YachtAweigh: Settling back into marina life after Irma

Friday, October 20, 2017

Settling back into marina life after Irma

A reader emailed us the other day asking how we were since there hasn’t been a blog post since September. We certainly appreciate the checking in, but I told him quite frankly that we really haven’t been up to much. This blog tends to go quiet in the hot months of summer, from July-October down here since we usually don’t get off the dock. It’s much too hot to cruise anywhere so my blog posts tend to be more weather-related with the likes of tropical storms and hurricanes.

After getting Blue Turtle back into the water post-Irma and bringing her home to her slip at Salty Sam’s, it was time to get back into our work and school schedules. It took a few weeks for the grocery stores to become fully stocked again and even longer for the piles of tree branches and debris to finally be removed from the roads. The marina was very quiet with the restaurant being closed and not many folks renting boats or kayaks. Eventually, things started to get back to normal again and just in time for Pirate Fest.

Arrrrrgh!

Pirate Fest this year was originally cancelled because of Irma, but then later it was back on and after so many folks reached out to express their love of it. It was just what the town of Fort Myers Beach needed after the stress of the hurricane. This year, the only difference was that there was no on-water cannon battle because some of the participating boats had damage due to the storm. It was great fun as the three of us donned our pirate-y gear and climbed in the dinghy to attend the festivities.

Just a few pirates dighying to shore to pillage

A pirate and his feathery sidekick contemplate life at the pier

Crowds gather to watch the band

My parrot friend seems quite interested in my margarita

Corey gets up close with a real feathery friend

Outside of Pirate Fest, marina life was still quite interesting. We met the crew of Sailing Satori who was staying at Salty Sam’s for a while before heading south to Key West and beyond. Nick and Kelly were gracious enough to have us aboard and let us tour their gorgeous 44′ Morgan sailboat. We will certainly be following their adventure along as they cruise south. We also had two boat neighbors from Snook Bight arrive at Salty Sam’s. With Will and Tiff from Wiffersnapper and George and Deb from Fortune here, it feels just like our old dock at Snookbight. We’re glad to have them here with us.

Blue Turtle and Sailing Satori crew

Wiffersnapper’s cat, Turbo, stalks the pelicans

Watching the pirate ship leave port aboard Wiffersnapper (while cat-sitting)

Of course, it hasn’t been all festive and social aboard Blue Turtle. Along with owning boat also comes repairs and projects. We finally (we hope) found the source of a leak that we’ve had for several months and repaired it, Randy tended to the usual maintenance and bilge flushing, and we’ve resumed working on our lower wood rails. We’ve stripped the wood on the lower rails and have repaired some wood rot and are getting it ready to paint. This project will likely resume once we finally get a break with this hot weather. We are looking forward to the next few cold fronts which will bring us cooler temps and better cruising weather. We can’t wait to get out on hook with the all windows and hatches open. Once we start getting off the dock again it’ll breath some life back into this blog!