Our Wander Years

Houseboating – Days 1 and 2

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Sparky

The Endevour

The jon boat

We have left our RV for a week to travel the St Johns River in a 54-foot houseboat. We are doing this because (1) we have talked about houseboating for a while and this was an opportunity to try it, (2) we had a timeshare week banked with RCI that was about to expire and we could exchange it for this houseboat week (though at a price), (3) it coincided with my birthday and (4) we are certifiably insane. So I, a lifelong landlubber with almost no boating experience, am now captain of a 54-foot vessel, the “Endevour”, towing a 14-foot “jon boat” with an outboard motor.

I will mention the bad stuff first, then get to the fun part.

It is expensive. Even after trading in our vacation week we had to plop down an additional $1100 to rent the houseboat for a week. That is $900 for training and whatnot, $100 for insurance and $100 for dogs. Actually dog, singular, because we could only bring Rusty; we had to board Grace (another $500 for a prime home). The jon boat was an additional $260. After fuel and incidentals this will run us over $2,000. Not cheap, but we had to see what it was like.
Leaving Grace behind was difficult. The necessity to do so arose from a weight limit of 35 pounds for dogs on board. I can understand why: getting dogs on and off the boat can be difficult once off the pier. It just isn’t a real family vacation without our “grand old lady”.
The nearly 4 hour drive was boring, for the first 3 hours. Then we hit the Saturday traffic at Disney World in Orlando and it became annoying.
I left one bag of groceries in the car on Friday night after Jett when shopping for the trip. She discovered the bag, fortunately, before we left. But as it was a bag of meat it was a total loss and the 4 hour trip became much longer because it was filled with Jett’s how-could-you-do-that’s.

Now the good stuff from Saturday, when we got there, had dinner out and slept on the boat, and Sunday, our first day on the river.

My $1 Shady Oak mug of beer

We had a very nice meal at a local restaurant right on the St Johns River, the Shady Oak. I had fried ponga, whatever that is (some kind of fish) and Jett had fried green tomatoes and fried cod bites. The tomatoes were mediocre but the rest was very good and the draft Rolling Rock was $1 for a mug. The local “flavor” was… interesting. We were surrounded by elderly bikers.
The houseboat is quite comfortable. It has two real bedrooms, a bath, a kitchen and a living room with a futon. It is much like living in our RV, except for the marine head, which is a bit more complicated than our simple RV toilet. But it works and has unlimited capacity. The water and the fuel are limited, of course, but generous enough to not be a concern for a week.
It is a rush to be called “Captain”. A half-hour into our cruise we had to call a drawbridge operator to request that the bridge be opened. That was a first for me – to have a drawbridge open at my request – and to be called “Captain” on the radio, for all the world to hear, was pretty cool.
I think I am a natural when it comes to boats. My first attempt at docking went smooth as silk. The instructor said it was the best first attempt he had seen in weeks. Maybe I missed my calling in the Navy.
The wildlife along the river on Sunday was very interesting. Lots and lots of cranes, egrets, hawks and vultures (who did not look at us like we were their next meal). Turtles and some alligators. I am sure we will see manatees soon.
There is something pretty cool about pointing the houseboat straight ahead, checking for traffic (very little), the leaving the captain’s chair to go get a snack. At 5 mph danger doesn’t approach very quickly.
We found a great place to put in for the night. Our own private island.

After my training (which took about an hour) Sunday morning, we were off. Only to return 15 minutes later because we had forgotten to hook up the jon boat. So I got a second chance to dock (also successful, though not quite as smooth). Then the drawbridge, followed soon thereafter by some practice tying up to trees on shore. That was a little awkward, but I accomplished it. We stayed tied to an overhanging branch for about 45 minutes while we had lunch.

The galley

Tied to a branch

Our sundeck, with branches

We had two little adventures along the way. First, one of our onboard CO detectors went off about an hour into the trip, for no apparent reason. I had to call the marina on the ship-to-shore radio to get advice from the engineer. Rebooting it seems to have solved the problem, after I did it several times and then tightened the internal electrical connection.

