May 31st : Burlington Visit

 My flight to Burlington on Tuesday was delayed due to weather. Fortunately, I was able to alert Terri before she started on the 2 hour drive to pick me up. I arrived around 6PM instead of 4:45PM so not too bad. My sister arrived  Tuesday evening and we drove back to her house in Burlington, VT.

The Scott's back yard is gorgeous. Here is a view from their 2nd floor deck.

My sister and niece, Stephanie, are seriously into bird watching. Terri informed me that the Bobolinks were sighted nearby at a beautiful nature preserve. Hiking in Vermont is always beautiful so I was in. There was this nice plaque which talked about the Bobolinks. They arrive here in late spring to mate and nest. 

Here is some very interesting information and nice pictures of the birds we were hoping to see. They nest in big open fields. Bobolinks info 

We were just getting started and I spotted a pretty little yellow bird. Terri identified it as a Common Yellowthroat. Common Yellowthroat info

We walked up a trail to get to the fields where the Bobolinks had been spotted. The view was amazing. The water is Lake Champlain and the mountains are the Adirondacks. I heard hundreds of birds on the way up the trail. I spotted about ten. I decided this birdwatching is more difficult than I thought. Most of the "Best" birds are elusive. But there were plenty of Red Winged Blackbirds. Red Winged Blackbird info 

View of Lake Champlain and the Adirondack mountains

I saw some very interesting trees. Terri was able to identify them with her App. They were Eastern Red Cedars. The trunks were very colorful.

Eastern Red Cedars

Terri and Scott

Scott is not really into birding, but he does enjoy walking so he came along.

Beaver Hut

On the way up the hill, we spotted this nice little stream and a beaver hut. Beavers are very plentiful in Vermont.

Picturesque stream

Many of the trees are very tall as you can see looking at Terri searching for birds.

In particular I liked this tree. Apparently the center trunk had a problem but the tree just kept on growing. It would make a great tree fort.

Scott walked on ahead of us because we kept stopping to look for birds and searching for the Bobolinks. Our efforts paid off. We saw a number of Bobolinks, some fairly close up and some flying by.

We also saw a beautiful Tree swallow. It's feathers were iridescent when the sun hit them just right. He was flying around us, presumably catching bugs, and we got great views of him. We weren't able to get pictures of any of the birds ourselves. 

Tree Swallow pics

On the way back down I happened to see this cute little gray squirrel silhouetted against the sky.

As we were headed back to the car I spotted a King Bird. They are apparently pretty common but I had never seen one before that I know of. Kingbird

The weather was very comfortable and our walk was successful. After the walk we went out for a nice late breakfast.

Thursday, rain was forecast in the afternoon, so Terri and I went for a 4 mile walk around her neighborhood in the morning. That afternoon we relaxed and packed for our visit to Albany, NY. My great nephew, Owen was in an AAU basketball tournament. It was a pretty scenic ride and we arrived early enough Friday to go for a bird watching hike at Pine Harbor Arboretum. The tournament started Saturday morning.

The arboretum was very peaceful and had many unusual species of trees and plants. This tree had pink leaves with a green shape in the center. Very unusual. 

Stephanie & Terri

I heard many, many birds and saw about 5! Stephanie saw many. She is an expert. Terri had an app that helped identify plants which were not marked.

I found this tree pretty unique. Relatively small branches seemed to be coming out from the middle of the trunk

Saturday morning we headed to the first basketball game. The tournament was held at Sienna College in Albany. The campus was very nice and the gyms were very large. 32 teams were participating.

Interesting approach to a "Bell Tower."

It was very difficult to get a good action picture of Owen while he was playing. This is the best I have. Owen is #10, in black. They played well and won handily. Fun way to start. 

The original City Hall

Next game is late afternoon so we did a walking tour of Albany, the State Capitol of New York. The buildings were very impressive. I included quite a few in case you are a history buff! There were a number of interesting and informative plaques on the City Hall building. I copied them here for you.

When my sister Julie found out we were going to Albany, she said to be sure to go see the State Capitol Building. I can see why. It's very impressive from the outside. It was closed so we couldn't see the inside.

