Friday May 25: The Enemy is Ours

What a night! I don't think I recall an evening going from heaven to hell is such a short period of time. It started with the great sunset and ended with the attack of the midges. Those of you living in Cleveland know what I'm talking about! The small, non-biting but totally annoying bugs that appear around this time of the year decided to descend upon the boat. It started innocently enough with a few showing up in the cabin. Then the sound started - a VERY loud buzzing - they were everywhere. Check out the picture of the screen in our aft cabin. The large lump of stuff in the middle is a gazillion midges. I use the number gazillion a lot - just to mean a bunch of something but this time it really WAS a gazillion!

It was just like in Nemo when he taught the fish in the net to "Just swim down" - now it was the lead midge saying "Just fly down" until the sides of the screen were open access to our cabin. We tried bug spray and duct tape on the screen to minimal avail. Plus they poop green stuff! Which when dry is really hard to get off. So up anchor quickly at sunrise (who was sleeping anyway?) and drive into the wind trying to get them off of the boat - Steve hosing them off as we travel (not that this chases them away - it just made them come to the flybridge to get away from him!).. You can see the number of casualties along the walkaround and in the sweeper (which by the way they smell rotten when dead).

The good thing about the midges is they drove us to stop at Palatka, FL. The plan was to travel farther but we needed water (used most of it washing the midges away) so a marina was a desirable thing for tonight. We were able to get the last slip here in Boatyard Marina - seems like a nice place, people are very friendly. Then we find out it's Bluecrab Fest over this holiday weekend! And there is what we would call a street fair right at the waterfront. (We have already signed on at the marina for tomorrow night :-))

As we rode around town (after Steve spent another hour on the outside spraying to chase the midges off and I spent the hour sweeping more out of the inside), there were several nice murals that we saw. Turns out there is a walking tour and there are 30 murals that give the history of the region. Maybe tomorrow?

And of course we found the oldest diner in Florida :-) Looks like a breakfast place to me - and a place for a blueberry milkshake (complete with whipped cream and cherry) for Steve and a root beer float for me. It was HOT out there!

There was a HUGE live oak outside the courthouse. 170 years old, circumference of 13 1/2 feet (in 1979) and a span of ...... I forget - but huge. Couldn't get the whole tree in one picture :-)