Best Life

  Downtown looks deserted but there were quite a few people.  The high today -58 degrees!  After dropping off the car, we walked back to the marina.  Warm enough to shed my coat and work up a sweat.  We stopped at McK's for lunch with friends.  The friends - great to see and catch up.  The food and service - not so great.  But eating outside in the sun - priceless, especially after being cold for many days! I think we have chosen well as tomorrow for a departure date.  Tonight's low temp - 40.  Up almost 10 degrees from last night.  And tomorrow's high temp - 68!  It probably won't feel it on the water but any morning with no ice on the deck and water lines that are not frozen - is a good thing.   A few housekeeping items - I gave Paul a haircut, vacuumed the floors, took hot showers and emptied the trash. The plan - fill our water and fuel tanks, empty our waste tank and head south in the morning.  

A Waning Gibbous moon tonight.  (Full moon last night - 99% tonight.)  The sky is cloudless and the water is calm.  And the low of 33 predicted is technically above freezing!   I have found a thermometer and intend to measure just how cold our bedroom gets.  According to Google, one can see one's breath between 45 and 60 degrees.  We can see our breath in the bedroom and master bathroom - I am guessing we are nearer the 45 degrees! Today we filled our propane and refilled the fridge with fresh produce, bread and milk.  (We also purchased hot chocolate as an alternative hot beverage during these cold nights.) A late day walk when the temp peaked at 52 was perfect.  Almost 3 miles through downtown Daytona and the Riverfront Esplanade. Few people were out and about and there is a definite difference between Floridians (coats, hats, all business) and visitors (short sleeves, frolicking).  We are somewhere in between.  Coats, hat but str...

 We managed to stay warm through the night buried under a multitude of blankets.  Each time I contemplated rolling over, I thought twice - was it worth the blast of cold breeze?  (Mostly no!)  And I probably should have dried my hair after showering but by the time I realized it was making me colder - too late.  I was not coming out from under the blankets!   The boat stayed tied to the dock nicely with minimal movement despite the high winds.  The water hose did not fare so well, it was frozen this morning and meant using our handy dandy foot pump to get water for coffee, washing and brushing our teeth.    The only thing that did not seem bothered by the cold - the marina cat.  She jumps around the boat and sets the security camera off frequently.  Cute but shy.  She peeks in the windows and hatches but bolts when we open the door. By 1030am we were ready to leave the boat and find something to do from the warmth of the car....

 Sometimes the people that "invent" those crazy, silly holidays get it right.  Today was one of those days. Inspire Your Heart With Art Day.  Yesterday while taking our walk we came across a life size sculpture.  Titled "A Little To The Right", we actually thought it was a joke.  Why this sculpture in this park at the pier?  Why bronze skin?  So I researched the artist.   Seward Johnson utilizes his sculptures to strengthen communities.  In Ormond there are 12 of his pieces scattered along West and East Granada Boulevard and the four parks on the four edges of the bridge - Bailey Riverbridge Gardens, Cassen Park, Fortunato Park and Rockefeller Gardens. More information can be found at - https://www.ormondarts.com/sculptures  This morning's goal - a scavenger hunt to locate all 12 pieces.  We parked the car and located all the ones west of the bridge and completed the find after parking the car on the east side.  We wound u...

  I love our spot at the marina.  In previous visits we have always been placed against the concrete wall adjacent to the parking lot (the lot that serves the marina and the restaurant).  This meant people were frequently walking by, gawking and being nosy.  Out here along the channel dock there are no people other than the owners/visitors of the few boats behind us.  It is super quiet and the wakes from incoming/outgoing boats hasn't been too bad.   Today Paul focused on the starboard bilge pump switch.  Last year after it failed, he put the junk spare one we had on board.  Today he upgraded to a quality one.  There is no way we want the bilge pump to ever fail! We made a trip to the marine surplus store which is always time consuming.  They have rows upon rows of anything and everything related to boats, beaches and fishing.  So much to look at and never the same thing twice.  Paul purchased an alarm for the bilge that w...

Today turned absolutely gorgeous with a high temp of 58!  And the low tonight is only going to be 50.  I will take it! The laundry I hung on the lifeline dried perfectly even though it was dripping wet.  I attempted to use the dryer portion of the machine without success.  So everything dripped dry outside in the warm breeze.   We walked the 2.5 miles to grab the car and headed to ACE.  The master bathroom sink decided to stop draining all together.  It had been slow, this morning it stopped.  Ugh.  But a quick fix and I now have a stopper in the sink.  (Prior there was nothing but a hose to the ocean.)                                                       Brand new pipe into the neatly tucked hose under the sink.                ...