State Capitol building, (Terri and Stephanie in foreground)

The Egg

Terri had done some research and heard about "The Egg". We found it. It's a fun performing arts center. Quite unusual design. We could only get into the lobby area. Notice the doors at the very bottom for a size perspective. The building is very large.

State Department of Education Building

We were walking past a building that I said reminded me of the Parthenon because of all the columns. Turned out it is the State Department of Education. It is quite a building

Scott was getting more interested in lunch than touring. He patiently waited for us by the large reflecting pools in the center of the area. The pools are used for ice skating in the winter. 

Concrete reflecting pool

We found a very good place for lunch, The Iron Gate. We all enjoyed our meals which were a little different (better!) than the usual fair. My Thai shrimp dish is on the lower left. 

The Iron Gate Cafe, Albany

We continued with the tournament which ended Sunday afternoon for us. Owen's team did well, placing 3rd. We headed back to Burlington. Stephanie was our chauffer for the weekend and did a great job.

Terri

Stephanie on her paddle board

The weather continued to cooperate. I definitely wanted to get in some Kayaking at Stephanie's reservoir where her home is located.

The view from Stephanie's front yard

The last time I visited here, we were supposed to go birding at Moose Bog. In particular we would be looking for a Spruce Grouse, a rare bird that reportedly lived at Moose Bog.  It is located in Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, about 2 hours away. The weather did not cooperate so I said hopefully, next time I come.

This was next time and the weather was great. This birding is serious. I set my alarm for 4:45AM so we could arrive at Moose Bog as the birds were becoming active. I was told that in particular, we were looking for 4 rare birds, the Spruce Grouse, the Black Backed Woodpecker, the Grey Jay and the Boreal Chickadee.  Terri and Stephanie had yet to see any of them. The bird watching began right outside the visitor center when 4 Cedar Waxwings flew into a nearby tree and just sat there. We had a great view with the binoculars.

We went into the visitor center to use the restrooms and I saw a moose head on the wall. It was huge and intimidating. Terri said she wanted to see one, but from afar!

If you are like me, you don't know many birds by name. So I provided links with pictures of some of the ones we saw. 

Cedar Waxwing

We headed up the Moose Bog trail searching for the elusive Spruce Goose in particular. Second hope was the Black Backed Woodpecker.

We arrived at the boardwalk leading to Moose Bog and Stephanie spotted male Black Backed Woodpecker. It is large and beautiful. Stephanie got a few hard won pictures. It hung around long enough for us to get a good look at it. Then shortly afterward, a female showed up! Great day for birding.

Black Backed Woodpecker

Terri had remarked that she would like to see a moose. She had never seen one in the wild. As we were standing on a viewing deck overlooking Moose Bog, Terri spotted a young male moose on the far shore. It stayed around quite a while and we got a good view with the binoculars.

It was time to head back. We had talked to a couple guys that were also looking for the Spruce Grouse. One had been there three days searching for it. It was a long trail back so we were still hopeful. We were halfway back and one of the guys told us he found a male. It was just sitting in a tree. It's a beautiful bird. It was not skittish at all. Stephanie was able to get great pictures. That really topped off a great birding day!

Spruce Grouse

As we drove out of the park we stopped at another little boardwalk. It went down to a very pretty little creek. Here is a good sign explaining about the Refuge Center.

Chris and Theresa's Lake house

One last thing I wanted to do was see my nephew Christopher's lake house. The old one was torn down and a new one was nearing completion. Christopher said he and Theresa had spent a couple years designing it. They did a great job!

The ceiling is 24 feet high. There is a sunporch 6 feet above ground level and a deck on top of it. Both provide a wonderful view of the lake. I can't wait to come back when it's finished. 

My time in Burlington was coming to a close. I planned a seafood dinner with Christopher's family. Christopher and Annika love seafood so swordfish, clams and lobster tails were on the menu. It was a feast. Plus, Terri made brownies with ice cream! Great way to finish off the visit. 

I fly to Toronto Thursday. The Peterson's will pick me up and take me to their home until Guppy is ready to be launched.  

May 22nd: Back to Yesterday's dream in Marathon, Florida

 

Mychael has been taking good care of Yesterday's Dream. We currently are sort of joint owners. He is paying the docking expenses, uses the boat and keeps it in good condition. Meanwhile, I am still happy to own the boat and use it as a "getaway" rather than a place to live. Mychael encouraged me to visit on my way to Burlington VT and then Canada to travel on Guppy.

