It’s Good To Be Home

Finally, we are back on Selkie. And boy, it feels good to be back. 

But before we came back we had a little interlude between Tahoe and Selkie.

We spent the 2024 Christmas holidays with our grandkids and their parents. 

Unfortunately over the holiday I got sick. I might’ve gotten the Norwalk virus that’s been going around. It was bad.

But then I got a cold on top of it. 

It wasn’t the best holiday I’ve ever had, but at least I was with family and we did have a good Christmas. 

On 28 December, we happily (and nervously for what lay ahead of us) boarded our flight to Sarasota.  

Our flight up to Nashville was uneventful.

Unfortunately, our connecting flight to Sarasota showed a 3 hour delay when we landed. 

That plane was late getting into LaGuardia on a prior leg before it came down to Nashville. 

Because it was late the plane was bumped from its departure slot going in to Sarasota. 

Apparently the Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) in Florida were shorthanded over a busy holiday week, so any delays for connecting flights meant a severe delay as ATC was pushing out latecomers substantially.  

The delay grew to 4 hours so Libbie and I left the gate area to find a better place to sit.  

At Nashville, there is a nice open atrium area where there was a huge festive Christmas tree. We found some more comfortable chairs there and settled in to charge our electronics. 

Every so often I would glance at our flight status. It got pushed out another half hour.  This was going to be a long day.  

Suddenly, I noticed our flight was almost back to our regular departure time!  

We picked up our stuff and made it back to the gate, arriving in time to board in our designated slot. 

We even had an empty seat between us for the flight down.

It was an interesting flight down.  Apparently our pilots outdid themselves to come up with a flight plan to get us back on time. 

The flight plan has us flying all the way down at 16,000 feet instead of the usual 36,000 feet.  The flight levels at 36,000 feet were too constricted with the airline demand but not the ones at 16,000.

The flight was mostly comfortable, with not too much turbulence except for one section. That was to be expected flying at the elevation where we were. 

As we came over the Gulf Coast by Pensacola, we were still at 16,000 feet so it was easy to see a lot of the gulf coast features that we visited last winter. We saw Steinhatchee, Cedar Key and Crystal River. 

We continue to descend into Sarasota and the closer we got, we noticed blue tarps on house and commercial roofs, the after effects of hurricane Milton. 

After landing we could see the area show a lot of resiliency, as Florida does with hurricanes.  Floridians know how to get out of the way of a hurricane, and they know how to quickly clean up the mess afterwards. 

We picked up our rental car and headed to Selkie.

When we both saw Selkie, I think we both breathed a sigh of relief.  

I had certainly been feeling apprehensive about what the conditions were on the boat. 

I knew Selkie would be pretty filthy from Hurricane Milton, and that proved to be true. However, there was nothing broken and the inside was still nice and dry

We made sure Selkie’s electrical was plugged in properly and then started to put the boat back together. 

Putting the boat back together, meant reversing all our work from last February. 

We removed all of the charcoal trays we put down for odor prevention. 

We closed the interior floor hatches that we left open to help with air circulation. 

We checked the bilge to make sure it were dry.  

We removed the roach traps that we had set out. No roaches!

We unplugged the dehumidifier we had used to control the humidity and prevent mold and stowed it below.

Once we had everything established inside, we started schlepping our stuff aboard. 

As it was late in the day, and we were very hot and sticky from the humidity, we decided to just take our carry-on boards in and make the bed for the night. 

We went to a nice Italian restaurant we had been to last winter and enjoyed our dinner. 

When we got back, it was still hot and muggy on the boat.   We set up our fans and settled in for the night.

The next day was the day planned for big work. 

We had to provision Selkie with food as we had nothing on the boat.

Libbie and I went off to provision. We spent a few $$$ doing so.

We inflated the dinghy.

I started to clean the outside as Libbie cleaned the inside and ran errands.

I had bought a pressure washer on Amazon and that proved to be indispensable to get the grime, sand and the vegetation matter that had blown in during hurricane Milton and other storms. 

After about four hours, Selkie started looking like herself again. 

Libbie returned from her errands and we stashed it away on the boat.

We had to reassemble the outside of Selkie. 

We raised the radar mast and bimini frame and then called it for the day.

We went out to dinner.

When we returned we took one look at what needed to be done (which as mostly finishing touches) and decided to just go to bed. 

It was still hot and muggy, but the fans helped inside. 

The next day finished what needed to be finished before leaving Safe Cove.   The engines started on the first try, and after coughing out the fuel that had sat in her lines, they purred like a cat.  

We did the final settlement of accounts with Safe Cove Inc. 

They were a great safe place to keep our boat, we highly recommend them. I guess that’s why they call it Safe Cove Inc.

While we were putting the finishing touches on Selke, another boat launched from Safe Cove Inc. 

We introduced ourselves and exchange contact information and then took off for Cayo Costa. 

Getting out of Safe Cove’s area takes about an hour and a half before you reach the small lock that you go through that keeps the Basin from being tidal. 

There is also a not very deep channel that you go out from the lock. 

We stayed in the middle and kept at least a foot of water underneath our kill all the way out until we got to deeper water. 

We then ramped up the RPMs on the engine and took off for Cayo Costa. As we got close we headed straight into a beautiful sunset. 

A large dolphin joined us. He stayed with us for quite a while surfing Selkie’s wake. 

It was nice to be back. 

As it grew dark, we followed our GPS chart-plotter tracks from the previous winter into Pelican Bay by the north end of Cayo Costa and dropped anchor right in one of our favorite spots. 

We were exhausted. 

We looked at each other, realized that we weren’t that hungry for dinner, and went to bed. 

It felt good to be home.