Free Bird heads South: April 2015

As of a week ago Wednesday, we are back home at Cedar Shores Lodge. What an incredible journey this entire trip has been! Thought I'd try to recap the highlights from the last few months to bring everything "full circle". As I went to pull pictures to do this, I realize I am biting off more than I can chew. So much has happened that I can't possibly get it all into one post so you'll be seeing a few more before we can wrap things up. Speaking of wrapped up, that is what Free Bird is right now. We put her up on the hard in a boat yard in Port Charlotte.

Free Bird under wraps

This is how she will be tied down with the hurricane tie downs after we leave.

Summerizing a boat is different than winterizing one. We got a lot of opinions as to what to do and not do and then it was up to us to decide how far to go. We draped mesh tarps over her, not to keep the elements off but to reduce the the amount of sun that hits her decks. We left a couple of air dryers running inside, buttoned her up and bid her farewell. It was 90 degrees there the 2 days we were doing this work. We were ready to be done with it and just hope we did it all right. We paid the boat yard to "anchor" her and use hurricane tie downs to secure her. And luckily we have a couple of fellow boaters we know who live nearby who have said they will check on her from time to time.

We really need to start our "full circle" with THE PEOPLE OF FISHVILLE. When last we left you, we were getting used to "liveaboard" life which is much different in a marina versus picking up and moving from place to place every day or two. When we first arrived, it took awhile to get to know everyone's names and what boat or mate they belonged to.

We have come to really value the sense of community that Fishville (Fisherman's Village) has afforded us. There was constant activity, not only on the docks and the common areas, but on the shopping/dining/condo pier. There was always music playing, sirens blaring or motorcycles harleying (yes, I just made that up!), boats coming in or going out, fellow boaters fixing or cleaning things...you get the idea - it was just a busy place.

Among us Midwesterners from the likes of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Minnesota, we were joined by East Coasters from Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts as well as our Canadians crews hailing from Ontario and Nova Scotia and beyond. We definitely miss our dockmates and all the happenings there such as the docktails, potlucks, morning coffee, Friday noon cookouts, the girls theater outing, shopping, dining out, music nights, anchoring out together and the Super Bowl party. There was always someone to lend a helping hand if you needed it whether it was taking a sail down, look for a lost boat cat, giving advice on a maintenance/improvement issue or just the sharing of ideas. We met each others friends and families when they came to visit which was a lot of fun too. (Some of them even thought my sister Leslie was my twin, she was a big hit on the dock!) Now that we are home, we appreciate this group even more and are looking forward to staying in touch over the Summer and our eventual return this Winter.