The trip to Marathon started with me flying from Phoenix to Miami. I was scheduled to arrive at 10:30PM so I arranged a rental car to drive to a motel that night. Then I'd drive to Marathon the next morning. I'll spare you the details, but due to two weather delays, I arrived in Miami at 12:15AM. Fortunately, I had called the hotel from Houston to make sure they knew I was still coming. The rental car agency was open until 1:00AM. Whew! I arrived at my hotel at 1:30AM, happy to have made it. My friend Ian Jukes sent me this cartoon. Very fitting given all the travelling I've done lately

There is a Thai restaurant half way to Marathon that I was hoping was still there. It was! I got some Vietnamese shrimp noodle soup that is excellent. The drive to Marathon was quite scenic, as usual, and I arrived without incident.

Mychael & Steve inside Yesterday's Dream

Mychael made my travels easy. He said he would meet me at the car rental place so I could drop off my rental. Then he took me to where he arranged storage for my nice little Nissan Sentra. He also had replaced the battery the day before! We picked up my car and went to Yesterday's Dream's new home. I had been by the place before but had no idea how nice it is.

First we went inside to drop off my bags. The boat was immaculate! It looked great and I felt like I was home again.

Mychael on Yesterday's Dream's Flybridge
View looking northeast

Then we went to the flybridge to see the view!
 

View looking southeast

The view looking forward is all water. 

Mychael and Amanda

 Amanda is Mychael's girl friend. She's a lot of fun and a willing boater. She also likes to fish. She joined us on the boat and brought a fresh grouper that her son Andrew had caught. Mychael is a great cook and prepared it perfectly along with a great salad.

The sunset was very pretty

The weather forecast for the next few days was for minimal winds. Amanda has Thursdays and Fridays off so we decided to cruise to Bahia Honda State Park and anchor outside the park. It's great to sleep out on the water on a calm night. 

Leaving for Bahia Honda

Amanda worked until 6 PM so we didn't leave the dock until about 8 PM. Mychael and Amanda are in their 30s and they have no problem staying up late. Me??? I knew Mychael would be driving. We knew we would be cruising in the dark but we are familiar with the waters and we have a GPS to guide us. It was very calm, lots of stars and a beautiful ride. I held up fine.

To be safe, we went pretty far out from shore so we didn't arrive until midnight. Then it took 4 tries before we finally found a spot where the anchor held. We stayed up a little longer enjoying the evening. I slept in until around 9pm. My sleep schedule was screwed up from jet lag anyway.

We wanted to catch some fish for dinner. Amanda caught a small hammerhead shark. Definitely not dinner but fun to catch and release.

We caught a lot of fish but they were too small to keep. Was still fun catching them and no one had to clean them.

Cooking with the propane
 burner on the walk around deck

We had a backup plan. I had bought chicken thighs, which would be tasty. Still anchored, we used the generator to power our induction burner to pan fry the chicken. Half way thru, the generator died. We were pretty sure the problem was old fuel. Fortunately, in preparation for our outing, I had called and asked Mychael where the propane burner was. He said he had it stored but would bring it along.

The chicken, broccolini and mushrooms turned out great.

It was such a calm night we decided to move into deeper water for the night and maybe catch bigger fish. Tried to pull the anchor up with the windlass and it would not come loose. Played with it for a long time and decided the current was too strong to try to work it loose. We waited for slack tide. Finally, at 6:00PM the current died. Mychael jumped in and followed the chain down about 20 feet to the anchor. He determined it wasn't wrapped around anything, just stuck under a shelf. He was able to get a rope around it so we could pull it backwards and retrieve it. It seems like there is always something unexpected when boating!

The sunset was interesting. The clouds and a little lightning provided a nice view as well as pictures. Nothing beats watching a sunset on the water.

The sky cleared off and the stars were amazing. The Milky Way was very easy to spot and there were so many stars it was hard to pick out the constellations like the Big Dipper.

Turned out there were some very small waves overnight that were broadside to the boat. Made a note for next time, don't go out too far. It wasn't at all dangerous but we were rocking port to starboard and  and bow to stern as the current slowly swung us back and forth broadside to the waves. None of us got much sleep!