Second, I just about ran aground once. I was cruising along on the right side of the channel in typical 12-to-17 foot depths when suddenly the clearance dropped to 5 feet, then 4, then 3. The houseboat requires 3 feet of water, so I had a moment of panic. But before I could do anything (it doesn’t exactly stop on a dime), the depth jumped back up to 8 feet. I was concerned that perhaps the sand bar (or whatever it was) might have caught the propeller ($22 per blade), but later inspection showed no damage.

Docking at the little island near Astor was a bit nerve-wracking. We did it very slowly, checking the depth constantly, but had no problem getting the nose touching the little beach. I swung the stern in, tied the boat bow and stern and hopped off to explore, with Rusty’s eager assistance. It didn’t take long because the island was perhaps 100 feet across and 200 feet wide. But beautiful. I felt like Robinson Crusoe. There was evidence of previous camping on the island – a campfire site and a pole that was clearly used to make a lean-to. This was confirmed when we were visited by the local river police that evening who saw us docked there and just wanted to make sure that a squatter that he had run off recently had not returned.

Our first island docking position

The generator shut itself down shortly after we arrived. I figured it was due to our starboard-side docking position, where the stern was sitting in weeds, possibly clogging the intake for the generator’s cooling water. I was going to back out and come back in for a bow docking, but Jett convinced me that I could just manually reposition the boat. So I untied it, pushed the stern out, then used the bow rope to pull it over to where we wanted it. It worked! Pushing a 54-foot boat around made me feel like Hercules.

We had a nice meal (cooked inside because it was very chilly), watched TV and played cards. We shut off the generator and retired to bed at midnight. With the generator off our environment became very dark. And very quiet. Eerie.

But we slept well.

More about our private island tomorrow.

Categories: Adventures, FL, Places | 1 Comment

Good thing it ain’t Massachusetts

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Sparky

The swollen Potash Creek

Last winter in Massachusetts we got buried under 100-plus inches of snow. This winter, in Florida, we have gotten over 14 inches of rain – in December alone. If we got this precipitation in Massachusetts we would have over 140 inches of snow. That would be worse. But the rain is bad enough.

I haven’t golfed in over 3 weeks, my Thursday softball game got rained out and the stream in the RV park is just about to overflow its banks.

We are going to spend next week on a houseboat. Hopefully we won’t get swept out to sea on the raging waters. But at least I won’t have to worry about pulling the boat out of the weeds – and getting eaten by leaches – like Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen.

Categories: RV Living | 2 Comments

Kiss my ring

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Sparky

My search for my ancestors continues. I researched my maternal grandfather’s Murray lineage back to 17th century Scotland, but got stuck on trying to figure out just which William Murray was my great-great-whatever grandfather. Scotland in the 17th century was filthy with Murrays. You couldn’t swing a caber back then without hitting one.

So I reported my results to my siblings and my sister forwarded the information to my Murray cousins. One of them recalled that her father had paid to have some genealogical research done some years ago and that she “thinks she has a book upstairs somewhere.”

Long story short: she found the book and it traced her ancestry (and mine) back to a brother of Robert the Bruce, King of the Scots, from 1306 to 1329, and son of Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale. And because he was the 6th Lord of Annandale, it was easy to trace back 5 more generations because they were all famous.

Better yet, the entire Bruce line were cousins of the Stuart line of royalty in England. Which makes me a very distant cousin to Henry I, James I and 4 other English monarchs.

When we next meet you may kiss my ring.

Categories: Genealogy | 1 Comment

Genealogy

Posted on January 16, 2016 by Sparky

I love a good mystery. I have been an avid reader of whodunits for most of my life. I cut my teeth on The Hardy Boys. Arguably my best Christmas present ever was a set of 40-plus used Hardy Boys books when I was 10.

All of which goes to explain why I like genealogy. The search for one’s roots is a very personal kind of mystery story, as the Ancestry.com commercials are quick to note. Everyone has a story and that story is, at some point, a mystery. While some branches may be easy to trace (e.g., Jett’s paternal lineage can be traced back 17 generations, to medieval England), others – like my paternal grandmother – are surprisingly difficult. I have gotten almost nowhere on figuring out her lineage. I am suspecting that her parents were German immigrants who anglicized their name, but that is just a guess right now.

