A very happy Holiday Season

Merry Christmas, Happy New year to all of you! It's Christmas morning and Tom and I are still in Ft Myers Beach and truly enjoying it! We said a sad "Goodbye" to Bob Frech after a week of great fun.While Bob was with us we had amazing weather and took a three day trip to Captiva island and Cabbage Key. Cabbage Key is a quaint little island with an old inn on it, about ten houses,,and a lodge-y style restaurant where Jimmy Buffet wrote "Cheeseburger in Paradise" The four rooms of the restaurant are covered with one dollar bills and the story goes that fisherman would hang the dollars on the walls and write their names boldly across those dollars to be assured of a cold beer at the end of the day...Back in "the day" the beer ran out before the fisherman's thirst. There is purported to be over $50,000 on those walls today, and yes, we did add to it. Any money that falls off the walls and ceiling is given to charity.
Captiva is charming, has great beaches and has the feel of a Carribean island while being in the U.S. Especially when you go by boat and don't have to deal with the Sannibel Island bridge and traffic!
Today, my daughter, Stephanie and her husband Bob arrive for a week....Team Frech has made a quick turn-around of sheets, towels, re-provisioning supplies etc and are excited to have the kids with us.Good news for all you loyal readers...Bob Walker is a computer guru and I know he'll be able to correct my problem on this website of vanishing pictures. Thank you for journey-ing with us..I promise to write more often in '07'...our itinerary includes the Florida keys in February and then the Bahamas.We hope you are all well and happy...our advice is to "not just dream your dreams, but live them"
Much love, good health and happiness
Pam and Tom Frech

That giant "Sucking" sound

Hi Everyone
Tom and I are at "Salty Sam's Marina in Ft Meyer's Beach where we'll remain for at least one month. Our trip down here from Tarpon Springs was quite an adventure.
Marsha and Geoff Livingstone, old friends from Barrington now living in Stuart, joined us for 4 days of boating fun. They expected to make the 200 mile trip to Ft Meyers with us, but instead they had a fun filled, rollicking 13 mile sail over 4 days aboard "Cloud Nine". We were stuck in Dunedin Fla for two days because of extremely low tides...because of shallow water we couldn't get out of the marina. So, we went from the Greek town of Tarpon Springs, to the Scottish town of Dunedin...saw the Christmas parade and lots of bagpipe bands..a little Europe in South Florida. When we finally tiptoed out of the marina two days later, at high tide, praying we wouldn't go aground, we all cheered. We happily motored 3 miles down the waterway to Clearwater with Pam at the helm.
As we passed the Clearwater bridge I looked up in complete confusion and noticed two green channel markers in front of me...with a sickening feeling I heard "shhhhhhhhh-rump- squish, squish, squish"...then the boat settled down hard aground just outside the busy channel. I had misread the channel markers and run us aground!!!!
Tom tried to motor us off the bottom to no avail. We just sat there like a boat in a bottle with nowhere to go.
We called "Seatow" the boat company we have a towing insurance policy with, and they told us that because of the severly low tides they would not attempt a rescue until after midnight when the high tide would be higher...It was now 3 pm and a gigantic boat parade in Clearwater was scheduled to begin at 5:30 and we were right in the way of the parade! Tom and Geoff decided to put our anchor in the dinghy and carry it east so the boat wouldn't drift further into the channel. We then sat down to wait until midnight ....all of a sudden...up in the sky...is it a bird,? is it a plane?...no it's super-boat....or at least it was Katie Sue one of our looper boats. They had heard our distress calls and they came to our rescue...proposing that they would get their boat up to full speed and keep running it in front of us creating a big wake that MAY be enough to get us off the hard....So Katie Sue went roaring by us...once...no luck...twice...no movement...three times we felt "Cloud Nine roll a little...on the next pass Tom turned the boat and gunned the engine as the wake wave crested and "Cloud Nine" rolled off the bottom into the deeper channel...talk about cheering and complete relief and most importantly gratitude. A great big "thank you" to John and Betty Lacy for their help.
We followed them into the closest marina to settle down, have a victory drink and watch the boat parade. As for Marsha and Geoff, we laughed at the distance travelled, but they assured us that they appreciate the material we gave them for great stories with which to entertain their friends and family...