So first thing in the morning Mychael found us an 8 foot deep hole surrounded by 5 feet of water. No rocking there. Plus we wanted to get off the boat and into the water. I made an omelette with the left over mushrooms, onions and broccolini. Glad we had leftovers.

After breakfast, Mychael decided it would be fun to jump off of the fly bridge. Amanda got a great picture.

Steve Snorkeling

I opted for snorkeling. It was surprisingly good. I saw a wide variety of fish. They were all small but very colorful.  My favorite was a little scrawled boxfish. Here is a link that has numerous pictures of boxfishes. Florida Boxfishes 

It was quite hot and sunny but being on and in the water helped a lot. Then it was time to head back. We wanted to troll on the way back and also stop for fuel and a pump out at Boot Key Harbor.

We caught a nice Cerro Mackerel and a small Jack. The mackerel are good to eat but not the Jack.

We noticed some clouds building as we entered Boot Key Harbor. We got our diesel fuel, pumped out and got ice cream. As we were getting ready to leave we looked to the north and saw three water spouts forming. The two smallest quickly dissipated but the longest one kept growing. 

Water Spout

It was probably 1/4 mile to the north of us. It was not heading toward us but going past East to West. Mychael and Amanda got some great pictures. We don't believe it came ashore but it definitely touched down on the water. Eventually it dissipated.

Dodged the storm

The clouds moved toward us so we decided we better wait to leave. Ten minutes later the clouds rolled over us and dropped a deluge of rain. Fortunately, it ended quickly. Another storm was forecast in 1&1/2 hours. That was about how long it would take to get back to our dock. We decided to head back and just head further out to avoid the next squall if necessary. As it turned out the squall passed north of us so all was good.

0ld 7 mile bridge
 to Pigeon Key

The next day Amanda and Mychael were working. I wanted to ride on the recently restored Seven Mile Bridge. Old Seven Mile Bridge The winds were very low so the water would be very clear, easy to see through 5-10 foot water and see fish, eagles rays, sharks, etc. 

I went early because it was going to be 90 degrees later in the day. It was hot, but riding my bike created a breeze. It was a fun ride.

A new addition was this little train. It picks people up in Marathon and delivers them to Pigeon Key. It is a 2 mile walk so on a hot day it's a nice option.

Amanda invited me to her place for dinner Sunday.  I offered to go to the store to pick up what Mychael needed to make Chicken Alfredo. In the Publix parking lot I saw one of many chickens running loose. I never considered it was dinner! This rooster was making a lot of noise for some reason. The chickens have move up from Key West. Many years ago, after cock fighting was outlawed, the locals turned all the chickens loose in the street. They have thrived ever since and are now protected. It's good to be a chicken in the Keys!

Amanda, Andrew
 and Mychael

Mychael showed me this picture of Andrew, Amanda's son who gave us the grouper. When Andrew is not in school he works on a crab boat or fishes. He apparently loves fishing. 

Mychael was once again doing the cooking, Chicken Alfredo. Amanda made a great salad. Meanwhile, I played with Ollie. He is very friendly and fun. Mychael's chicken Alfredo was made from scratch and the best I ever had.

Ollie

Meanwhile, I played with Ollie. He is very friendly and fun. Mychael's chicken Alfredo was made from scratch and the best I ever had.

Monday morning, Mychael helped me return my car to the storage unit and dropped me off at the car rental where I got a car to drive back up to Fort Lauderdale. I got a good deal on a nice hotel with a great bathtub. My flight on Tuesday was at 10:55am so no need for me to get up early to fly to Manchester. The flights to Manchester were much better than Burlington and my sister Terri said she'd come pick me up. Very nice of her. It's a 2 hour plus drive through the Vermont mountains back to Burlington. I'll be at my sister's until Thursday June 1st. Then it's on to Canada. I'll fly into Toronto where Cindy and Randy offered to pick me up and drive me to their house, it's 3 plus hours away. I am very fortunate to have such great family and friends that make my travelling easier and less expensive. I'll stay with the Peterson family until Guppy is ready to go. The marina is promising the week of June 5th. One can only hope, but it's nice to have friends to stay with until Guppy is in the water.

Guppy