Parked in Bradenton Beach Fl. for the winter & maintenance.
Heading home for the holidays!!
Foggy morning sailors.
Tampa Bay Bridge before coming into Bradenton Beach.
So much for snorkeling tonight!
Nephew Brady chill'n with us in Clearwater Beach.
Christmas time at Magic Kingdom with the family.
Ahhhh I love Space Mountain....
My sister Laurie on "It's a small world" ride;
(I am still humming that dang song)?!?!
Yeah Disney really puts on an amazing show for the holidays.
Ahoy everyone!!
Hope everyone is doing well and getting excited for the upcoming holidays! After eating some of the most delicious seafood dishes that the coast has to offer I am ready for some turkey and stuffing; bring it!!! Our family had a spectacular time in Orlando at the time-share that my sister Laurie and brother-in-law Carlo graciously let us enjoy. I also enjoyed time with my nephew Brady. He has such a busy school and sports schedule, I do not get much one-on-one time with him. Even though he cut me off on a turn while driving go-carts and put me into the wall; I got even at the water park convincing him that the straight down water plunge wasn't so bad "WeeeeDoggie"!!!...as Grandpa would say. We all enjoyed the Magic Kingdom for the day and the decoration of the park for the Christmas season is something to see on Main Street. As you can see from the picture, the grand illumination of the castle for the holidays is quite spectacular. For those wondering what the weather is like this time of year, 80 degrees each day with a slight breeze. I would highly recommend this time of the year to see all Disney has to offer (and of course the rates are better being off season). Do not be fooled into thinking that there are any less kids at the Magic Kingdom than in the summer months though hahaha!
We said good-by to family and continued our journey on Saturday the 12th from Clearwater. It was a gorgeous day to travel as we idoled down the Intercoastal Waterway. Due to multi-million dollar residential homes within almost a stones throw from either side of the boat, we did not put many miles on that day only going at idol speed. We then enjoyed the thrill of being on open water again navigating through Tampa Bay with all the beautiful sailboats getting in their last hours of weekend enjoyment before O'le Monday morning work week started once again.
Upon exiting Tampa Bay at Anna Maria Island, we noticed the starboard engine acting up (right side engine). Due to it not sounding quite right, we pulled into Bradenton Beach Marina for that days evening ancorage to check out the engine. Upon inspection, it looks like there will be some engine maintenance to be done. Coupled with a weather front coming in, we will be delayed continuing our travels and we will not be able to reach our projected destination of Jacksonville Fl. before Thanksgiving. We will dock the boat here in Bradenton Beach for the required maintenance to be done and rent a car to head home back to Huntersville NC as soon as we can for the holidays. Tentatively we will pick up our adventure in the spring months before Florida gets stifling hot for the summer season. So in the spring we will be back to plan "A"; which was the original destination, Grand Dunes SC. I will of course send out a blog shout out when we plan to continue on our journey in 2012.
It has been a pleasure writing this blog for all of our followers thus far!! Thank you so much for being part of the first phase of this trip and we love all the compliments and good laughs from friends and family outside of the blog!! A special thanks to Mom and family for their support or we wound not even be able to "live the dream" as Dad would put it. My father and I have had an amazing time doing this trip together so far and there were countless times I wished that all my friends and family could have been on board with us but it only sleeps six hahaha! So for now, we bid farewell to the seemingly endless winding rivers, exciting trips across the bays with the sea spray in our face, the dolphins and porpoise swimming along side us and playing in our wake, the friendly people of all the marinas that we frequented, and of course the vessel S.S. Lin II for keeping us safe during her long hard days and sometimes rough seas. Enjoy your holidays and family everyone! We will be back on board soon and catch up then....Live, Laugh, Love!!!
Navigator (and galley chef) Bradd and Capt'n Steve
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