Monday

November 21st, 2016 

Evening with Marge and Tom Jeffers

The four of us went to the Moose Club for cocktails and enjoyed the sunset...

Out on the second floor of the Moose Club...

Getting a bit dark...

Tom and Marge then took us to the Swordfish Grill...Super place...

Right next door are the boats that go out and catch the great seafood we enjoyed...

Another fishing boat...

A great time with Marge and Tom.... Thanks for picking us up Marge and Tom, and showing us a wonderful evening...  Mike and Joell

Monday

November 21st, 2016

Joell, Mike and Elwood are happy we came in a day early to Sara Bay Marina.... That evening it blew like crazy (19-20mph all night) and we sure didn't want to be anchored out in a bay somewhere...

Right at Sara Bay Marina is a popular local establishment called The Bearded Clam...

Nice selection of different foods and good service...

The menu goes on and on...

Having a beer at the Bearded Clam...

Sunday evening Joell's brother David drove over and picked us up for dinner by his condo... here's the view from his 7th floor condo...nice!

Sunset at David's home!

David, Joell and Mike took a short walk to a restaurant called Owen's Fish Camp...

This is one of the very best places to enjoy the best seafood, service and ambiance.

Here's David and Joell...

Hey, there's Mike

Looking straight up from the bar at Owen's Fish Camp...

The Bar

Here, Joell's hitting on this old guy...

What a fantastic evening we had with David... Thank You David!!!

Fixed or Repaired Daily...

All of a sudden when sliding the heavy glass/pexi door it made all sorts of bad noise...

After going onto Silverton's Ower's Group and searching for this problem we found how to disassemble the sliding door and found the problem...

There are the Tracks, the Train and the Trucks that all either support the door or help it glide easily.... These are the trucks (only two that support that large door) and are both shot, wheels off and ball bearing missing...  Soooo, at $30.00 a Truck I have two on it's way to Joell's brothers home.

Take Care and Thanks for watching our blog!

Friday

November 18th, 2016

This morning Mike was on the ham radio talking to some fellow hams in the Milwaukee area when a ham operator from less then 2 miles away here in Florida gave him a call...  After we talked a bit he asked if we needed anything and we said yes.  We were low on gas for our dinghy.  We talked later on the phone and he asked if we needed anything else like water or beer... about 3 hours later he showed up with his girlfriend on his boat and tied up...handed over a big pile of bottled water and a gas tank full of gas, which I then proceeded to poor into our dinghy gas tank...all for five bucks...What a nice couple....

Below is a picture of Duane and his girlfriend... Elwood was visiting them...

Later this evening Joell and I took the dinghy ashore to the Mar Vista Restaurant and had a nice meal...

Tomorrow we move to a different anchorage due to the high winds coming in... till then :-)

Thursday

November 17th, 2016

View from the flybridge.... we took the dinghy over to the sand bar...

Some beautiful cruisers down here...

More Derelick boats....

Opps, another just past the sail boat...

Our anchorage for this evening.... Lots of locals coming to the sandbar before high tide...

Elwood enjoyed running around on the sand...

Elwood chased this bird away....

Life's rough....

Wednesday Evening

November 16th, 2016

Found our anchorage at DeSoto Memorial Park..(Bradenton, FL)

Took a walk around the grounds...

We left the Intercostal Waterway to take a short cut to the DeSoto Memorial Park

Joell and Elwood discovering the New World...

Tough getting through all the White Mangrove Trees

Snakes?

Tom Turtle....nice fella

Main Enterance 

Moss filles trees...

Boats DeSota used to get from the large sailing vessels to shore...

Not too friendly natives...

Help him blow that horn Joell....

Native Indian canoes...

The walkway around the park...

???

Paid this bird to watch the dinghy and all he did was fish...

Wednesday

November 16th, 2016

Electrical Problems.....?

We were up again around 3:00 AM last evening to let Elwood out on his potty pad and this voltage is much better than the 8.2 VDC we saw the prior evening.... No low voltage alarms and all seems fine now.  

Coffee's brewing, the sun is up and we'll be off today to anchor for another night by a state park just a little closer to Sarasota...

Mike, Joell and Salty Dog Elwood

Tuesday

November 15th, 2016

Electrical Problems

A couple of times now, while we were sleeping we’ve been having one of the CO2 detectors go off with a high pitch alarm due to low voltage,  not C02 detection!  So, last evening around 3 AM this happened again.  I unscrewed the CO2 detector and threw a voltmeter across it…. 8.2 VDC… very low.  Before leaving on our trip we replaced all 4 battery’s… one standard starting battery for the generator, one deep cycle #29 for the Starboard engine and two deep cycle #29’s connected in parallel for the Port engine and house draw. After seeing just over 8 volts I cleared the cockpit to opened the hatch over the engines and batteries… When checking the single #29 battery for the starboard engine I was a bit baffled because it was just over 8 volts.  I then went topside to see if this battery would start the Starboard engine, it did…but in trying to start the Port engine, it just clicked and wouldn’t turn over.  So the single #29 is on the Port engine not the Starboard engine.  Thinking back when ever I’ve had trouble starting any engine due to low power it’s always been the Port engine…This was my first misunderstanding…  I checked the two #29’s that are connected together in parallel and I had a nice 12.7 volts….this is why the starboard engine started right up.  So what the heck is drawing this single battery down that just happens to have one of the hard wired CO2 detectors connected to it?  I decided to pull the positive cable from this low battery only to find  out that the refrigerator was connected to it.  I don’t know who set this up prior to us purchasing this boat, but why would you put a device (refrigerator) that draws the most power on a single battery when you have a double battery bank.  I open the AC/DC panel, installed a new breaker on the Battery 2 side which is connected to the dual battery’s and moved the wire running from the fridge over to that buss.   Tonight will be the test to see if all is well…

I’d like to personally thank my Generator for always starting and running 110 VAC to power the battery charger.

Back into Gulfport, Fl to look at some of the shops.

Found these rather nice, large carvings....

Enjoying the Super Moon while anchored in Boca Bay...

Free Fireworks tonight from someone ashore...

Yahooo...