Jon and Crew aging out

On our way back from dropping the car back off in Palm Coast - we swung through Fort Myers to visit with Ben Moore who is playing for the Red Sox and was our Harwich Mariner a couple of years ago ! We toured the Ford Edison Museum - then out for dinner..

Jon and Ben Mo

Ford Edison Museum

Jon, Ben and Me

Left Fort Myers and drove into Everglade City - such a throw back to old Florida -ate lunch at the Rod and Gun Club

Lobby of the Rod and Gun Club

Checking out ?

A stuffed Flamingo - only Florida

Love the live figure head on the boat

Made a detour of the Tamini Trail onto about a 20 mile dirt road through the swamps - we saw hundreds of alligators and lots of birds - there were so many alligators I was bit nervous getting out of the car !

Heading down the start of the dirt road

One of the many gators just hanging out !

Smile !

Woody Woodpecker ?

I love this Blue Heron looking down at the gator gliding down below him in the water !

Just a cool reflection

Another poser !

Back on the main road - it was a beautiful sky with flat fields that seemed to go on forever

A bit of traffic all heading to the Keys for the weekend - kind of like a Friday on the Cape

We drove through Homestead which was miles and miles of farms - there were lots of pickers out at all of the farms

Getting ready to leave Marathon - last night with sunset

Sunrise leaving Marathon was as pretty as the sunset the night before

This barge was aground right in the middle of the channel in the bay

Bummer

We saw hundreds of these jelly fish floating on the top of the water I think they were portuguese man of wars

We always wanted to see these houses on stilts so we cut out of the bay to the ocean and passed by the houses

Key Largo light house

Miami beach from the ocean

Of course we were met by this huge cruise ship as we entered the Everglades Port at Fort Lauderdale

Early departure from Ft Lauderdale

A Florida Pelican tree

Pelican tree

Boynton Beach Inlet

Met up in Jupiter with Austin and his family - Austin was in Jupiter for spring training with the Marlins

AJ, Stacie, Austin, me and Jon

It was a bit chilly

Early departure from Vero Marina

We were treated to about an half hour air show by the Blue Angels

I was waving our large American flag like crazy off of our stern and this plane broke formation and flew very close to us and dipped his wing for us !

Our joy was short lived - towed again - ended up with a transmission issue and ended up getting towed to Titusville where we left the boat for two weeks for repairs

Back home - RJ Swindle - our first Harwich Mariner stopped by to visit !!

We awoke one night at about 1:00 AM to this huge boat fire across the water from us - very scary !

Austin came to stay for Easter - the day was complete with a big party at the Blocks and an Easter Egg crash derby

I won three of the four rounds I was in !

With Austin and Jon showing off our eggs for the demolition derby

Our MTOA rendez vous was held in Daytona Beach It was a five day event - so much fun - Ken Chumley was my partner for the dinghy races - we were strategizing here !

I had direct Ken who was blindfolded on a set course

We should have spent more time strategizing - we came in dead last !

Jon was the MTOA mascot turtle at the baseball game we went to as an MTOA event - he is surrounded by is fan club here

Jon will tell you being a turtle is thirsty work !

Austin fishing off of our dock

With Danette, Sam, Tom, Sally and Barbara at a Mexican Fiesta Donkey Derby - our version of celebrating Cinco de Mayo during the Kentucky Derby !

I am not happy here because my donkey was not doing very well in the Derby :(

My brother and his wife came down for a week - Richard and I were able to celebrate Mother's Day with our mom - we do not remember the last time the three of us were together for Mother's Day !