St. Johns–3rd Trip (05/07-05/14/11) Art & Jerry's Big Adventure!

My friend, Art Bence, accompanies me to Sanford, FL to spend a week  aboard Alto and explore the St. Johns River and local business venues for a week.  Before we go anywhere, I have to pour sugar into the "liquids" bottle which attaches to our composting head.  The thing holds 3 gallons of pee and the sugar, weirdly, seems to ameliorate the smell.  I use a coffee filter as a funnel.  Art filmed the whole thing, but the file is too large to upload to this blog.  Damn, you missed some good stuff!  It's especially exciting when I carefully carry the bucket up to a marina's bathroom to dump it–don't want to spill that.

Alto is berthed in the Sanford Marina & Boat Works Marina–at southernmost end of the St. John's River's navigable waters.   See my previous posts for more information.  This is a wonderful place, tucked away in Sanford.  Yes, that town sadly due to the killing of Trayvon Martin.  We were there a year before that event, and I can only say it is a great town that worked hard to improve its appearance and relations with all its citizens.  Please visit if you can, it's a beautiful spot with nice folks everywhere.

Anyway, while I attend to the pee bottle, Art visits the pool at the Indian Mound Yacht Club (he was accorded temporary membership) at Sanford Marina & Boat Works, Alto's homeport on the St. Johns River.  We were there to do some laundry, as the machines are kept there:

Art took most of the pictures along our adventure.  Here's the sort of thing that interests him; the menu at the local diner we had breakfast at.  He's fascinating company, most of the time:

Luckily, I'm editing this blog so I can pick the better pictures from his repertoire.  Here's an excellent picture Art took of me at Alto's helm while we were underway.   I am in my favorite, stylish boating shirt concentrating deeply:

We're heading for Hontoon State Park to spend the night and then go down river (north) as far as we can.  Remember, the St. Johns flows north so we go down river by going in that direction.

We pass a beach where folks congregate on weekends.  There are not many beaches on the river, they are typically thin strips of sand along a deserted shoreline.  People group together to feel safer, as the alligators avoid all the noise and activity–usually.

Here we are on the dock at Hontoon.  $25 for any size boats per day/overnight, which includes electric and water, and nice bathrooms.  You can see the electric ferry (white square boat in the distance) in its island berth where we are.  It goes just a little ways across the river to the mainland where the parking lot for the park is located.  So visitors by car use it to get to the park.  You can see Alto's slight list to port, as though there is some extra weight on that side (?).

Art relaxing after the stress of a day of yachting.  BTW, I think this is why we list to port.

Another of Art's tasteful photographs.  The park has serious rules for appropriate behavior:

It was foggy the next morning:

Being courageous (and we have radar), we left anyway and the fog burned off soon thereafter.  A few hours latter we make it to Lake George, maybe a third of the way down the St. John's river from Sanford to Jacksonville.  In Jacksonville the river empties into the Atlantic ocean and boaters can continue up or down the intracoastal water way.  Lake George is second only to Lake Okeechobee in size in Florida. It's shallow but vast as you can see below.

Off Lake George is a small river leading to Silver Glen Springs, a fresh water source for the St. John's that pumps out crystal clear water into the lake.  We found it too shallow to enter, so we turned around when we could see the bottom in just a couple of feet of water.

We continued across Lake George.  At 10 knots it took over an hour to cross the lake which is about 12 miles long.  We were heading for the Georgetown Marina which had been described to us as a "funky" place to stay.  It's really a camp ground with RV's where folks store their fishing boats.  This kind of setup is called a "fish camp" on the St. Johns, and on may southern waterways, too.  We pulled right in to a slip and tied up.

Nice folks at the marina, and the price was $20 + tax with electric and water for any size boat which worked out to $25 for the night.  Art and I had rented the smallest car we could in Orlando for about $100 for a week.  Even with the cost of Southwest airline tickets, parking in Providence, gas to get there and back to Cape Cod (our home base), boat provisions (chocolate donuts and beer), diesel fuel for the boat, some of our meals out, etc. the week cost us $480 each.  Not bad for an entire week in Florida!  Of course that doesn't include the cost of the boat–oh well.

Georgetown Marina has both diesel and gas, with good prices on both.  There are only 3 places to get diesel fuel south of Jacksonville, the other two are in Astor (which we passed on the way here) and at our marina in Sanford at the extreme southern end of the St. Johns navigable waters.  Most of the slips at Georgetown Marina are covered with lifts to keep the small fishing boats out of the water when not in use:

A fish cleaning station is essential in a fish camp.  Folks from the campground and marina sit around outdoor easy chairs under a canopy and don't do much.  The decor is all about the river:

Here's the center of everything for miles around.  A tiny store, the bathrooms and gas pump.  The bathroom was a little small but useable.

