Heading South - Again

Sea Angel, with Peter and crew Johnny Stout aboard, departs Oxford today for the three-week trip to Tampa Bay.  Nancy is doing well and continues to recover from surgery at home for a few more weeks.

On The Home Stretch

18 days after surgery! We haven't killed each other - not even close.  The "boat" has gotten smaller even though the size has not changed. The first two weeks were sleep and try to eat.  I didn't have to use the turkey baster after all.  They gave us lots of syringes. They are great for water, Boost and meds. A flat spoon just fits into my mouth if I'm careful.   We tried to walk a little bit farther each day. One day we came across a tv show being taped. Turned out to be The Good Guys with Tom Hanks' son, Colin, and Bradley Witford playing the leads. It's on Monday night on Fox.

Last Thursday was our first big adventure besides walking the streets. We went to the Texas State Fair. Traveled the train. Peter had his first corn dog which he liked but it didn't like him that night. The craft and quilt show was wonderful. I wanted to send pictures to all my crafty friends.I think Kathryn would look cute in this dress.

I may try to make this Turkey next year.We only know four people in Dallas and we ran into one (Eve, from Dr. Wolford's office) at the fair.  Saw a few live stock. The only thing that I could fit into my mouth for lunch was the apple sauce from my bag, and ice cream bits that had to be cut into thirds. The dog show was very entertaining. The black lab jumped 28 feet into the water to catch the frisbee. The three legged dog jumped 23 feet. We lasted four hours then took a two hour nap.   

Yesterday was a six hour adventure to the mall. We had to change trains ( of course we got off at the wrong stop both ways which added 40 minutes). It was worth it because we saw the movie Secretariat.  Wonderful!!!

Found some great lobster soup. Couldn't find anything for Kathryn that was under $100. that she needed but it was fun looking.  Peter wouldn't take me into Tiffany's. The hospital told me to leave all my rings at home and I miss them.  I was hoping for an upgrade. I still have the mark on my ring finger that says we are still married so that will have to do.  Today is Sunday which of course means football/sewing.

We see Dr. Wolford two more times before we leave. He says everything is going great. Most of my pain is after I do my exercises.

It is a small world- Peter 's cousin Michael Kynett's wife Gail grew up in a small town in Pa. which is the same town as Dr. Wolford.  In fact Gail's brother had a car accident with Dr. Wolford back in the 50's. 

We are counting the days until Sea Angel gets back into the water (5) yea! 

Thank you all for the cards and emails.

Adventures in Dallas

I'm prompted to bring this neglected blog up to date because Nancy's recent email to family and friends about her TMJ surgery in Dallas failed to deliver the pictures.  So here's the email we tried to send.

Hard to believe it's been a week out of surgery. Want to show you our room in the hospital. My thoughts were so positive on day of surgery. The trust I have in Dr. Wolford is so great. His fellow is good too; he was a surgeon already but wanted to learn newer stuff from the master.  In Recovery the night after surgery I shared a nurse with only one other person. Didn't even have to say anything, I would raise my hand with a syringe and more water would come. I drink so much water I started to drive them crazy so they doubled my syringe. It was really cool. I didn't have to worry about having to go to the bathroom. Peter's work started early Thursday; it takes forever to get all the medications into me.

Check out the room Dr. Wolford's  patients get. The picture was taken from my bed to the adjacent sitting room.  Drinking from a syringe is routine because I can't open my mouth very much, but I'm not wired shut.  They gave me Boost and baby food.  If anyone needs baby food we have half a case.  Now I know why Kathryn wants to eat real food.

 

The operation was complicated, took 8 hours.  In addition to Dr. Wolford and his fellow, Dr. Walsh (my orthodontist from Key Largo) was there to observe. They replaced my right jaw joint with an implant, very easy to see in the x-rays.  They also moved both my upper and lower jaws forward and widened my mouth with bone spacers.  There's a plastic splint in my mouth to keep everything in place.  That will be removed by cutting a couple of wires.  Now my tongue isn't too big for my mouth any more, and my airway is much bigger so I don't have to keep my nose in the air to breathe.  (Russell, the TMJ is my JAW, not my knee.  I can still kick Peter around, I just can't chew him out.)



They kept me in the hospital an extra night. Hard to leave a room like that. They didn't want me to catch any of the "nasty hospital bugs" so they talked us into leaving on Saturday. No one was coming in so it was a slow pace to leave.  Here is the wonderful "hotel" room we have now for the next two weeks, it's about 12 x 18.  We think of it as boating.  It's more room than we had in the sailboat.  That's why we got a trawler.  The recliner is my bed.

 

A Warm Day? In Florida? Must be Time to Go Home!

Sadly, it's time to leave Eric, Lisa and Kathryn to make the 1400 mile trip home to Oxford.  Sometimes talking to non-boaters about our lifestyle is amusing.  Peter recently played golf with a young man who was amazed when told it would take "a month or so" to get home; he was thinking four days.

