Wednesday Feb 6: Where to Begin?

Today: 8 new knuckles and a screw fused in each thumb!
Like new hands - what an amazing thing :-)

Probably the best place to begin is at the end. We returned from a trip back to the Cleveland Clinic in Coral Springs today after seeing Dr. Friedman for what we thought would be the last visit.

Turns out he wants one last x-ray to verify the thumb fusion on the right hand has totally finished healing. In the meantime he ok'd me to stop wearing the splint that has been my main accessory since December :-)

But light duty only he said. Steve is taking that to mean doing dishes is fine!!

March 2017: Left hand with thumb and 1 working finger. Right
hand with 4 new knuckles but still a bad thumb

Dec 2016: Both hands had a working
thumb and 1 working finger

It's been an interesting trip - starting in Jan 2017 and soon to be ending in March 2019!

The award for the most support through out this 2 year long process goes of course to Steve. I never heard even a hint of displeasure at having to tie my shoes, do the cooking AND cleaning up the dishes, helping me get dressed when needed, making the 2 1/2 drives to the Clinic for surgeries or checkups, the hour drives to Key West for the hand therapy and basically making the care of this boat and Guppy into a one person job - his.

So that's the end of the story. Backing up a few days: we were FINALLY able to head out for a couple of days to anchor out and enjoy the best weather of the past month.

You know it's cold when Steve had his knitted socks (gift from daughter Wendy) along with a heater up on the flybridge with all of the plasic up!

It was quite a few nights this past month that drove us to the enclosed flybridge for docktails as this was the coldest, windiest Jan ever!

But finally, we were able to enjoy the sunny, calm mid to high seventies for a few days on the bayside.

After leaving Saturday about noon, we were about 5 miles from Banana Bay when the dolphins showed up! There were four of them having fun in the bow wave or in the wave along either side of the boat.

Steve saw what must have been a baby as they were in the very front of the boat.

We continued to travel west to the selected anchorage of Bahia Honda.

Randy and Cindy arrived first (thanks for the picture!!) and found the "sand bar" which was already several inches under water.

Dennis and Lois on Mystified joined us for the overnight as well. Everyone was on the sand bar at one point or another even though the longer we spend on the sand bar the more in the water we were! Umbrellas came out as the day wore on and the sun was really strong.

Randy, Cindy, Gigit and Cricket arrive for docktails.

The day was finished off on Yesterday's Dream flybridge as docktails started on time just after 5 pm.

Wind was predicted to be very low overnight - which it was! So peaceful and being more away from the light pollution of Marathon made the stars more visible than we've seen in quite some time.

The morning was so peaceful ....

And off they went to go fishing under the bridge! Steve, Cindy and Lois were after whatever they could catch! It was so nice being anchored so close to the highway bridge near the state park.


It was a good day for fishing as it turned out! Two Porgies, excellent eating, a Mangrove snapper and 3 grunts. All are very tasty for eating and with the electric knife, Steve has become very proficient cleaning them quickly!


Sunday the anchor was up and off we went to the docks at Bahia Honda State Park - it was, after all, Superbowl night and we needed to be tied up in order to watch the game.

We lowered our mast but Randy and Cindy thought they would be fine. So we carefully monitored their progress under the bridge - no problem with clearance!!

The super bowl was a dud as far as we thought. Just not terribly interesting but we had splurged with our eating habits and had a pizza :-)  All was good ....

Hurricane Irma in Sept 2017 really devastated this area. The marina never even opened last year and the grounds took a huge hit.

Steve went to a ranger talk where the woman (who has been at this park 18 years) talked about the impact being greater than any other hurricane that has come through in that time.

The ocean side beach and it's onshore mangroves were simply gone. Whether the mangroves will begin growing again is unknown.

The beach on the ocean side was covered with sea grass and a sign nearby explained why.

The ranger had also explained why the seagrass is so important to the area along the shore returning to it's previous state.

We've had lots of manatee visitors to the marina this winter - seems like more than usual but probably not!


There were a number of fishing trips from the marina to the seven-mile bridge. Steve and Cindy were headed out this day - can't remember if this was a good day or not but for the most part, the trips were successful!