  This ("Smell Good Spray") was sitting on the toilet tank, it sort of says it all:

 

We left the marina and Art took this movie back out on Lake George which was hazy and the water placid and warm as bathwater.  I know because I went into the water at the marina to see if anything had caught on our prop, skeg or bottom since we noticed a drop in speed on the way in.  No problems.  I didn't linger in the water (alligators and such) but it was warm.  Here's a movie and, I'm ashamed to say, we are making fun of the marina–which was, after all, a fish camp.  For $25 a day and the friendly folks I'd go back for another visit, but it was "funky" and Art did wear his sandals in the shower...

This was bizarre.  We passed a floating Tiki Hut under power towing a canoe.  This guy apparently lives in this thing when he's on the river.  Very cool.

On the river its traditional to stop and eat at elegant waterfront establishments.  We picked this one in Astor since the famous Blackwater Inn was closed.  Not so elegant, but it had (boat) parking.

At times we are allowed to speed up, as we're often in Manatee zones traveling at idle speed.  Here's Alto moving at "ludicrous speed" (cf. the movie Space Balls for details) throwing out enormous wake behind her!

We're back in our marina in Sanford watching the sun go down over the aft-end of our neighbor's house boat.  The weather for the whole week was hot but perfect.

We have a beer at Gator's, which is an outdoor bar at our marina right on the river, as you can see.

Hanging around the bar was this guy:

We're out for dinner!  Art craves German food, something to do with his French, Slovakian or whatever ancestry...  But, then maybe its the German beer he craves.  He discusses this at length and obtains samples before selecting a true German draft from the taps displayed below.  I drink only water, of course.

Of course, he's captivated again by another menu.  I like the Veggie Platter that features pickles.  Then there's the Eggalamickle, too!

Here we are!

That's a real big beer stein the bartender thought appropriate to stick in the picture (above) he took of us.  Is that what's called a "selfie."  Here's another of us "suffering" in Sanford.  Ok, I didn't always drink water.

After enjoying the once-per-week evening in Sanford where they close of the main street and vendors give away food samples, we wander down to the town docks off the River Walk.  Sanford invested a fortune re-inventing itself along the waterfront and fixing up the old section of town, and its all pretty neat.  We wind up at Wolfy's at the entrance to the North boat basin at their huge marina, note the blue roof.  Just behind it is a motel and to the right you can see the roof of Efe's Turkish restaurant where we also ate and is truly a cool place.  That's all Lake Monroe in the background.

Here's a spot where you can park your boat and walk up to Wolfy's bar; they said we could even spend the night for free right there.

Wolfy's is comprised of easy going people at what is considered a Key West style bar.  I drank water and ate celery, of course to maintain my health.  Sanford is famous for celery, in fact our Marina is off Celery Avenue.  Art drank lots of beer and ate stuff like this (see below), it was gross to watch.

The view from Wolfys is stunning, right on Lake Monroe.

We went back to Wolfy's later that evening as Art did not want to miss kareoke nite.  They were pretty good singers, I must say!  He took movies but they are too big to load on this server.  He sang, but again I can't upload the movie of his many performances.  Drove me to drink more water and eat more celery.

On another night I approach Efe's turkish restaurant with trepidation:

The food, like everything in Sanford, was great as always.  Art drank Turkish beer, and I had more water.  Sitting at the bar, this was our view looking out over the tables on the screened porch.

On the way home Art found this cogent commentary on our work:

We visited another amazing bar in Sanford built like an olde English pub on the way home to Alto.  There was a "woman of the night" there who, according to Art who was listening, was told by the bar tender not to bother with us old tourists!  We were insulted.  So we went home to bed.

The next day we packed up Alto in preparation for her transport from Sanford, FL to Cape Cod to spend the summer.  She get's trailered back and forth with the seasons. I hope to have more adventures in Cape Cod waters to share with you soon!

St. Johns–2nd Trip (02/16-02/22/11)

Time for trip #2 to Sanford, FL to visit Alto and further explore the St. Johns River.

