Time to move to New York

April 2008 and with the end of Mark's consulting job in sight, a decision was made for Mark to take another consulting job as our insurance claim has still not been settled yet. Tom, Mark's very good friend from the Navy and current training manager at Nine Mile in Oswego, NY called to see if Mark was interested in coming back to NY and helping him. We talked it over and started looking for a place to live in NY on the boat and a way to get the boat up there. We decided to ship the boat by truck and found Fair Point Marina in Little Sodus Bay right off of Lake Ontario to keep the boat over the summer. For a better look you can go to their website at http://www.fairpointmarina.com/ and see where we are for the summer. Come the fall, we will need to look for an apartment that is furnished for the winter (YUCK). We have met a lot of very nice people here and our good friends from Key Largo, Annette and Gary live about 45 minutes away.

Sea Trial

At the end of February 2008, Roger from Nance & Underwood came down with one of his riggers to go sailing with us and do our sea trial. We had a great day of sailing and ended up having to anchor out because we didn't get through the channel before the tide got too low. The tide was especially low since it was a full moon and we had not taken that into consideration when we left in the morning. While out at anchor, the rigger helped Vicki take apart the windless and clean and lube it. He also helped her take apart one of the big self tailing winches in the cockpit and clean and lube that. After sitting around for awhile, Mark decided to take them to the dock by the dinghy while Joy (our friend from the marina) and Vicki waited for the tide to rise enough to get the boat back to the marina.

John and Nora come to visit February 2008

One of the best friends that I have finally came to visit us in Florida even though she is terrified of flying. My high school buddy Nora and her husband John (whom we just love and Mark has so much in common with) came to visit us in Key Largo in February. We were able to visit with them for an entire week and just loved having them.

We went to dinner at Bayside Grill on Valentine's Day (Mark and my anniversary) and had a great meal while watching the sun set. We tried to get out fishing but the weather just wouldn't cooperate with us.. We did make it down to Key West though and had a good time while there. Nora, Joy (one of our friends from the marina) and I shopped while the guys sat and had a couple of drinks at one of the many bars. Nora and John also went to swim with the dolphins and had a fabulous time with two dolphins that normally work with learning disabled and really get excited to work with normal people. They swam so fast that they actually made a wake pulling John and Nora back to the dock! Both of them said that it was wonderful and that it was "a once in a lifetime" opportunity. We are so glad that they visited us and hope to see them again soon.

A new mast at last!!! Jan 2008

Off to Ft. Lauderdale for a new mast (finally!!) On January 15, 2008 we left Key Largo on our way to Playboy Marina for our new mast. On board were Mark and I and our very good friend Gary (who came along to help us and take a rode trip so to speak). We took two days to motor up to Ft. Lauderdale, anchoring the first night and staying in the marina across from Playboy the second night.
On January 17, 2008 we went into the hole over in Playboy and watched as the riggers from Nance & Underwood set about standing our new mast. WOW what a great feeling to finally see our girl with a new mast after being without one for so long!
We had a very long, bumpy ride back to Key Largo on Saturday the 19th and ended up anchoring just outside of the channel to our home at Marina Del Mar due to the tides. The wind was of course right in our face leaving Ft. Lauderdale and we ended up tacking back and forth away from and back towards the shore trying to make headway. We took a lot of waves over the bow and we were reminded what a great boat we picked as she just kept right on going strong even though we didn't have great weather for our first trip with the new mast up.

January 2008

January 2008 found us in Branson, MO being treated like a king and queen. We were invited to attend a VIP event for Park West Gallery were they picked up the tab for everything! Our suite was wonderful and the view of the lake from our balcony was beautiful! We met several couples from all over the lower southeastern United States. They were all very nice and we thoroughly enjoyed their company and our time at the event. Vicki even got a chance to wear a poodle skirt at one dinner event (they even gave it to her to keep).

Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving was a great time in Key Largo and once again we were invited by Patty to her orphans dinner. This is a dinner that she cooks for all the people at the marina that don't have family to have dinner with. This was our second Thanksgiving orphan dinner that she made and it was just wonderful!!! She is a great cook and always cooks so much (turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, beans, pearl onions, pies of all kinds, cranberries, dinner rolls, etc, etc, etc.) My stomach gets full just thinking about it. We are very blessed with the friends that we have in Key Largo and miss them greatly.Candi the dock mistress always dresses up for the holidays and Thanksgiving was no different. As you can see, she dressed up as a turkey and looked great! Every holiday she does something different, you'll have to drop by the marina on a holiday to see what she's got on.

Pam and Randy come to MI for a visit-Nov 20007

Surprise, surprise, surprise!!! Pam (Mark's younger sister) and her husband Randy made it up to the house in MI while we were there. Randy wanted to go hunting and Pam wanted him to see our house and property. It was really nice having them visit our home and be able to spend some time getting to know Randy and visit with Pam.

