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Monday, February 1, 2016

Almost time to move on



It's almost time to move on. We've been taking full advantage of our week here in the marina. It's nothing much to blog about, doing laundry, using the decent wifi, running errands, checking out the local entertainment.

Everything is a bit more complicated when living on a boat. Yesterday my lovely wife took the bus down island to a pharmacy to get a prescription filled. Today I took the bus to Publix to resupply our provisions. Usually by the time we have the local transportation system figured out, it's time to move on. Tomorrow we'll top off our drinking water and fuel.

We originally planned to duck in here for a few days to sit out the nasty weather. However, it was less expensive to pay the weekly rate than for three individual nights. The problem with Fort Myers Beach is that it's a tourist town with a lot of bars and restaurants -plus all the beach gear you could ever need or want. The beach gear I can pretty much do without. I've already got swim shorts and flip flops. We do love good food and live music, so the budget has taken a hit.

One of the things we've been doing the last few days has been figuring out our cruising break. Last year my lovely wife booked a short cruise to the Bahamas -long before we bought our current boat. Yes, we are going to stop cruising to go on a cruise.

Things get convoluted. My lovely wife and I will sail to Fort Myers as there's a bus station within walking distance of the harbor. She'll take the bus to northern Florida and get our car. While she's doing that I'll sail to another location to leave the boat in a protected area. She'll meet me at that location. It's taken a while to figure out what to do.

Public transportation in the United States is a sad patchwork mess. At one time there was bus service to just about any town in America. Now . . . not so much. Forget train service. If you don't have a car in this country, you are pretty much out of luck. Our problem is that we aren't full time live aboards, but only part timers. If we could just stay on the water, we'd only have to deal with cruiser issues. Being part time landlubbers requires us to be amphibians, neither fish nor fowl.

-Sixbears

7 comments:

  1. Is there any room for a three wheel bike on board ? Some of those have pretty good hauling capacity if it has a rear basket. Then again, many small towns do not have bicycle traffic lanes (or even sidewalks) so that may be a issue.

    When spending vacation time in Las Vegas, we used the public busses to get around. It took some of our time away from getting to destination now, but saved parking hassles immensely and we got to meet some 'interesting characters' along the way.

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    1. No room at all. This is a small boat. Besides, salt eats bikes.

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  2. I never could figure out a decent place for a regular two wheel bike, let alone a 3 Wheeler, and our boat was much larger than bears.
    Wow...we used to figure that one cruise ship fare for two, would buy about three months worth of traveling in our sailboat in the islands. Plus you get to set the itinerary !

    Too each his own, have fun !!!

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  3. I never could figure out a decent place for a regular two wheel bike, let alone a 3 Wheeler, and our boat was much larger than bears.
    Wow...we used to figure that one cruise ship fare for two, would buy about three months worth of traveling in our sailboat in the islands. Plus you get to set the itinerary !

    Too each his own, have fun !!!

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    Replies
    1. My lovely wife booked this without my knowledge. It's not my thing. Rather sail my own boat over. Next year.

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  4. Wow!! Going on a cruise. That is like the mailman taking a hike on his day off. Oh, I forgot, mailmen don't walk anymore.

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