Spent the first days outfitting the boat by installing things like teak parts to hold plates, silverware and cups.  Visits to Walmart provided "storage solutions"; i.e., mainly giant Tupperware like containers to store stuff in.  Also had to visit the local Nix Upholstery people who are making two inch thick cushions to add to the V-berth cushions the boat came with.  No way you can sleep on them without aches and pains in your hips and shoulders, but I think the new cushions will solve that problem.  They took two inches off all the boat's curtains except the two front side windows which are much larger and, for which, all the curtains in the boat seemed cut to fit.  Installed an LED in the anchor light, per advice from Tugnuts, from Marinebeam to save lots of power from the weeks I plan to spend on anchor...well maybe not weeks.

Here's some pictures of Alto's composting toilet, called the Air Head, http://www.airheadtoilet.com/.  No carrying around 30 gallons of waste or messy pump-outs.  I met a couple that had sold their expedited (special cargo, fast) trucking company and house, and bought a trimaran on which they figured they could travel for about 10 years before needing to go back to work.  They use an Air Head exclusively and as live-aboards they get about 30 days use before he dumps the compost into a 5 gallon pail which he then lightly covers and sits on the boat's foredeck for another month until it decomposes enough to dump out as fertilizer.  No smell.  With use by two people over weekends, or one week a month as we do, we should get an entire season before we have to empty the toilet's solid container into a bag or bucket to wait for final decomposition.  We can add an enzyme to the bag to speed up the final decomposition, too.  The unit needs continual venting which we attached to the old head's outlet hose (see bottom right photo) to vent it right under the deck.  Instead of carrying waste and going to the aft black water tank, the line now carries air and was redirected to a powered outlet vent in the transom.  Uses very little power off the batteries.  Our waste tank is now a spare 30 gallon fresh water tank since we bought the boat new and it had, thank God, never been used.

After finishing maintenance tasks, I headed down river (north) to Hontoon State Park to spend the night.  They have about 50 slips, all with 30 amp power and water and each is $25 night regardless of the size of your boat.  The Park is on an island, so there is a ferry that runs back and forth, actually an electric-battery powered pontoon boat which is pretty cool.  James is the ranger that usually runs it, take a moment to admire his reconditioned open Boston Whaler-type boat.  The ferry is free as is James' humor, and I took it across to the parking area on the other side of the St. Johns River as I had to deliver a guide book to my friend, Frank of the Ainokea, who keeps his tug boat in a small marina on that side of the river.  The book (Boating and Cruising Guide to the St. Johns River by Tom Kranz -available at: https://www.bluewaterweb.com ) has tons of charted anchorages that I know Frank likes to study on and visit.  Here's a picture from the parking area, which is about a five minute walk from Frank's marina, looking back at the docks on the island.  You can just about make out Alto, middle right.  Floating docks make it easy for one person to dock and there's usually a helpful person on the docks to lend a hand.

The next day I headed out to fuel up as there's a diesel pump (one of just three in the area I cruise) just north about a half hour from Hontoon, then under the Bascule Bridge.  Turned out I had plenty of clearance so I did not have to call and ask for the bridge to be opened.  I was worried as my digital gas gauge showed a full tank even after our last trip and the distance I traveled this time, adding up to maybe 15+ hours travel.  So I filled up and it took only 13 gallons.  I figured out how to set the Garmin to estimate the fuel used (look for a small paragraph in the manual on this) and we'll see if the gauge works next time.  Have been slightly overheating, so I'm also watching that problem.  The inter-cooled, turbo charged diesel engine in Alto is designed to run hot (around 205º) at full speed to reduce emissions.  

I'm now about 20 miles north, or five and a half hours at safe manatee speeds, of the Sanford Boat Works marina where I keep the boat; see previous post.  That's at the most southern end of the navigable reach of the river, although it goes south another 40+ miles as shallow water some of which can be travelled by pontoon boat and more of it by air boat.  North of Hontoon there are fewer "no wake" or "idle speed only" manatee speed zones so one can make pretty good time.  Here, I'm even up on a bit of a plane:

Check out the dead "blind mosquitoes" which are not really blind nor do they bite, on the foredeck.  They swarm at various times and are nonbiting, but I've heard stories that other St. Johns sailors have had to use snow shovels to get them off the boat when they reach several inches deep.  I keep the canvas up on the aft deck just in case I get attacked.  After several hours I decide to try one of the anchorages recommended by Tom Kranz on the Alexander Springs Creek, which is about 10 miles south of Astor, a town on the river.  Its 15 miles north of Hontoon and took me about 1 and 3/4 hours to get to.  This section of the river, according to Tom Kranz, from Lake Dexter south to Crows Bluff is one of the longest totally wild sections.  I saw no development along the way.  My navigation system told me I was near the tiny opening of the Creek, where it enters the St. Johns River and its easy to miss.  Here's a snap shot of it:

