Wednesday, October 18, 2017

The End of the Season, Maybe the end of Cruising




 

the floats were aplenty
neat floats
While Carl was in Florida Leslie went to the Floatapolusa in Brewers Bay. It was a great time with lots of funny floats and of course lots of splashing around and drinks.

 


Carl the new baker!
They had some neat floats
Carl started to bake croissants and breakfast goodies, then we started to get ready to end the season. We went to St John for 4th of July as our last big hurrah before heading to the BVI to get ready to haul out for the season.

biggest butterfly ever
 
some people were scary







there were a lot of dancers
the USA group







Leslie dances with the Zulus






fireworks were great!

who knew there was an air filter to change
We relax with a game of Dark Tower
We started to do our end of season routine change the fuel and oil filters back flush the engines, clean and the boat and put things away. Once we hauled out it was wax the boat, put away the engines, take down and tie up the sails, secure the dinghy and outboard, and strap down the boat.  I finished my rebreather certification with a dive on the Rhone. We caught a ferry to St Thomas and stayed a night in the hotel before catching the plane back ending the season.
Our last stay at Maho Bay
I was underwater 100 minutes and it
said I had a 100 minutes more I could
stay down. I only stayed 150 minutes









The side of the Rhone
These fish loved me







We have a nice ceremony for Mom
We are packed up in St Louis and
ready to go!

We traveled a lot helping our son Aron move from Tampa to his new posting at the Pentagon and then heading to Cody Wyoming for a celebration of life and burying of ashes for Leslie’s mother who died this past March.  We went to St Louis to pack up our stuff as our son Eric had sold his house, bought a 47’ cat and took his family sailing.

The total eclipse was awesome!
Carl backs the truck up to our new digs
On the way to Florida we were able to watch the full eclipse in a Walmart parking lot. We bought a place in the pan handle of Florida so we could stow our stuff and have a place to stay now that Eric was sailing. Carl drove the truck from St Lois and we unloaded our stuff in our new place. We had only just unpacked our stuff when Eric came by to drop off his Bronco and some stuff for us  to store for him. I guess turnabout is fair play.
Eric's stuff and his Bronco "Robin" at our new shop


We watched with batted breath as Irma started coming down the Leeward Islands with a direct hit on the BVI. Then Maria came through and side swiped the BVI. We have only seen some aerial pictures of the yard where we store Frolic and it looks bad! Our sailing days of Frolic may be over. We are now waiting to be able to go to the BVI and see the results of Irma.