You'd think we were Rip Van Winkle we "slept" so long!!

There's a long explanation as to why we haven't posted anything in two weeks, but I'll just say we know the Lee County Medical Community WAY too well at this point.  Dan ended up in the hospital for three days while several doctors puzzled over what was causing his pain and nausea.  Final answer, his health is just fine, all tests show this and that, but nothing to write home about or do anything about at this time, so we are MOVING FORWARD!!

Here we are at our "slip" at Snook Bight Marina.  We've made one trip in the two weeks we've been here....150 feet along the face dock to the spot now occupied by a small runabout.  We walked the boat up to the fuel pump on Wednesday this week.

With great support from both John and Brandi and Linda and Bill Shenko, we have been able to enjoy ourselves while Dan has been dealing with ??? we're not sure what. Last week Linda drove me to Lakeland (the halfway spot between Ft. Myers and St. Augustine) to meet Jay and Pegg to retrieve our car.  

 This weekend we are off on our first real adventure.  John and Brandi are with us aboard Brunelle while we join Linda and Bill (they have a Cal 29) headed for Boca Grande and other spots north of Ft. Myers Beach. 

  

 We left the marina at 1:00 pm to take advantage of high tide and headed north along Estero Island (the home of Ft. Myers Beach),  and passed through the Matanzas Bridge to find that Nao Victoria followed us from St. Augustine!  She is still on her good will tour of Florida.  We also motored past the canal where Linda and Bill keep their boat, tied right in front of their house.  They have the great rooftop deck with the white railing.

We continued on to the north end of the island and tied up at the Bowditch Park dock to wait for John and Brandi.  Linda and Bill arrived first with their boat, Rampage, and rafted with us to wait.  We have a full crew and were ready to shove off a little after 5 pm and headed out the San Marco Pass and followed Rampage  to our anchorage off Pine Island.  Here's the crew being joined by Rampage just as the moon rose.

We celebrated Valentine's Day with dinner aboard Brunelle, and then Rampage broke away to anchor nearby.  A beautiful calm and moonlit night...a far cry from the scene back in PA.  All we hear is SNOW, SNOW, SNOW and throw in a little ICE!    ~~~_/)~~~ M&D