This was a truly beautiful place to drop the anchor.  After going around several turns in the creek I found a spot just wide enough to anchor with just 20 feet of chain out in eight feet of water.  The boat eventually settled into the middle of the creek facing upstream as the creek slowly moved towards the St. Johns into which it emptied.  You want several feet under you to use the generator which sucks up raw water to cool it.  I had no need for it until the next morning when I had to run the toaster oven to cook frozen Leggo-my-Eggo Waffles.  I turned it off as soon as possible as the silence on the river is part of its allure.

Here are some pictures take from angles as the boat rotated around its anchor.  The aft end touched foliage on either bank as the creek was only about 60 feet wide at this point.

Well, after that it was a straight run south back to the Marina.  It took four and a half hours to get back over the 35 miles to the dock.  I'll button up the boat and head back to Cape Cod the next day.  I plan to be back in late March.  Will be checking the impeller and other possible causes for the overheating situation.  Should have some exciting news about our new V-berth cushions and more, so stay tuned.

St. Johns–1st Trip (01/15-01/22/11)

We (my wife and I) arrived Saturday after dark at the Sanford Boat Works & Marina at the extreme southern end of the navigable portion of the 300+ mile long St. Johns River.  I couldn't get the lights on in the boat even though the panel showed the 120 volt power was working.  The lady, Debbie, in the next door houseboat brought us a flashlight and she and her husband, Tom, offered hints and ideas.  Finally, she said her brother had a tug boat on the Chesapeake and she'd call him for help...  Needless to say I ignored all this while moving about the boat with the flashlight trying to figure out the problem.  The Chesapeake fellow suggested that I should turn on the battery switch-–duh!  I do the same thing (forget the battery switch) in our camper every year.  Anyway we had lights, and two new friends, Debbie & Tom.  I referred to Debbie, as my hero after that experience!

Still, after the lights came on we found the boat full of the boxes of tools and stuff I had UPSed down in advance of our arrival, along with the huge bimini stainless U-shaped frame neatly tied up INSIDE the boat, instead of folded up outside attached to the rear cockpit where it belongs.  I guess the Mobile, AL canvas installer did not want it damaged in transit, but now we had to lug it out it the dark and tie it down outside the boat.  Boy were we beat–we collapsed in the V-berth and passed out from a long day.

ASIDE: I bought the canvas bimini and SS frame from King Marine in Washington state as they make the factory mounted biminis.  The cost was 45% of having a local canvas maker do it all as King has the templates and can knock out the bimini quickly.  Dave, King's owner, was great and accessible by cell phone and I had it professionally mounted in Mobile, AL as I was loath to drill holes in the boat.  It all came together nicely, was well made and fitted great.  For those of you with Rangers I'll post details and pictures of the frame on the TugNuts site in Alto's photo album eventually.

Here's Alto in her covered slip in her floating dock on Sunday:

Here she is from the rear.  A very cool thing is that the covering roof is attached to the docks, not the river bottom.  A couple years ago the river rose 6+ feet and would have crushed boats in berths under a roof attached to pilings driven into the river bed.  Also, since the roof always stays at the same height in relation to the dock, I don't have to lower the mast for fear of a rise in water pushing the boat up under the roof.

Note the Ranger Tug slight list to the left.  This is almost a trademark and is probably is due to the diesel generator and four batteries stowed on the left side of the cockpit.  I'll try to even out the boat with storage solutions, but others have tried before...  Below, from the cockpit looking aft you can see where we park our compact rental car next to the little bath house with a green roof.  I can see if its occupied from the boat, thus saving energy from a wasted walk!  The oval-like part in the rear plastic window allows me to zip the plastic and roll it up (holding it with the two hanging straps) to expose the screen.

We got friendly with the folks, Tom and Debbie (my hero), in the houseboat at the end of the dock shown below.  They live in Tampa and pay around $500/month to moor the houseboat where you see it.  They also own the pontoon boat between their house boat and Alto–it has a fold-up bathroom!  They have incredible views, especially from the roof (where there is a hot tub) down the river.  One wall of the houseboat is glass, looking out at the marina.  Not bad for $500/month.

