Old Reliable

The morning waters reflected like mirrors in the stillness of the warm Florida sunshine. Birds of every colour and calling grazed for jumping fish and insects, whilst my husband attempted to photograph the essence of stillness. It made for an incredible canvas, and at times like these I wish we had 2 SLRs. But with 1 SLR and another point and shoot, I was satisfied to capture what I could from a different angle and in my own style. After a lovely breakfast, we started the days journey slowly meandering around the Island. At this point, Patrick noticed a sudden increase in the engine temperature. When he went to check it out, the radiator neck snapped off the engine cowling. Uh oh. That can’t be good, were my thoughts. After tossing around ideas about what we could do, Patrick called his friend Roger for some suggestions. No concrete suggestions came his way (apart from JB Weld, which he didn’t have onboard), so with a still strong cellphone signal and battery charge, he ended up calling Towboat US (similar to AAA, but for boats) and asking for their tow assistance. Within 45 minutes, a little tugboat had reached us and we were hooked up to Captain Orley’s ride, ready to make the 6-9 hour adventure north.

The day had us passing through 9 suspension bridges, admiring the scenery along the whole waterway. If the spans were to be navigated on one’s own accord, it would mean passing through either at designated times or with an advance call to the bridge & tower master. With having a towboat Captain at the helm, we were ushered through each ‘checkpoint’ readily, quick like stealth bunnies. Giant houses / properties, expensive boats and marina toys lined the shoals, whilst a vast variety of exotic birds spent their time sunning their outstretched wings wherever they could find a perch, today being another mild and sunny blue skied day.  Because we were pretty much on auto-pilot for the duration, the boys were able to enjoy morning, afternoon and evening beverages, entertaining themselves throughout the trip. I pretty much spent my whole day either writing postcards or photographing the journey. I had such fuN!.

Our arrival that night wasn’t until well past dark, and the marina that we docked at was locked up, meaning we could drop off the boat. But this also meant that we would need external transport to get us back to the Sarasota Marina. Lucky for us, Captain Orley didn’t mind being of service in taxiing us to our port of call. What a long wonderful day (not so great for Patrick’s pocketbook – – engine repairs could be in the $1000’s). Luckily Patrick’s entire tow journey was covered with his premium insurance. Phew!