Previously, back in November, Jimi
left me in Nebraska while he finished out the Rediscover America Tour by
himself. When he arrived back to the boat yard in Florida, where Sanibel slept,
in mid-November he got started right away with boat projects. Among his lists were
fiberglass repair on the rudder, the creation of a secondary battery bank,
fixing the outboard engine, selling unused boat parts and new bottom paint. He
allowed himself about a month to complete them all.
On December 16th he
launched Sanibel back to her natural habitat. Jimi and Sanibel sailed up to
Fort Meyers, where on December 22nd they picked up lifetime friends
Juraj and Matt. Both of whom have been out to visit previously. The three men
spent two weeks together; they sailed, fished and ate. Juraj and Matt flew back
to Denver on January 5th.
Juraj's photo of them going through a bridge.
A shrimp dish Juraj cooked on Sanibel.
Juraj's sunset photo.
The guys sailing Sanibel.
Meanwhile in Nebraska, I had been
staying with my parents, sister and daughter. I got involved in the local
church activities, at least as much as my injured back would allow and
otherwise, I was mostly laying on my back usually knitting something for
Christmas. I went crazy with knitting Christmas presents and loved every minute
of it.
My daughter, Jennifer, when we went to the dinosaur museum in Hays, Kansas.
Regarding my back, I started out by
seeing a Chiropractor, but didn’t see the results I’d wanted and quit going. I
went through two bottles of prescription muscle relaxers with no long term fix,
I tried sciatica nerve exercises, a tennis ball and an inversion table. None
really seemed to show me any signs of improvement…or so I thought. Looking back
on the long term, there has been improvement, I’m just not sure what helped. I
can at least sit up for longer periods and lay on my right side now. I’m still
very careful not to twist or lift, as I still have some pain.
On January 9th, I hitched
a ride with my long time BFF, Melody. She moved to the pan handle of Florida
and offered to take me home. Though I was a little worried about riding in the
moving truck for three days, it had to be done. Melody, her dog, Mali, and I
were in the Penske truck while her daughter, Summer, and friend, Cicero, were
in Melody’s car. The trip went well. We arrived in Destin, Florida Monday
afternoon about 3pm CST.
At this point Jimi realized it was
too daunting to sail North to Destin to retrieve me, so he turned around and
headed South. He spent the next several days, sometimes sailing non-stop
overnight, to get Sanibel back to the boat yard. He put her on the dock and
then drove the van to Destin. He arrived on January 13th. We spent
the evening with Melody and her peeps and then we drove back down to Sanibel the
next day.
Reunited…so now what? Well, we stayed
on the dock a couple of nights, so I could unpack, do laundry and
re-implement some female organization to Sanibel’s interior.
We left the dock on Saturday the 16th,
motoring just a couple of miles up the canal and anchoring in a very protected
pond like area. And it’s a good thing we did. We were hit the gale force winds.
In the middle of the night Sanibel blew over on her side, but as we are a
“weeble wobble and don’t fall down”, she popped right back up leaving us a mess
inside to clean up. That weather band that came through Florida was a nasty
one. It caused a lot of destruction and lost lives. We were so grateful to be
in the protected pond.
A couple of days later we motored
rest of the canal to the lock. When we arrived at the lock there was a long
line of boats trying to leave. Come to find out a boat with the same draft as
us tried to go through the lock and got stuck on the other side. The storm
pushed so much water out that it was only about four feet deep and we draw
close to five. Therefore, we anchored and waited it out. High tide would be at
midnight, but Jimi decided to attempt it at sunset, around 6pm; luckily we made
it through.
At the lock. Jimi decided to paddle to check the depth for himself.
Goofy Jimi - excited he made it without falling in to the Alligator infested waters.
After confirming it was too shallow for us, he paddled back to Sanibel.
We sailed the next two hours to Charlotte
Harbor. This is where it all began for us three years ago. We met up with our
New York friends, Gary and Judy on S/V Cool Runnings and have been here since.
We encountered another blow over the
past weekend. Jimi moved Sanibel to a more protected area for that blow too.
When we woke the next morning Sanibel was proudly sitting straight up on the
bottom of the ocean. It was low-low tide and with Sanibel’s wide and long keel,
she just sat there without tipping over. After a couple of hours the water rose
and we were able to move back to the Punta Gorda side of the channel.
Sunset as we left our friend's boat in Fisherman's Village.
