January 11 through 25, 2014; Fort Myers, FL

1-11 through 1-15-2014; City of Fort Myers Yacht Basin Marina, Florida, Mile 136.0.  Now that we are finally here we have a lot of things to get done.  Top priority is to get my labs and blood work done and 2nd on the list is to get a new refrigerator.  On Sunday, our friends Nick and Aline come over and took us to Lowe’s and we bought a refrigerator.  They will not deliver it until we can find someone to install it on the boat because Lowe’s policy does not let them come onto boats.  Monday morning the 13th, we called Owl Creek Boat Works and arranged for them to take the old one out and put the new one in.  They cannot put it in until January 22nd, Wednesday so we will have the refrigerator delivered to Owl Creek then.  On the afternoon of the 13th, we walked down Cleveland Avenue to the Lee Memorial Hospital (1.6 miles) thinking could finally get that out of the way; wrong.  We got there and I could not have my tests as I needed to do some preliminary work before the tests so we had to come back on Wednesday the 15th.  Thankfully, that’s finally done for another month.

On Friday through Monday morning, January 17 through 20, we rented a car from Enterprise.  Friday we went out to the airport where US Customs and Border Patrol offices are located.  We went there to get a Vessel Reporting ID number.  We filled out a bunch of forms and showed them our Pass Ports so now we are in their computer system and it will be much easier returning to the US after our Bahamas trip. 

On Monday and Tuesday, the 20th and 21st, Felix Marine was here and fixed our air/heating system so we now have heat and air.  For several months now we have just been using our little space heaters. 

1/22//2014 through 1/25/2014: We took the boat up to Owl Creek Boat Works and they removed our old refrigerator and replaced our new one.  It took them about 2 hours.  They had to hoist it up over the back railing, bring it through the salon and down into the galley.  They had to take the handrail off the stairs down into the galley and take the handles and doors off both the old and the new refrigerator so it would fit down the stairway.  They had about 1" of wiggle room.  So glad we hired it done.  Little by little things are getting done.  After finishing with the refrigerators, we took the boat over to our friends house on the Caloosahatchee River and spent a few days tied up outside their place.  Had a nice visit.  We came back to the marina on Saturday the 25th.

CO's comments:  I am slowly replacing light bulbs with LED's.  They are more efficient and they last longer.  Our new refrigerator uses 1/4 the amps that our old one did.  Amazing!  With our new bulbs and refrigerator our batteries will last a lot longer while anchoring out.  Downtown Fort Myers always has something going on.

 

 

 

Our friends Nick and Aline have all kinds of fruit trees in their yard; bananas, avocado, and many more.  These little bananas are just right for a bowl of cereal.

 

 

1-23-2014:  Tied up at our friends house.

 

 

 

 

 

 1-25-2014:  Car Show in downtown Fort Myers.