July 1

I'm going to try and change the formatting of the log a little.  Thanks to those of you who gave me feedback on the usability of the site.  Starting this month, I will make a separate page each time I do an update.  That way, you don't have to scroll to the bottom of the month to see the new data.  We'll see how this works.

July 1st in Destin Harbor.  We had a nice relaxing day today.  Just hung out on the boat most of the morning.  I dinghied ashore and went to West Marine again, in search of a bolt for the dinghy motor.  The shift lever is attached to the motor with two bolts, and one of them is gone.  This makes it hard to get into reverse because the whole thing pivots on the remaining bolt.  At West Marine, I got what I thought was the correct bolt, stainless steel of course, and went back to the dinghy.  I tried to put it in, and while it seemed the right size, it wouldn't thread in.  It quickly occurred to me, that my Honda outboard would have metric threads, and of course I didn't get a metric bolt.  Back to West Marine I go, only to find they don't carry any metric stuff.  The manager there directed me to an Ace Hardware not too far away.  There I found an entire aisle - a very long aisle - of nothing but nuts and bolts.  After a little searching, I found the metric, stainless steel bolts.  Back to the dinghy and the repair was done in a minute.  I also added lock washers to both bolts this time, something the factory had neglected to do. 

I dinghied back to the boat and found Barb cleaning.  I don't know if I mentioned or not, but Barb quit smoking the day we left the dock.  She has done very well with this, only bumming one cigarette while we were in New Orleans.  What she does when she has the urge now, is clean something. This works out very well on a boat, since there is always something to clean. 

Before leaving for West Marine, I had noticed a plastic 12oz Sprite bottle bobbing in the water, bottom up.  At first we thought it was just trash, but then we noticed that it seemed to be moving around, unrelated to the current.  We watched as it went off into the distance, both scratching our heads.  Something had to be attached to this bottle.  Well, after I was back from fixing the dinghy, here came the bottle again.  I couldn't resist.  I had to know what was making this bottle go.  So, I hopped in the dinghy and took my wire cutters with me, assuming I was going to find some creature attached to the bottle.  As I slowly approached the bottle, it disappeared.  It popped back up a few feet from me on the other side of the dinghy.  I turned around and approached again, with similar results.  After the fifth or sixth try, I got the hang of it and came at it at speed, already hanging over the side of the dinghy ready to grab it.  I got it and there was about a 12 inch fish with a hook in it's mouth tied to the bottle with about a foot and a half of line.  Other than the hook in his mouth, he appeared healthy, so I took my wire cutters and cut him free.  I sure he was glad to be able to go deeper than he had been.  I have no idea if this was somebody's idea of fun to tie the fish to the bottle after they caught him, or if they fish this way and never came back to find their bottle or what.  But it certainly was an attention getter.

Early in the afternoon, we went ashore and picked up Barb's sister Diane.  We went to a nice Italian restaurant for a mid afternoon lunch/dinner.  Followed by a stop at a Marble Slab Creamery for ice cream, it was a nice afternoon.  As we were heading back to take Diane home, it looked like some afternoon thunderstorms were brewing.  Since we had to pass the anchorage anyway, we stopped and quickly dinghied out and closed all the open windows in case it rained.  We then returned to shore, took Diane home, and came back to the boat.  Of course, we never did see any rain, so we opened it all up again when we returned.

This evening was spent as were the previous couple.  Sitting in the cockpit enjoying a beverage or two, listening to the music from the clubs ashore, and watching the boat traffic of fishing boats returning, tour boats coming and going, and early fourth of July weekenders.  Two boats in particular have caught our attention.  One is a 38 foot sailboat which has about an 18 or 20 foot fishing boat tied to it instead of a dinghy.  This boat has two girls and three guys on it.  Two nights is a row, they partied ashore until 4:00am when the club closes, then came back to the boat and partied until dawn.  After dawn, they went below for awhile and then mid morning, the fishing boat went to shore with everybody in it.  The other boat that we noticed was a small cabin cruiser.  By small I mean maybe 28 feet.  It had a 15 foot Boston Whaler tied to it's side.  Both boats were registered in Tennessee.  I don't know if they had come all the way from TN by water, but it looked like they had.  They had a Honda generator on the foredeck to run air conditioning, and there were two couples on this little boat.  It looked like pretty tight quarters for four people to me, but they are probably living their dream.

July 2

Today we spent the morning being lazy on the boat.  My old friend Donna and a friend of hers are coming from Tallahassee to visit this afternoon.  They arrived about noon, and we met them ashore.  We went to a restaurant within walking distance and had a nice lunch and several adult beverages.  After a couple of hours, we decided that we would all go out to the boat.  So we loaded up in the dinghy and went out there.  Donna had seen the boat when I first got it, but was interested in all the things I have done to it in the last five years.  We sat and chatted for another hour or more out there.  We then took them back to shore and bid them farewell.  It was a nice visit. 

We then had to return the car to Diane.  She has been nice enough to let us keep it the entire time we've been here, which has been very handy.  We picked her up, came back to the boat and bid her farewell.  There were hugs and tears and all that stuff families do.  We went back to the boat for our last night anchored here.  Tomorrow we leave for Tampa.

GPS N 30-23.392 W 86-30.329  Miles made good today 0.