Before departing we enjoyed celebrating Nancy's birthday with the kids.

Kathryn likes restaurant food....

And she likes being first mate......

...and hangin' out with Daddy on Pop & Grammie's boat.....

 

 

and eating celery on her Easter Bunny quilt (made by Grammie, of course).....

Looking like a movie star....

 and sitting up by herself!

 

We motored across Tampa Bay in a breezy chop and ducked into the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway at Anna Maria Island.  Just south of Sarasota Bay we anchored between Lido Key and Otter Key.  Legend has it that John Ringling (the circus man) won Lido Key in a poker game, and set out to make the island a Millionaire's Row.  He succeeded.

After a good night's sleep we continued south to Englewood Beach, anchored and went shelling at Stump Pass.  The wind was up and the pass looked like this with waves breaking on the bar.  We don't use inlets like this one.

We stopped at Shell Point to visit Uncle Bud and Aunt Ginny.  Thanks for the free dock!

Shell Point marks the westernmost point of the Okeechobee Waterway, so from there we travelled 145 miles east.  We went through three locks which altogether lifted us 14 feet to the level of Lake Okeechobee.  The lake was flat calm for our crossing.  At St. Lucie, one lock drops us back down all 14 feet at once (slowly).  Here are some Okeechobee Waterway pics.

Near St. Lucie Inlet on a Saturday morning.  This is speedboat country;  very few of the local boaters show any consideration, they just bounce over each others' wakes.  While one boat was passing us 30 feet away, a Cigarette boat zoomed right between us, rooster tails flying. 

At St. Lucie we turned north, bound for the sheltered mooring field at Vero Beach, where we rafted up with MTOA members Bill and Laura on Kindred Spirit.  After a 3-mile walk to the beach and back, with a break for ice cream, Peter was pressed into service as guitar player for the local pick-up band.

Space shuttle launches are old hat to the "Space Coast" locals, but we had never seen one, so NASA kindly scheduled the launch of Discovery at a time convenient for us.  (Well, maybe not really, but the timing couldn't have been better.)  We anchored near Kennedy Space Center, about eight miles from the launching pad, and set the alarm for 0600.  It was still dark at launch time.  Ignition and lift-off seemed bright as sunrise.  About 40 seconds later the sound hit us; our bodies actually felt shock waves.

In a few minutes the shuttle was just a distant star.  Later the rising sun illuminated the smoke left behind, blown by gentle breezes into shapes and patterns reminding us of pictures from the Hubbell space telescope.

How We Spent Our Winter Vacation

Trawlering isn't always about cruising; sometimes it's about having a condo you can move with the seasons.  Sea Angel hasn't left the harbor at Apollo Beach since we arrived in November, but we've been busy having fun with family, friends, sewing and golf.  (Next year we're going cruising, dammit.....and Brett Favre's gonna retire.)

We sure didn't miss this!  Or should I say, we're glad we did!  We've never seen our house like this.



There's a lot to do in the Tampa area.  We got free tickets to a hockey game thanks to St. Joseph's Hospital, where Lisa works.

With WRCC friends Bob and Julie Norman we had lunch at Marina Jack's in Sarasota and toured the Ringling mansion and circus museum.  Ringling's "house" was fashioned after palazzos in Venice.

This 3000 square foot model of the circus contains everything the real circus had in the 1920's.  The level of detail is not to be believed -- the Big Top contains 7,000 hand-carved folding chairs, that actually fold.  One man spent his life making this.

Sisters Gingie and Rachelle came down to escape the snow.  Eric and Baby Kathryn went to the beach with them and visited an old fort guarding the entrance to Tampa Bay.

We all went to see the manatee viewing area, where manatees, sharks and rays by the hundreds come to bask in the warm water from the power plant.  You can click on the picture to enlarge it.

The power plant dominates our skyline and gives accurate wind information.

Nancy's ongoing dental adventures have brought us to the Keys a few times.  We're grateful to Tom and Elinor Adensam for putting us up at their condo in Marathon.

While in Marathon we had an outrageous breakfast at the Stuffed Pig with Jim and Robin Roberts....

...and we got to go snorkeling!  Look at the fantastic clarity and detail of our underwater photography!

Just kidding.  This is a glass aquarium at Lazy Days in Key Largo.

We stopped to visit Aunt Ginny and Uncle Bud in Ft. Myers.  Aunt Ginny is always interested in help with computer projects.  In return for bed and breakfast, Peter pretends to actually know something.

We attended a Dedication ceremony for Kathryn.  (Think Baptism without the water.)  Here the minister and his wife are blessing Kathryn in front of the congregation.

After the service, all Kathryn's family and friends enjoyed a feast at Eric and Lisa's home.

Kathryn with Pop and Grammy.  (I'm sorry, but Nancy looks way to young to be a Grammy!)  Pop is holding a "church doll" made by Nancy for the occasion.  Kathryn wore her great-grandfather Harry Vreeland's baby pinkie ring.

The Andrew family at home.