One day we took them over to Ludington to see Lake Michigan. Randy had never seen it and it was in quite a state when we got there as you can see. We had lunch, drove around the area and even stopped by an Elk ranch where we watched from the car as a couple of the bulls play fought. It was amazing to see them play fight. One can only imagine what it looks like in the wild where they are serious.

Home to MI for a visit and hunting in Oct. 2007

At the end of the month during deer hunting season, we went to MI to visit with Mike, Dana, Emily, Erin and little Jack (our god son). We were able to go out sailing with Mike on his sailboat on a blustery day and had a great time! The visit with Dana, the girls and little Jack was really great too!

We stayed up at the house in Evart and unpacked a few more boxes to get settled and drank a couple bottled of wine from the wine cellar (ha, ha). There was a small amount of snow and the property was beautiful although the temperature was chilly. The stove kept the house cozy for us and we enjoyed the quiet of the woods and each others company.

Ralph came up to see us, do some hunting and stayed for a couple of days. It is always so good to see him. he is such a good friend, mentor and a very important part of our family.
We just loved being up at the house in Evart for hunting. We purchased new bows on the way up there and sighted them in without any problems. Both of us saw several deer but unfortunately neither one of us was able to shoot one.

The old mast goes for scrap

In October 2007, the Key Largo boatyard where we were keeping the old mast changed ownership and the new owner decided to close the boatyard and we were told that we needed to get our mast out of there.
We striped the old hardware off of it and took pictures and measurements for placement of the parts on the new mast when it came in. The picture attached shows how the mast was bent and also the furler laying on the ground next to it showing how that was bent also.
We decided that we would try to get a little money for it and went to cut it up. It took several hours and more than a couple saw blades and a lot of muscle to get the job done. We took the pieces to a Miami scrap yard to sell it and got $300 for it. Not much for all that work but we didn't want to leave it to the new owners to scrap.

Liz returns August 2007

In August 2007 our niece Liz came back to visit us again. We took her out fishing in our skiff past the reef just outside Key Largo. We were trolling just trying to catch something and hooked up with a Bonito (something that we had never caught before). Liz had never caught a fish in the ocean so we had her haul it in.

While Mark and I were trying to find out what kind of fish it was in the book we had, Liz sat and watched it flipping around on the back deck of the skiff. All of a sudden, she let loose a scream and we thought that she must have been bitten by the fish. What really had happened was that the fish was bleeding all over the deck and she was freaked out by the sight. We got her calmed down and threw that one back and went back to trolling.

We did catch several others and kept one to try. We were proud of Liz when she held it for pictures. We had a great time with Liz once again and told her to come back anytime that she wanted.

Summer 2007

During the summer of 2007, Mark and I had a great time with our neighbors Mikie and Charlene who own a power cat. We went snorkeling with them a couple times out at Carey's Fort Reef and had a great time. We had the priviledge of their company almost all summer and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and have adopted them into our family. We hope to catch back up with them this summer (2008) in New York sometime.

During the summer Mark continued to work at Turkey Point power plant and we got the opportunity to get to know several of his co-workers during a weekly poker game on Thursday night which was a lot of fun and sometimes rewarding.

We were able to do some fishing over the summer as well and got to go home to MI for a short visit.

Vicki visits Nicole and Brandon in VA - June 2007

At the beginning of June 2007, Vicki went to VA to visit Nicole and Brandon where they were living in Newport News. While there, she met their current love interests and caught up on what had been happening in their lives since she had seen them last which had been quite awhile. We went to the beach, ate lunch and walked on the boardwalk where there is a giant statue of Poseidon one day.

Our neice Liz comes for a visit in May 2007

In early April my niece Elizabeth (Liz) called to see how we were doing and we invited her to come for a visit. She arrived and started to relax. We took her snorkeling (which she had never done), to Robbie's to feed the Tarpon and to Key West to check it out. We had a really good time with her and invited her to come back again. The picture of the Christ statue is at one of the reefs off Key Largo and the picture of Mark and Liz feeding the Tarpon is down at Robbie's on the way to Key West.

Our spontaneous cruise April 20007

On Friday Mark came home and asked me if I wanted to take a cruise, I said "Sure, where to and when?" His reply was the Western Caribbean and that the cruise left on Sunday. With a phone call to American Express, we had tickets and were on our way. We visited Costa Rica, Grand Cayman and had 2 stops in Mexico. This was our first cruise and although we enjoyed it, neither one of us felt relaxed totally. We both came to the same conclusion that we would rather either visit those places in our boat or just go on a cruise that goes out to sea and then back to shore allowing us to do whatever we wanted on our schedule and not theirs.