When Steve wasn't fishing this month, he was working on a couple of soft spots on the deck. It's a very time consuming process since each layer of fiberglass has to harden before being able to add the next layer.

Eventually the layers are built up enough to be level with the rest of the deck.



These places on the deck will be finished off using raptor truck-bedliner - the end result will look great! And won't leak :-)













Coolest fish caught this past month? A hogfish caught by Cindy. Excellent to eat but sadly not big enough so back it went :-)

Monday January 7: It's Always Nice to be Back

What a surprise! We arrived back at the boat on Dec 31 when it was just getting to be dusk.

On the hand hold railing of the aft deck was a red ribbon - our Christmas gift from Sharon :-) Not only was the teak on this hand hold sanded and completely finished, but the whole starboard and aft railings and gunnel's were finished with six coats of cetol! And the green tape was all removed as well.

Truly a gift from the heart - even if Sharon loves doing teak, this was truly above and beyond :-)

I think Santa needs to find a gift for Sharon!

It really was nice to be back to the boat though.




The Franko reunion in Cleveland wonderful. So many of the children of our nieces and nephews that we had never met along with some of the extended families that we hadn't seen in almost 10 years!

This family - all beginning with Steve's parents John and Julia Franko in Cleveland, Ohio - now ranges west from Washington to California and east from Vermont to Florida and everywhere in between :-) And I must say not a bad one in the bunch!!

We were back just a few days before Randy and Cindy and of course Gigit and Cricket on Love You More arrived.

They are docked next to us and finally it feels like things are really right with the world :-)

The weather has been great - sometimes more wind than is necessary but Steve put the plastic up on the flybridge and it works great.





It was nice enough that Steve was able to be out fishing under the bridge for an afternoon - with good success. A big plus was that the shark was not keeping him company :-)

He managed to land two nice mangrove snappers, one yellowtail snapper and one porgy! Definitely fresh fish for dinner :-)







We've seen many manatee around the marina lately. Cindy spotted two of them reaching for the fresh water which was dripping off of the boat as Steve was cleaning the walk around deck.

They do love the fresh water. Sadly the manatee begin to associate fresh water with boats and marinas - which in turn puts them in harms way.

Almost all of the manatee have scars on their backs from propellers from boats. It's actually illegal to give manatees fresh water for this reason.

Over the holidays we also had an opportunity to have lunch with 2 of my 4 brothers - and with Donna Spreng! She's our sister-in-laws mom and is always fun to see :-)

A gift from her was four snowman who now live on our freezer :-)

I think they will just live there year round :-) A reminder of Christmas is always a good thing!


Tomorrow is a trip to Ft. Lauderdale for a checkup for my hand. An ex-ray to make sure the bone is growing around the screw that was in place to fuse the joint that is causing all of the problem.

Before

After

I know it may not look a lot different but it sure feels a lot better :-)

Another a month with a splint and this hand should be done!!!

Tuesday December 25: Merry Christmas!

We left Yesterday's Dream last Monday decorated for the holidays and flew to San Diego to spend Christmas with our daughters and son-in-law.


Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Linda, Steve, Wendy, Matt, Rebecca, Trevi and London

Leaving today for a visit to Ohio and in a week gratefully returning to the warmth of the Florida Keys :-)

Thursday December 13: Teak Repair 101

Surgery last Friday went very well. Thursday we had driven to a hotel 15 minutes from the clinic since I was to be at the outpatient desk at 7 am to check in. Definitely better than leaving Marathon at 4 am to make the 3 hour drive to the clinic!

The wait for the surgery etc. was longer than we thought it would be but we were still back to the boat by 5 pm.

It was very nice to be welcomed home with flowers and chocolates - thanks to Sharon on Stevedore. She is always so thoughtful :-)

The work has stopped for me for the time being but Steve continues.

Before we drove north Steve decided the headlights on the cruiser needed attention. Seems that we rarely drive at night down here so old yellowed headlights are not a big deal.   

 But if we were held up with my surgery and ended up needing to come back after dark it would not have been pretty!


So he bought a kit to restore the plastic. 4 steps to polish and clean using the drill. It actually worked great! Now if someone would just wash that car :-)

Talk about that good feeling you get when a dramatic change happens that is so visible!