They warned us of some little issues around the marina like the fact that occasionally an alligator will haul itself up on the floating docks, so we need to look before stepping off the boat each and every time.  Also we borrowed bug spray from them, at their strong recommendation, to spray the boat's perimeter as roaches (nicely called Palmetto Bugs in Fl) and other bugs get into the boats.  We learned about the wolf spider which grows to the size of your hand...  Blind Flies (a type of midge) can suddenly assault any object or structure on the St. Johns.  "Assault" isn't the right word, as they can swarm and die in an hour to the point where people use snow shovels to remove 6 inch+ piles of them from boats.  Then there are the routine mosquitoes and midges to deal with...  Gail was thrilled with all this, of course.  She reports over 40 itchy insect bites on her ankles upon our return home.

Here's a shot of the boat from the bathroom's (which I had just visited) door.  You can see Tom and Deb's houseboat to the right:

Here's a view off our starboard side.  You can see fixed docks with stationary (attached to the river bottom) roofs to the right.   You can just make out a white building under the State Highway 415 overpass in the middle of the picture at the back which is Gators bar right on the main river.  Its a giant deck covered with an awning and plastic windows that serves fresh seafood.  We could walk to it in a minute or two, but we drive to save our energy, of course.  Gators has live music a couple nights weekly, but only until 10 PM.  Bikers come on Sunday when they have music until 6 PM, not too many Hell's Angels show up.  Its generally pretty quiet in the marina.

The first two days (Sunday and Monday) we spent doing trips to Walmart and West Marine getting "stuff."  We had eight boxes of more "stuff" that I had pre-shipped via UPS to the marina folks who then stacked the boxes up inside the boat to wait for us.  We had to set up the bimini (canvas cover and stainless steel tubing that holds it up) too.  Gail stowed stuff in various places and then tried alterations.  We had to get a foam mattress topper from Walmart and cut it in the shape of a V (which I did on the houseboat's deck) since the V-berth mattress was too hard to sleep well on.  We were exhausted, but did get into the old part of Sanford for a dinner at a restaurant called Two Blondes and a Shrimp; don't even ask about how it got its name.  The food was excellent and we heard the chef's story of how her restaurant in the Keys washed away in a hurricane, so she became a New Jersey cop for five years, before teaching culinary arts, etc.  Since I first wrote this blog, Sanford became famous for the Zimmerman/Trayvon murder episode.  This blots out all the effort and expense Sanford has engaged in to make the downtown attractive to visitors.  They spend a fortune on the "River Walk" which includes a town marina all on Lake Munroe just north of our marina.  We enjoyed our time in Sanford, and my wife is "of color" as they say so I would encourage any and all to visit this neat little city.  Deland just to the north on the river is where Hontoon is and is also a great college town.  It's home to Stetson University, larged funded by the guy who invented the Stetson hat.

Here's the view from Alto's port side showing the dock access which we walk down to get to shore (the car and bathroom):

Directly in front of the Alto is a mint, restored 1988 Sea Ray with our new friends (Chuck and Evelyn) who just retired.  They live in Daytona, but often come to hang on their boat and fish.  In fact, they caught fish off the dock between our boats, fried it up and we all ate it along with the our friends on the houseboat, named $tock Option$', folks (Tom and Debbie) on the dock.  Evelyn, or Ev, gets cold ears so she wears ear muffs, which is a little weird in Florida, especially as we heard it was 20 degrees in Mass. at the time I took this picture.  Ev is getting ready to feed their dog, Bear who growls at me and Debbie whenever we walk by.  Tom and Debbie have three tiny dogs that stay on the houseboat.  The dock is sort of like a living room in the evening with tables and chairs...and midges around your ankles.

The weather had been cool with little rain showers, but Wednesday was beautiful.  T-shirt weather and clear skies with no wind (bad for sailing but good for power boating).  Chuck pushed us off and we motored into the channel towards Lake Monroe:

Soon after we entered Lake Monroe where we got the boat up to 15 knots for a spell and passed the town of Sanford which sits on the lake's western shore.   It has an "old" section in the center with brick streets and nice restaurants like the Two Blondes and a Shrimp, mentioned before.

We entered the lake's outflow channel which is the St. Johns River and had to wait for a railroad bridge to open.  We then followed the meandering river for about 15 miles North to the Hontoon State Park.  By meandering I mean it could turn to the point where we would be heading South again for periods of time.  We saw many manatee swimming by–actually, we saw their wake or bubbles as they pass like ghosts under the boat.  Alligators hang out on the shores or swim by, and there are amazing birds.  The shores are covered by trees with spanish moss hanging down with foot-in-diameter balls of mistletoe which mysteriously grow without roots in the tops of the trees.  Local folks shoot the mistletoe out of the trees with shot guns to sell around Christmas.