I am fascinated by the information that is available when one looks for it. For example, there are (nearly) complete passenger lists for all ships that arrived in New England prior to 1700! There is a website (finagrave.com) that not only helps locate graves of ancestors, but in many cases provides a photo of the headstone. Who has time to wander cemeteries, snapping pictures of all headstones?

As I track down my personal history – and Jett’s – I am learning a lot about early American history as well. I was under the impression, for example, that the passengers on the Mayflower were the first Europeans to set foot in what is now Massachusetts. Not so. In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold, in his ship Concord, landed on (and named) both Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. The passengers intended to establish a colony and built a camp on Martha’s Vineyard, but decided that they lacked sufficient food to last the winter and decided to return to England. But, still, the fact that European settlers were in Massachusetts some 18 years before the Pilgrims was a complete surprise to me.

And I have learned this all in a week, so I expect that many more revelations will follow. It should be an interesting way to spend some time in my retirement.

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Close shave

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Sparky

Last Saturday night Jett and I were playing cards (Hand, Knee and Foot, of course) with neighbors. Showers were expected, but it was a nice evening and so we were playing outdoors, on the picnic table, under the RV awning in case of rain. Just before 7pm we all received weather alerts on our cell phones warning of a possible tornado. But we have been through this drill before and knew that if it was serious then 1) the campground would send someone through with a bullhorn advising us to take cover (in the bath house or laundry – the only rigid structures around) and 2) there would be urgent advisories on TV. I turned on the TV and, yes, the local stations were having special weather coverage but I noted that the warning was to expire in about 15 minutes and no reports of an actual tornado sighting had been received. There was also an observation that the “storm was weakening.” And it wasn’t very windy and the rain was light. So I wasn’t unduly concerned.

We continued to play cards.

The rain did soon become quite heavy, but that is pretty common here. We did finally move into the RV and watched the TV for another 15 minutes before deciding to give up the game. The rain lasted another 30 minutes.

The next morning I awoke to news of an F2 tornado in Cape Coral the night before. While we were blithely playing cards, a twister was steamrolling nearly 200 homes just 15 miles to the southwest of us. As more information arrived it became apparent that not only was a real tornado on the ground at 7pm the night before, as we played cards, but that its path would have taken it directly over us, had it stayed on the ground.

The last time we had a tornado warning our strategy was to pile the dogs into the truck and take to the roads, figuring that we could outrun any funnel cloud that we sighted. That might be a decent defense in the daytime, but at 7pm, in a storm, I doubt that I could have spotted it coming at me. Heading to the bath house probably would have been the wisest move.

Continuing to play cards in that situation is not going to get me into Mensa.

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Hand, Knee and Foot

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Sparky

One of our favorite pastimes is playing cards and our current obsession is Hand, Knee and Foot. This is a variation on canasta which requires six decks and nimble hands capable of holding 20 cards or more. Like standard canasta, the hand initially consists of 15 cards and points are scored for canastas (7 of a kind), red threes and melded sets of 3 or more. Also, points are deducted for cards held at the end of the game. The discard pile may be picked up, with certain restrictions. All of this applies to Hand, Knee and Foot as well, but with additional hands (the Knee – a hand of 13 – and a Foot – a hand of 11). The Knee is played when the first canasta is reached and the Foot is played when all cards from the Hand and the Knee have been played. There are 5 required canastas, each with different values:

7’s – 5,000 points
5’s – 3,000 points
wild cards (2’s and jokers) – 2,500 points
red (a pure canasta of any value other than 5 or 7) – 500 points
black (a canasta of any value other than 5 or 7, with 1 or 2 wild cards) – 300 points

All 5 canastas are required to finish the hand. The values of the canastas (required and bonus) are added at the end of the hand, along with 100 points for each accumulated red 3 and the point count of all played cards (5 points for 4 to 7, 10 points for 8 to K, 20 for ace and 2’s and 50 for jokers). As you might guess, the total point count for a hand is quite high – usually over 10,000 points. A game (consisting of 4 hands) usually has a winning point count of over 60,000. It is not unusual to have a difference of over 10,000 points.

Jett has been keeping a cumulative running score since January 1. She is currently ahead by over 80,000 points, due primarily to her uncanny ability to pick up 7’s. She has won 22 of the 32 hands we have played so far. I have accumulated the required set of 7 7’s in less than half of those games.

