AquaFennatic Great Loop Blog: Cape Haze Florida – Our Southern Home

Jan 22^nd – It was a warm sunny and extremely windy day today. There’s a possibility of a strong and complex storm with dangerous squalls and risk of a tornado. The forecast shows winds gusting to 45 mph (72 kph for my Canadian friends). To prepare for this I wrapped our flags around the flag poles since they were taking a beating. I also ensured my lines and fenders were ready for the blast. Don picked us up this afternoon to continue our tour of the area and then we went to Greg’s and Joanne’s house for football Sunday for lots of food and good company. Of course there was another football pool which we won … Exxxcellent! When we returned back to the boat the tide was so high that the water was almost over the concrete breakwall. Maria could barely get on the boat since the dock was only inches above the water … and it’s not high tide yet … yikes! The winds are high and the boat is blowing around at the dock, however the good news is that the only risk left is that of a thunderstorm. In the middle of the night I had to get up to adjust the lines and fenders since the rubrail of the boat was hitting the posts that we were tied to and making a loud squeaking noise.

Jan 23^rd – It was a warm and extremely windy day with intermittent rain showers. The wind was blowing the boat hard against the dock thus I had to adjust the lines and fenders multiple times throughout the day and we expect that the winds will continue until sometime after midnight. We watched movies today and defrosted the fridge to get ready to get provisions for our trip south. We pick up a rental car tomorrow that we’ll have for the week so we can go shopping, get Amanda at the airport and go to Gulfport for a Looper reunion party. It’s hard to believe that we only have 1 week left at this marina before we start our travels again.

Jan 24^th – It was a warm and sunny day. We picked up a rental car today, a Hyundai Accent, for 1 week. We used the rental to get a couple oil filters for the generator, get some supplies for the boat and get some t-shirts on sale at Bealls. We also called a diver to get our boat bottom cleaned before we leave the marina. I’m hoping to have the equipment to do this myself, however there’s a risk that we won’t be able to purchase the equipment due to the availability of the seller. Our daughter Amanda is flying in in 3 more sleeps, however it looks like the weather may be in the low 60’s … we’re hoping that the weather man is wrong.