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| The park and riverwalk across from our marina |
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| A beautiful sunset on the St Johns River |
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| Beating the rain! |
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| Happy Birthday Mikey! |
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| All the snorkelers in the 72 degree water! The cave is just to the right |
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| This area was beautiful |
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| The walkway through Blue Springs Park |
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| Blue Springs flows into the St Johns River |
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| I love the Spanish Moss |
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| Yes, Mikey can read but he floated the river anyway! |
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| Huge gar among others |
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| Turtle sunning himself - you can't see it here but an alligator was just to his left |
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| He's in there - you just have to look close |
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| Fourth of July! |
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| Wonderful fireworks - watching from NautiNell |
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| Wow! |
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| Okay so this is what they call the "beach" on the river! |
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| We made the best of it! |
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| Swamp Grille - great place! |
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| "Motorboating" on the river |
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| He just struck a pose! |
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| Couldn't believe how close he let me get! |
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| Poolside at Docktails - can you see the storm brewing? |
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| One of the gators that greeted us at "Gators Riverside Grille" |
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| This is our resident gator here in the harbor |
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| This guy was at Gators too. |
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| Mike checking out the river - thanks to Ray and Linda for the photo |
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| Oops! Dinghy down! |
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| Working on bringing her up |
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| She's floating again! |
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| Botanical Garden walkway |
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| It was so pretty here in the gardens |
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| There were so many roses it was hard to decide which picture to use |
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| Giant Floral Clock |
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| View of the lake in the Gardens |
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| So peaceful and serene |
We arrived tired but happy to be back on NautiNell night
late Wednesday night (June 25) after a long two day drive in the “Silver
Bullet”. Thursday was Pam’s first full
day on the boat. We spent it with Ray
and Linda bar-hopping. Big Surprise! We hit the West End Brewing Co (two for one
drinks) first then on to the Fat Rats which is next of Shantell’s. It rained off and on – so we ducked in to the
bar called Little Fish Huge Pond. Now
this was a weird one. I’m saying it was
so weird that we just kept movin’!
Remind me to tell you sometime about this bar. Can’t put it into words! J We ended up at the First Street Bar and then
on to dinner at Christo’s. I highly
recommend Christo’s for dinner and most certainly dessert! Definitely going back there!
Ray and Linda went back home to Murphy on Friday so we were
on our own. It was a pretty lazy
day. We were going to take a dinghy ride
but a storm came up. Little did we know
that this was going to become the “norm”.
Rain Rain Rain! Pam and I did
find the Mall one day though. Had a fun
day shopping!
As the days passed we did find things to do. We just had to plan them around the
rain. We took the dinghy over to Gators Riverside
Bar and Grill – a great little place on the river. We saw several gators along the way – and
they were hanging around the dinghy dock when we were tying up. That’s a little unnerving! This place has good food, cold beer and a fun
band! What more could you want? Just so you know we went back again later
on. Only this time a storm moved in
while we were there. We had to wait out
the storm – wind and lightening. It
moved out pretty fast so we ended up having a great ride back home. Lucky for us!
The bugs did come back for a visit! At least not as bad as they were when we were
traversing the river. It’s become a
habit for Mike though to wash down the boat every morning. They just seem to be everywhere! We were told they would be back if we had a
north wind. Even though it’s not common
to have a north wind in the summer – we managed to have one pretty much for a whole
week!
We decided it was time to take a road trip! SO we took the silver bullet to Orlando for
the day. First stop was West
Marine. Of course, that seems to be on
every boater’s list. We had lunch at the
Brick House and visited the Church Street Station area. There wasn’t much going on at either place –
probably because it was a Monday afternoon and it was “raining”! It did let up for a while so we managed to
visit the Harry P Leu Gardens (Botanical).
Pam and I really enjoyed it – Mike stayed in the car. Oh well, you can’t please everyone. This beautiful garden consists of over 50
acres. The Leu family was very active in
the building of central Florida. They
donated their home to the City of Orlando and it is now a museum on the grounds
open to the public. It was so peaceful
and serene. We were told that there are
several weddings and receptions held there.
In fact, our very own Ray and Linda were married there!
After the Botanical Gardens, we made a change in pace and
headed to the Orlando Brewery. This was a neat little place in the industrial
part of town. They had several different
type of beers. They give free tours of
the brewery every night – EXCEPT on the 30th of each month. Can you guess what the date of today
was? You’re right – the 30th! This is their special party date – “Beer
Thirty”! There are several specials but
no tour. Oh well, maybe we’ll hit it
again some other time.
On our way back home we stopped at Jax Fifth Avenue Deli and
Ale House in Lake Mary. Don’t let the
name fool you – there’s no deli! But
there are 60 different beers on tap!
Nice place - will definitely be back here too!
Tropical Store Arthur (soon to be Hurricane Arthur) is wreaking
havoc on our plans! We’re not getting
the actual storm but we’re getting the rain!
We had planned to go to the beach and to a minor league ballgame in
Daytona but had to change our plans. So
we settled on $1.00 tacos and $4 pitchers at the American Legion and then a
ballgame in Sanford. The team is the Sanford
River Rats and play in the Florida College Summer League. It was fun and cheap! AND we didn’t get rained out!