As picking up 7’s should be a matter of pure luck, I am beginning to doubt the Laws of Probability.

Despite my frustrations, it is still a fun game to play. And a cheap way to keep Jett amused.

Categories: FL, Places, RV Living | 91 Comments

Christmas lights, Florida style

Posted on January 2, 2016 by Sparky

Cape Coral boat parade

Those one or two of you who have been reading this blog for over two years, you may remember that Jett and I celebrated our first Christmas in Florida by going on a boat tour of Christmas lights in Port Charlotte. Viewing lights on land from the water while dressed in shorts and T’s was a real treat. This year we reversed the process: we stayed on land (in Cape Coral) and watched the lights (on decorated boats) go by. Again, we were in shorts and T’s and again it was a real treat. But this time we were able to include the dogs in the fun.

The pups at Four Freedoms Park

This was this Cape Coral Boat Parade, an annual event in Cape Coral, Florida, held the last weekend before Christmas. The parade starts at the Bimini Basin and winds its way through the major canals of the city. We grabbed a spot on the beach at Four Freedoms Park at the starting point of the parade. We got there before dusk and got settled in with our hot dogs, funnel cakes (yum!) and root beers. It was a real family event with lots of kids and even a few dogs. Something for everyone. Even a visit from Santa. Music and a beautiful sunset, too. A nice way to spend a warm (80’s before sunset) evening before Christmas.

Jett and the dogs

Sunset on Bimini Basin

The start of the parade

Decorated boat

Green finish

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Spiny softshell turtle

Posted on December 27, 2015 by Sparky

We have grown accustomed to seeing gopher tortoises on our walks to/from the dog park here. There are at least two that frequently come out to bask in the sun and to dine on grass. But recently we encountered a spiny softshell turtle, a weird duck of a turtle with a pointed nose and a flat shell with upturned edges. Rusty, of course, was fascinated. Grace ignored it.

spiny softshell turtle

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Dizzy dog

Posted on December 12, 2015 by Sparky

Grace in misery

Grace just turned 15. She has, until recently, not acted her age. On a recent trip to the dog park she was romping with a 2-year-old German Shepherd. But last Thursday she approached me at 7:40am, sitting on the sofa with my computer on my lap and gave me a get-me-up-there look. So I lifted her onto the sofa to be with me. She immediately peed and then proceeded to vomit. Thick, disgusting, mucous-y vomit that was the worst I have ever seen. I dragged her off the sofa and out of the RV (I had to carry her down the steps). She continued to be violently ill as I walked her around the park. Worse, she acted like she was drunk. She even toppled over a couple of times.

Needless to say, I was deeply alarmed. I thought perhaps her heart was giving out. She was, without question, the sickest she had ever been. I thought she was dying. I found a nearby vet and took her there, thinking, on the way, that the odds of me returning with her were about 1 in 5; I was probably going to have to put her down.

But the vet looked into her eyes and quickly diagnosed her problem as vertigo. Yes, a simple bout of dizziness which, she said, was not uncommon in older dogs. She did some blood work to confirm that there was no deeper issue, give us some anti-nausea medicine and sent us home. Needless to say, I was relieved. Grace, not so much. She was completely miserable. The photo is of Grace, after returning to the RV, lying next to the chunk of hot dog that contained the pill. Of course she was nauseous and didn’t want to eat anything. including anti-nausea medicine.

I did eventually get her to down one pill in cheese. And the next day her appetite had returned to the point where she would eat chunks of chicken breast, if fed to her by hand, so I was able to get the rest of the pills into her that way. It is now 9 days later and her appetite has fully recovered. But she remains somewhat unsteady on her feet. I still carry her down the steps.

The vet says we need to be patient; it can take over two weeks to fully recover. I am relieved that it wasn’t more serious and am glad that she seems to be enjoying life again.

But she is 15 and this was notice that her time is coming.

