November 20th: Almost like we never left Banana Bay

The first couple days we were at Banana Bay, few of the returning boaters had arrived. By the time we returned Friday afternoon from Linda's surgery, several boaters had shown up. We weren't surprised because we knew the weather was going to get windy for at least several days beginning Saturday. Three of the boats hurried their trips to avoid having to wait out the bad weather.

We had our first "Docktails" several days later after the winds died down. It's not much fun sitting on the point in high winds. Linda was feeling good enough to join in. It was fun to have the additional three boats back in the marina. It was a very pretty night and we were treated to a striking, rising, almost full moon. The palm tree framed the moon nicely.




Linda was doing quite well. Her recovery so far seemed to include less pain than we thought. She was off of the prescription pain killers after only three days and doing okay with just Tylenol.

I did some work on the dinghy. One of the inflatable side tubes was losing air. I was afraid a seam had split over the summer. Fortunately, I discovered the problem was a leaking valve which I was able to fix. The dinghy went into the water, the engine was put on, and now I just needed some calm seas for fishing!! After a couple days waiting, the winds calmed way down and Linda assured me she'd be fine if I went fishing. My fishing buddy Flint and I headed out to fish under the bridge.

It was a good day at sea. We caught quite a few fish and had 5 nice keepers. They were all Jacks, 3 Yellow Jacks and 2 Crevalle Jacks.

We included Flint's foot in the picture so you could see they were nice sized fish.







Our new to us Nissan Sentra had an issue. The passenger electric door lock didn't work. Not only that, it made an annoying buzzing sound every time the car was turned off. Linda got on the internet and found replacement instructions with a great video on U-tube. I needed to take the door panels off but it looked doable.

Linda ordered the part and we went to work. The first thing we discovered was that there was no rod to hold the hood up. Strange, why would that be missing. Oh well, I found a quick solution.



Linda sat in the car and directed me while watching the video. The replacement went quite well. Put everything back together and tried the lock. The lock worked great but now the door could't be opened from the inside! Did I really want to take it all apart again?






Well, I thought of Fozzie again,"Persistence Pays". Linda said she was up to a second run so I took everything apart again and investigated. Discovered the new part had a cable that was about 1/4 inch too long. Just enough to keep it from throwing the lock. Decided I could use some tough fishing wire to rig up a fix. Put it back together and it worked!

Banana Tree

It has been enjoyable to see how well the trees and plants have recovered from the hurricane from two years ago. I included a few pictures of the grounds here at Banana Bay. In particular I like seeing the banana trees. Interesting how the bananas grow. They start out under the purple pointy growth which eventually unwraps exposing the bananas. I'm told these are not a particularly good "eating" banana but they're still fun to see.

Gumbo Limbo Tree

Peregrine Falcon

I wondered if the Gumbo Limbo tree on the left  could possibly make a comeback. It had only a few small leaves when we left last April. As you can see, it's doing quite well. Based on other Gumbo Limbo trees, additional branches will eventually begin to sprout further down.

A bonus was that I spotted a Peregrine Falcon sitting on one of the leafless branches. There seem to be quite a few more birds than last year.

Pool area

The drive back to the marina

 The drive back to the marina is once again very lush and scenic. Many of the trees around the pool had lost their leaves, including the palm trees. Their resilience is wonderful. The grounds look better than ever.

There are several different types of palm trees. The ones that grow coconuts have a full crop of fresh coconuts. The maintenance crew has someone come in with a tall hoist to trim off the coconuts that could fall on people.






2I was working on this blog when I heard someone ask, "Hey have you ever seen a puffer fish?" I went out to the point to check it out. I've caught puffer fish in the past. They're no good to eat but fun to see "puffed up". This fisherman held it up for everyone to get pictures and then put it back in the water. They float  like a balloon until they think it's safe and then deflate instantly, almost like a popped balloon. It happened so fast I couldn't get a picture after it deflated.

Linda was doing better every day. We were excited that she would be seeing her surgeon Friday. Given that we were making the 3 hour drive to the Cleveland Clinic in Weston, we decided to drive up Thursday and stay over night. We could drop off an alternator to be repaired in Ft. Lauderdale and Linda could get her hair cut. The hair cut place just happens to be next to one of our favorite Chinese restaurants and we would after all need to eat lunch someplace!



The drive up on Thursday didn't quite go as planned. We got a late start so we stopped in Key Largo at Mrs. Mac's Kitchen for lunch. We've eaten there before and liked it. We both had  Conch chowder which was almost as good as mine. Also had calamari and a grilled fish sandwich. Great lunch and we could still hit the Chinese restaurant Friday after Linda's appointment the next day.

After lunch we drove into downtown Miami looking for the alternator place. We'd worked with them before and appreciated their work. Unfortunately, the closer we got the less anything looked familiar. We found the address and were not impressed at all. Obviously we had the wrong name for the place! Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

We had just enough time to check into our motel and get to the movie theater, (the one with the reclining seats) to see the Mr. Rogers movie starring Tom Hanks. We enjoyed the movie. Linda had found us a very nice hotel near the Clinic so we would be able to sleep in Friday morning.

Linda was required to wear compression stockings for two weeks after the surgery to prevent blood clots. Thursday was two weeks, so why wait for the doctor appointment tomorrow? Off they came. She was very happy! Also, she hadn't been able to get the incision wet since the surgery, so she was hopeful she would get approval tomorrow to take showers and wash her own hair. (Although she said, "It's been kind of nice having you wash my hair!")

Linda's doctor's appointment was at 11:20 AM. Her appointment went very well and quickly. Remove the bandage, give it a little wipe with alcohol and everything was deemed healing wonderfully. Approval for showers and permission to not wear the splint during the day while on the boat. Linda received her prescription for physical therapy and we were on our way. After a nice lunch at the Chinese restaurant we even had time to drop off the alternator at the correct place and still beat the Miami traffic.

We made it back to the boat about 3:00 PM. Seemed like a long two days but everything went well. A real shower is definitely on Linda's agenda.