On Thursday (July 3) we celebrated Mikey’s birthday! We grilled ribs for dinner. It was another lazy day - thanks to Arthur stirring up the lake we were
stuck on land. Surely things will change
around soon. At least the wind has
switched to the south so the bugs are about gone.
Okay so it’s Friday, July 4 and
it’s really slow around here. I’m not
sure we’ve ever been in a marina as quiet as this one on such a big
holiday. We are used to lots of things
going on – boats going in and out of the marina and parties going on. Not here!
Hardly any more people here than usual.
Only one exception – MaryAnn who has a 75 foot houseboat on the end of
our dock invited us over to her boat for a party. There were about 40 people there to watch the
fireworks. The fireworks are set off
here at the marina only about 150 feet from our boat. The Harbor shuts down about 8:00 p.m. and
doesn’t reopen till about 11:00 p.m. And believe me there are plenty patrol
boats out there to be sure you don’t try to sneak in or out! Needless to say we had a great spot on the
front of our boat to watch the fireworks.
We also had a water hose ready just in case. Good thing the wind was blowing the right
direction and away from our boat. The City
of Sanford put on a spectacular show of fireworks. We weren’t disappointed!
Finally it looked
like we’d have a good weather day so we ventured out in the dinghy back north
on the St Johns. We went quite a ways to
the area the locals call “the beach”.
Not really much of a beach – but more like a little mud area where you
can beach your boat. Being the day after
the holiday it was a busy place. We
finally saw where “everyone” was hanging out.
We found a place called Swamp Bar and Grille for lunch. They had wonderful gator tacos. Now I’ve heard of fish tacos but this one was
a first. It was a pretty cool place once
you find it. It turned out to be a
beautiful sunny day and we saw lots of gators lurking about. On the way back we stopped at Docktails
Lounge at Boat Tree Marina. This is the
place where you can hang out in their pool too.
We definitely wanted to get in the pool and cool off. It was a bit crowded but very
refreshing. THEN we noticed the clouds
were building - a storm was forming. We
stayed awhile longer until we THOUGHT the stormed had passed around us. The problem was we still had to cross Lake
Monroe. The storms had pretty much
passed but the winds followed. We
decided to give it a try and if it was too rough we’d just turn around. It turns out that MaryAnn was there too with
her boat – a bit bigger than ours. She
had decided to leave at the same time.
Lucky for us! Pam got in with her
and her bunch and Mike and I rode it out in the dinghy. The waves were at least 3 foot and very bumpy
– whitecapping big time! We tried to
stay in her wake but we still were getting a ride! I held on like I was riding a rodeo bull. Longest
eight seconds ever! Heehaw! We bounced and banged for what seemed like
forever. Finally we all made it back
safe and sound. Everyone in MaryAnn’s
boat was drenched since she was breaking the waves. We stayed pretty much dry but were definitely
worn out! We had only been back in
NautiNell a few minutes when the skies opened up and it began pouring! We received 3.5 inches of rain in just a few
hours and the lightening was crazy! In
between storms Mike would go out and check our whaler and also on Ray and
Linda’s dinghy. The last time he went
out to check he found that their dinghy had sunk – motor and all. It was still hanging by the cables attached
to their boat but it was just barely sticking its nose out of the water.
First thing to do Sunday morning was to recover Dear Abbie
(Ray and Linda’s dinghy). They were
still out of town so we needed to take care of it for them. It wasn’t an easy task and it took quite a
while but we managed to get it back up and floating. Luckily Mike knew what to do with the motor –
having sunk at least one before……. J Luckily the rain held off until we got it
done because after that it rained pretty much all day. We were able to walk over to the Riverwalk
Pizza and enjoy a good pizza. Linda made
it back in time to join us. I think she
was anxious to check on things with Second Noelle.
Monday was another beautiful day so we decided to make the
best of it before the rain would come.
We headed to Blue Springs State Park – by car. This is a very pretty area where the water is
spring fed and it is a crisp 72 degrees!
This spring discharges 104 million gallons of water daily into the St
Johns River. We saw several gators and
there were also manatee. There is also a
cave that can be explored underwater that goes down 130 feet. It was crystal clear water around the cave –
a little murky the closer you get to the St Johns – more gators too. Mike
floated down the river – I just couldn’t get myself motivated enough to
completely get in the cold water. Maybe
next time if it’s a hotter day. We got
home just in time to head to Jax again for happy hour. Good planning!
Pam and I made the most of her last day here. We did some more shopping and stopped at a
great little donut shop “Donuts To Go”.
I think I may be hooked. Anyway
we also made one last dinghy ride back to Gators for dinner. It was a nice trip but we did have to wait
out a storm before we could return back to the boat. Big surprise to everyone! NOT!
I hope that Pam enjoyed her stay as much as I did. It was a short two weeks. Now we’re preparing for a visit from our
friends Dick and Debbie. They’ll be here
around the 20th of July and are staying a few days. We’re staying here in Sanford till at least
the end of July. After that we’ll see…..
We are tentatively planning to head back
north to Jacksonville the first of August – but who knows.
Till next time!
Admiral “C”
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