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The residency adventure

Posted on November 28, 2015 by Sparky

I think I mentioned that Jett and I are becoming Florida residents. We have both been residents of MA for a LONG time – 48 years for me and Jett’s entire life. It is, like selling the house, another big life transition. We knew it would take some work – we need to establish a “permanent” Florida address, get FL driver licenses and insure all of our vehicles in FL. But we underestimated the task. It has been an adventure.

Getting the address was the easy part. The Escapees club provides mailing addresses in Texas, Florida and South Dakota that may be used to establish residency in those state. They have worked out all the legal issues and have the support of the cities and counties in those locales. And why not? As a “permanent” resident of Bushnell, Florida, we will inflate their population and bring a larger share of federal and state revenues to the city and county. And we won’t use any public resources. Seems like a pretty sweet deal for them.

But to establish residency we needed to provide 2 “proofs of address” – utility bills, tax bills, mortgage bills or similar (which, of course, we did not have) – that proves we really “live” at that address. Even though everyone is aware that we don’t really live there, we still need proof that it is a valid mailing address. Escapees provides a certificate which the county accepts as one proof. And, at the urging of Escapees, I had the Social Security Administration mail me a letter at that address, which we could use as a second proof.

So, with these documents in hand, we found our way to the Sumter County Tax Collector’s office on our Monday in Bushnell. In Florida, the county tax collector office doubles as a DMV office. Establishing residency, registering to vote and getting a Florida license is all done together. Very convenient.

As long as you can pass the driver vision test.

I had no problem, but Jett had left her glasses in the Yaris, which was still in Massachusetts. She failed the vision test miserably. And since we couldn’t get the vehicles registered without both of us having FL licenses, our big plan to get it all done in Bushnell was thwarted.

I did get all 3 vehicles – the truck, the car and the RV – insured that day. It was done very efficiently and conveniently online with Geico. I did have to call to work out the RV insurance details, but overall that went very smoothly. But because we couldn’t get the vehicles registered in Bushnell, we had to finish the STS with dual coverage. That was money that I didn’t enjoy spending.

Fast forward to Ft Myers. The Yaris arrived on Tuesday Nov 17 and on Wednesday we went down to the Lee county tax collector office to get Jett’s driver’s license. But she failed the eye test again (she has had poor eyesight since she had her cataract surgery two years ago – yes, cataract surgery is supposed to improve your eyesight but that was not the case for her). So we had to go to an optometrist on Thursday to get her eyesight certified as safe, then back to the DMV. She got her license.

Whew!

Back to the DMV on Thursday to register the vehicles. And was completely thwarted. I could not get ANY of the vehicles registered that day, for the following reasons:

The RV has a lien and in Florida it is the owner’s responsibility to get the title (held by the lienholder) to the DMV. I had to complete a form, provided by Florida, to the lienholder, requesting that the title be sent to the Florida DMV. I mailed the form, but the registration of the RV is on hold until Florida gets the title. Could be a couple of weeks.
The truck could not be registered because we drove the Yaris to the optometrist and DMV. The vehicle being registered must be present so that the VIN can be verified.
The Yaris could not be registered because it was still listed in the national database as having a lien. I had to call the original lienholder to clear the lien. This was complicated by the puzzling fact that it was also listed as being registered in BOTH Florida and Massachusetts. I am not sure how this happened and am amazed that this didn’t cause a problem before, but it had the strange effect of reducing the cost of getting the Florida plates: since it was already registered in Florida I would save the $85 “registration transfer” fee. I just had to get the lien cleared.

Getting the lien cleared was a nightmare. I called the lienholder, who insisted that the documents I had in hand (which included a very strange “non-negotiable” MA title which no one seemed to know much about) were sufficient to get the vehicle registered in Florida – a position which the DMV had already refuted. Then I called the MA RMV who could at least explain the title (it was a “courtesy” document which was provided because the lienholder had, they said, never responded to their request for the title). Another very painful call to the lienholder finally resulted in them promising to clear the lien in the state database.

I was able to register the truck on Monday this week. Now, on Friday, the lien on the Yaris has been cleared and I think it can be registered. The RV title has not yet arrived.

We will try to get the Yaris registered before Jett leaves (she is going back to MA for 10 days), but the RV registration will have to wait until she returns.

Barring further impediments, we will be full-fledged FL residents before the end of 2015.

It has been an adventure. And not a fun one.