and transferred everything aboard.  We will be many days finding places to stow the gear, and work on the several projects that he brought the pieces for! (outboard crane, GPS antenna, new stern light).

While we were at the marina, Joanie went "fishing" and got us dinner. ;)  She found one of the fishing boat owners cleaning his catch, and purchased our dinner.  There's truly nothing like the taste of fresh caught fish!

Fresh Caught Spanish Mackerel

Fillets Ready to Cook. 

Hungry Pelicans, Waiting for the scraps!

We had it for dinner that evening. It was delicious!


Later on Monday, Joan and I went into town with Marilyn from s/v Whisper for a quick grocery shopping trip, and to get to know the lay of the land.  We went ashore at the campus of Florida International University (FIU), whose Biscane campus is adjacent to the anchorage.  Several pieces of unique stainless steel art structures adorn the lawns.

Strange Quadruple-Helix DNA?

Giant Whalebone Ribs?

Our trip turned into a regular adventure.  We started out by taking the free bus to a stop that was next to Costco and Publix.  Our "quick" little grocery shopping turned into two giant dry-sack backpacks and a freezer bag full of food!  Then the fun began.  After waiting in front of Publix for an hour and a quarter for the free bus, that was supposed to run every hour,  we gave up and hauled our loot to the main road to wait for the municipal bus.  A quick call to the dispatcher told us that the next bus would be in 10 minutes.

And, sure enough, ten minutes later, the bus appeared.  I put out my arm to be sure the driver knew we were waiting for him and ... he drove right by!

By this time, we weren't sure whether to laugh or cry!  Marilyn said "Enough of this" and got out her phone to summon an Uber ride back.  She fired up the app, and after a delay it announced "Uber Network Down.  Try Again Later."!!  By this time, we were laughing (what else could we do)!

Suddenly, Marilyn said "Look, there's the free bus going in front of Publix!"  There was no way we could scramble back to it in time.  But it had to pass right by us on its way out.  Marilyn said "I'll get it to stop if I have to stand in front of it!"

We did manage to flag him down and finally got our ride back.  What a day!

Tuesday was much more laid back.  We sorted and stored stuff because there was occasional brief bursts of light rain all day long.  One time I poked up my head and had to call everybody up.  There was a horizon-to-horizon rainbow directly in front of us!

Horizon-to-Horizon Double Rainbow

Wednesday, we were back at the same marina and scored four fillets of Arctic Tuna. Life is good.