On to the next job: fix the last remaining damage from Hurricane Irma. There was just one more rather small chunk out of the gunnel teak that just didn't get done last year - definitely very low on the priority list compared to the whole front port railing being gone!

Steve has learned a LOT about how to fix this kind of damage from Randy on Love You More. He and Cindy are still up in the frozen tundras of Ontario but they will be headed this way before too long. Randy will be impressed with how well his student Steve had done :-)

Use jig saw to remove bad piece

Step 1: Use the multi tool saw to remove the damaged area

Fill seam with epoxy and sawdust mixture.

Step 2: Screw the new wood on and fill the seam with a mixture of slow cure epoxy and sawdust.

Sand smooth. Repeat.

Step 3: sand smooth. Fill and repeat until it looks great!!

In the meantime Sharon has been working away with the final sanding of the gunnel teak and Steve has taped the wood off - getting ready for the final step: multiple layers of the cetol finish!!

This will have to wait for the weather to get a bit warmer though.

It's been unseasonably cool for the last few days with strong north-west winds. Of course when I say cool, I use the term loosely as cool means it was in the 60's :-)

Gary, Karen, Linda, Sharon and Stephen

But it was cold enough to force docktails to take place on the flybridge - with a small heater to add a little warmth to cut those north winds!

Steve and Skip.

Sure am happy that the last thing Steve 'made' me construct in the basement of our house were the pieces for the flybridge plastic!







Natalie joined us as well :-)

Wednesday December 5: Happy Birthday!

Today is Steve's birthday! There will be a celebration dinner tonight but right now it's docktail time so he's up on the flybridge putting the plastic enclosure up.

It's quite windy and cool (can you say jeans?) but then it's going to be like this for the next week so might as well have someplace to hide from the wind :-)

This past week has again been one of mostly working on the teak and a couple of other projects.

Sharon with heat gun and scraper.

       Once the teak has been sanded, it's time for the Cetol to be put on. Three coats so far on the port railings - maybe more to come. Sharon says she puts 6 coats on so maybe that's what we'll (translate: Steve) will do. The teak on Stevedore always looked good!

Sharon has been back and working like a lady possessed. I just don't understand how it can be that much fun as she terms it. I mean I get that the results of your work are so visible but still .....

Maybe some day I will long for that sense of accomplishment but in the meantime? Welcome aboard, Sharon :-)






Another major project started was the repair of a soft spot in the walk around deck. Something else that was done 10 years ago!

Steve working on covering the
decks in 2008.

The original teak decks on the boat were so sanded down and leaking beyond repair that we decided to simply cover the decks with plywood and fiberglass.

It had worked well but at some point water was able to make it's way into the plywood with the result being a few soft areas in the deck. One spot in particular needed to be repaired.

First step then was to grind and cut the fiberglass and rotted plywood. Next seal the cut edges with JB Waterweld to seal the cut edges of the plywood.

Since this is a work in progress, we'll update when the next step in the process (fiberglassing) begins. Maybe next week!

Meanwhile the bases of the stools in the cabin were showing the effects of the saltwater environment - very rusty.

Solution? Clean with steel wool and spray paint.

Like new :-)

And if that wasn't enough, I finally finished all of the new screens for the windows and Steve put on the snaps.

He did a nice job fitting the covers so there weren't any sags or wrinkles in the finished product!



They look so much better :-)

And Sharon continues working her way around the boat - now at the sanding phase. The first phase was to use a heat gun and scraper to remove the old finish.

But it's not all work and no play! Steve was able to go out fishing two days this week!

It always depends on the winds as to whether or not he goes. If it's less than 5 mph - off he goes. For the next week and a half there will be no fishing as the winds will be over 10 mph.

Go when you can is what I say - work on the boat will wait :-)
     

Pretty good two days of fishing although he couldn't fish in his favorite spot because of the shark again.

Talk about a freeloader! It waits until the fish is hooked - then the shark can easily catch and eat it :-)







So tomorrow the Clinic will call and let me know when to be there for my thumb surgery. Hopefully I'm scheduled early in the day on Friday - we can go up on Thursday, go to a show and spend an enjoyable night at a hotel near the Clinic.