Our plan was to meet up with Frank & Cathy Forest who live in DeLand, FL which is a historic small city in "old Florida" and the home of Stetson University, which was founded with a donation from the Stetson hat maker.  Frank has a sistership tugboat to the Alto.  We had been in communication via the TugNuts chat/blog website for months when I decided to debut the boat on the St Johns and I found out he was already on the river.  He is a serious Ranger Tug Nut who knows much about the boats and the river and I was anxious to meet him and his wife.  I called him and he came "up" the river (heading south) while we went north and we met up.  I then followed him to the Hontoon Island area, here's us following him down river (remember the St. Johns flows north):

We decided to stay in his marina in a transient slip instead of in the state park marina which was about 500 feet away on the island to the left in this picture; in fact, you can see Hontoon Island a few hundred feet behind the boats in the picture, below.  We had electricity, water and access to the Hontoon Marina Resort (which had nice bathrooms) for $25 per night and the transient dock was adjacent to Frank's boat, as you see to the right of Alto below–sorry about the sun spot which is, luckily, on Ainokea rather than on Alto:

You can see we both have Phifertex front window covers which come in several colors which cut out about 90% of the sun from entering the boat.  Its a very heavy weave fabric.  They also function as privacy screens at night when on the dock although they work in reverse, too.  So if you have a light on inside the boat and its dark outside, then people can see in but you can't see out.

Detail oriented tug boat owners can see the forward folding mast (with radar on it) on Alto vs. the side-folding mast on Ainokea in the following picture.  Ainokea is Hawaiian for "I don't care" or "I do what I want."  Perfect!

Frank has attached a very cool barbecue on a removable post on his aft swim platform.  I had admired this addition on the TugNuts website where Frank has some pictures of the modifications he and Cathy have done to Ainokea.  I had bought a grill and post and had it shipped to Alto's marina and copied Frank and did the same installation (except I used a small round Magma grill) on Alto before we left Florida.  Frank made hamburgers and he, Cathy, Gail and I all had dinner in his boat, very comfortably and enjoyably, that night.

We really enjoyed the trip up to Hontoon and hanging out with Frank and Cathy.  Frank gave us a guided tour over the radio as we followed him up the river, often at idle speed  (ludicrously slow speed) in the Manatee zones.  Here's a better picture of Frank. 

The next day, Thursday, was as beautiful and perfect as the previous day.  We set out back up river heading south towards Sanford.  The trip took about 3.5 hours and we got home to our marina around 4.  Had dinner at Gators and crashed.  Friday was rainy so we spent it doing laundry at the yacht club (we had to join the club to get access to the washer and dryer) for $30/month.  I need to get a burgee as we are now official members of the Indian Mound Yacht Club; I'm going to see if I can get reciprocal mooring privileges at slightly more fancy clubs in Edgartown, Hyannisport, and at the New York Yacht Club.  Gail found a leak under the bathroom sink which I fixed with a great deal of contortion to get into the small spaces.  We spent the day fixing minor problems like mis-wiring of the stereo.

Organizing the boat took well into the night so we ate crackers and any remaining food on the boat and went to bed.  Up at six the next day, Saturday, to head to the airport in Orlando and back to Logan.  Gail's Jeep had a dead battery and the nice folks at Thrifty Parking tried their best to clean the terminals and fix it, but it wouldn't hold much of a charge.  I feared it would die when we slowed down to pay the toll to go through the Williams Tunnel so we had AAA come and replace the battery while we were waiting in the warm Thrifty office. Then a stop for dinner at Bertucci's in Hingham and home to see the cats!

Cody

Tiger

Panda

And, all our friends and family.  Stay tuned as the next trip in Alto is scheduled for February 15th.  We'll deal with suspect overheating, hopefully new voyage pictures, and (if you are lucky) lots of shots of our specially installed COMPOSTING TOILET, about which I'm very excited, I really must say!

The detachable urine container (euphemistically called "fluid" vs. the "solids" container) needs to emptied every 3 days, so we may have some shots of me walking the dock with the "pee bucket" as we choose to call it.  However, I'll never have to pump out a 30 gallon waste tank of you-know-what sloshing around in the back of the boat.  We empty the solids container once (that's ONCE) a yearly season, which yields a few coffee can sized hunks of compost which can be put on a garden or spread on the lawn without any smell.  More about all this later!