We’re Ba-ack!

Well…I didn’t do such a great job of updating the blog last winter, so let’s see if I can do better this time around! We’ve been on the boat now since the middle of November, but finally just crossed to Bimini on February 16^th, so thought it was about time I let you all know what we’ve been up to since arriving in Florida.

After a 17 hour drive from Michigan, our first stop, of course, was a quick visit with our parents. We hadn’t seen my parents since early May and Jim’s mom since July, so it was great to see them again, even if it was only for a few hours. We were off again the next day to be reunited with Radio Waves in Indiantown. We knew she was still standing after the hurricane (Irma), but didn’t know if she had sustained any damage, so were quite anxious to get back to her.

The outside of the boat was just as filthy as it had been last fall when we returned, and that I could deal with. The hot, humid, Florida summers cause a film of green mildew to accumulate, and in addition, sugar cane is burned in nearby fields and the ash lands and builds up on the boats at Indiantown. The inside was another story. We were thinking there might be some water damage to the floors if any driving rains from Irma had made their way in, or possibly some mildew. Fortunately, the little bit of water that did make its way in didn’t cause any damage, and there was only minimal mildew, so I guess my time spent wiping everything down with vinegar last spring was time well spent. What totally caught us off guard though was the rat shit that was EVERYWHERE! Yup…a rat family (or two!) took up residence while we were gone and partied like rock-stars. We didn’t even know where to start with the cleanup. I cried. I thought I was gonna puke. I whined to my friends. I told them to send plane fare because I’d rather deal with winter in Michigan than the mess on our boat. They talked me off the cliff and we got busy cleaning and disinfecting every little nook and cranny.

We couldn’t for the life of us figure out how rats had gotten on-board and then realized that they must have scurried up the hurricane tie-down ratchet straps, so we took those off as quickly as we could and began our war on rats. It also appeared that once we’d arrived back at the boat, the rats were leaving during the day and returning at night (via the ratchet straps). Since we were living on the hard in the storage yard at this point, we were using a ladder to get in and out of the boat, so every night we also started pulling the ladder up on board behind us, just in case rats know how to climb ladders. We weren’t taking any chances! We only ever actually trapped one and we’d had a total of 18 traps set up throughout the boat! I’m sure there’d been more than one of the little rodents at some point, but I guess we must’ve scared the rest of them away…

Rats can wreak havoc on a boat, chewing through wires and other important parts, but apparently we’d left enough other tasty chewables on board for their enjoyment and they left all of the boat parts alone! Well…with the exception of our bimini which I had to patch up a bit. The things they chewed through were so odd though. We had left a brand new, unopened bottle of lime juice on board. Wonder what they thought when they made it through that one! Apparently they like ramen noodles because they devoured the one package we’d left on the boat. I’m guessing they ate the ramen before they chewed through the lime juice…if not, they ate lime flavored ramen. Wasabi powder is obviously not one of their preferred foods…they stopped as soon as they made their way through that cardboard container! Trail mix, on the other hand, is apparently quite tasty if you’re a rodent. The purple foam covering my weighted hula hoop (see cover photo) seemed to be a rat favorite as well… Sigh.

Since there was no way we could possibly prepare food on-board amidst our Ratatouille fiasco, it was fortunate that we’d arrived at Indiantown Marina just in time for their annual Thanksgiving Rendezvous festivities, provided totally free of charge to all of us at the marina. We missed the kickoff party on Saturday night when they’d had a Beatles tribute band, but on our first night back we were treated to a catered dinner and JessLee, a country singer who performed with her band. Those who know me well know that I’m a country girl at heart (I even lugged around a pair of cowboy boots our first season as liveaboards!), so I was thrilled, especially when she sang two Kacey Musgraves songs, including Follow Your Arrow, which I’ve kinda adopted as my theme song. I was a happy camper and temporarily forgot about the rodent situation back at the boat. We didn’t realize it at the time, but this night was the start of what would quickly morph into a group of great peeps affectionately known as the Indiantown Marina Party Posse, which deserves a blog post of its own!

The third party provided by the marina included wine tasting, beer, hors d’oeuvres, sandwiches and more live music with lots of dancing. And last, but not least, was the Thanksgiving feast on Thursday afternoon. The spread included appetizers, salads, rolls, acorn squash, ham, potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, green beans with almonds, cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffing, carrots, lots of pies, and of course, the star of the show, turkey! Once again, there was live music, a four piece jazz quartet, if memory serves me right. The only thing that could have made things better would have been if they’d had whipped cream. I mean, come on…what’s pie without whipped cream?!? What’s Thanksgiving without whipped cream?!? Note to self…buy some to take next year! Seriously bummed that we never took any pictures of the festivities. I think we were always too busy eating, drinking, talking, and dancing (well…not Jim!) to even think about snapping a few pics, but fortunately some of our new friends got a few they’re letting me share here!

And that about sums up our first week back in Florida! Now that we’re back, and I’m bound and determined to be more timely with these posts…is there anything you’d like to know? Do you have questions about something on our boat? About us? About our travels? If we get enough questions, I’ll throw together a post with our answers. Until next time!