That giant "Sucking" sound

Hi Everyone
Tom and I are at "Salty Sam's Marina in Ft Meyer's Beach where we'll remain for at least one month. Our trip down here from Tarpon Springs was quite an adventure.
Marsha and Geoff Livingstone, old friends from Barrington now living in Stuart, joined us for 4 days of boating fun. They expected to make the 200 mile trip to Ft Meyers with us, but instead they had a fun filled, rollicking 13 mile sail over 4 days aboard "Cloud Nine". We were stuck in Dunedin Fla for two days because of extremely low tides...because of shallow water we couldn't get out of the marina. So, we went from the Greek town of Tarpon Springs, to the Scottish town of Dunedin...saw the Christmas parade and lots of bagpipe bands..a little Europe in South Florida. When we finally tiptoed out of the marina two days later, at high tide, praying we wouldn't go aground, we all cheered. We happily motored 3 miles down the waterway to Clearwater with Pam at the helm.
As we passed the Clearwater bridge I looked up in complete confusion and noticed two green channel markers in front of me...with a sickening feeling I heard "shhhhhhhhh-rump- squish, squish, squish"...then the boat settled down hard aground just outside the busy channel. I had misread the channel markers and run us aground!!!!
Tom tried to motor us off the bottom to no avail. We just sat there like a boat in a bottle with nowhere to go.
We called "Seatow" the boat company we have a towing insurance policy with, and they told us that because of the severly low tides they would not attempt a rescue until after midnight when the high tide would be higher...It was now 3 pm and a gigantic boat parade in Clearwater was scheduled to begin at 5:30 and we were right in the way of the parade! Tom and Geoff decided to put our anchor in the dinghy and carry it east so the boat wouldn't drift further into the channel. We then sat down to wait until midnight ....all of a sudden...up in the sky...is it a bird,? is it a plane?...no it's super-boat....or at least it was Katie Sue one of our looper boats. They had heard our distress calls and they came to our rescue...proposing that they would get their boat up to full speed and keep running it in front of us creating a big wake that MAY be enough to get us off the hard....So Katie Sue went roaring by us...once...no luck...twice...no movement...three times we felt "Cloud Nine roll a little...on the next pass Tom turned the boat and gunned the engine as the wake wave crested and "Cloud Nine" rolled off the bottom into the deeper channel...talk about cheering and complete relief and most importantly gratitude. A great big "thank you" to John and Betty Lacy for their help.
We followed them into the closest marina to settle down, have a victory drink and watch the boat parade. As for Marsha and Geoff, we laughed at the distance travelled, but they assured us that they appreciate the material we gave them for great stories with which to entertain their friends and family...

"Loop-y piectures

"Loop-y piectures

The Big Crossing!

Hello loyal readers! I have many gaps to fill in here on the "blog". Tom and I were weathered in in Mobile for 10 days.We celebrated Thanksgiving there with a "potLuck" dinner with 16 other Loopers. Our contribution was 4 pounds of scrumptious gulf shrimp that we boiled with various spices. When the weather broke we made our way east across the beautiful Northern Florida coast. We reached the "forgotten coast"of Florida at Appalachicola.This town is so unique. It is a real working town (90% of Florida's oysters come from this little area). The old fishing buildings, wharehouses etc have been converted into really interesting shops and restaurants. The town has not been "tourified" at all and the beaches here on St George Island are reported to be among the best in the country. The flavor was more like a Maine seaside village than Florida, except for the gators and Dolphins. Yes, the dolphins have arrived and they love jumping the bow wave of the boats. What a thrill! On Saturday, December 2nd we left Appalachicola for the 173 mile crossing of the Gulf of Mexico to Tarpon Springs Florida. We decided on this straight across crossing because we had a weather window for one 24 hour period and if we had not taken it we would have been socked in for a week. 4 boats crossed with us and we slowed down to the speed of the slowest boat so we could all stay together. The crossing took 24 hours almost to the minute. We had about 4 very rough hours, but the rest of the trip was fine. We saw the full moon and a gorgeous sun rise. About 40 miles out from Tarpon we began to see the notorious crab pots and had to stay alert to dodge them (they can wrap around the props). We were exhausted when we arrived (we haven't pulled an "all-nighter in years).
We're currently in Tarpon Springs right downtown in the Greek sponge diving village. We had dinner at the home of Mike and Marlene Weinert last night...that's the first house we've been in in 75 days! Nice to go to the bathroom in a stationary toilet with a real flush handle (also nice to not have to think about where "it" goes when you flush. This loyal readers is one of the realities of life aboard! Now that we're in a populated area we will try to post more often...right now we are jumping on a sight-seeing trolley, and later today we'll ride our bikes on the beautiful trails nearby...but first we'll have a cup of Greek coffee and a pastry with our friends at a local Greek bakery>
Happy Holidays to you all...we love hearing from you!