Into GA

Yes, we've crossed into Georgia. Maine can't be much farther, can it?

 

We're not very far into Georgia. Maybe 3 miles. We're anchored off the SW end of Cumberland Island and plan to stay a few days to enjoy the island and National Seashore.

 

Progress up the ICW through NE Florida was impacted by weather. Strong N winds kept us at Marineland a couple of days longer than we had planned, which was OK since we had a good time there. Here are the highlights :

- Many walkswithdogs through the local woods trails and on the Atlantic beach.

- Bicycle ride down A1A to this restaurant for a nice supper. The bar scene there is fun.

- A 'behind the scenes' tour of Marineland Dolphin Adventure which is just across the road (see photo at top).

- Enjoying the Tuesday morning farmers market held right at the marina. The bread/pastry seller did well by us.

- Borrowing the marina car for a run to Publix to stock up.

- Meeting other cruisers and swapping sea stories.

 

It was Thursday (after 5 night stay) when the N wind subsided and allowed several of the visiting boats to parade to the pumpout station. We waited our turn and then headed 16 miles up the ICW to a rented mooring ball at St. Augustine Municipal Marina.

 

Again the weather impacted our stay and schedule. Friday had strong SE winds which opposed the flooding tidal current and caused all the moored boats to dance wildly on their moorings. Quite a ride. Saturday had rain and thunderstorms roll through. We still were able to take walks around the old town and to the fort, and to have lunch at this great vegan restaurant.

 

Tied up at the marina was a visitor from Spain. El Galeon is in St Augustine to celebrate 500 years since similar vessels first explored this area. Imagine the local natives seeing this WMD sail into the river.

We stayed for 3 nights and on Sunday resumed northward travel with strong N winds against us. It was a 32 mile run up to the Jacksonville area, crossing the busy St John River to enter Sisters Creek and tieing to a great free dock at this park. Nice peaceful night there.

 

Monday we continued north for 26 miles in beautiful calm weather, crossing Nassau Sound and continuing to Fernandina Beach, where we stopped here to take on 100 gal of diesel (@$3.89). There was 2+ knots of current holding us onto the fuel dock so getting off the dock was "interesting" (euphemism alert!).

 

We crossed St Marys Inlet to enter Georgia and fought a 3+ knot current up into Cumberland Sound to drop anchor off the Park Service dock here. We are now in a region of 8 ft tides and lots of flat marshland to flood/drain every tide cycle so the currents near inlets are impressive.

 

We've already done 2 walks on the island: to the Dungeness Mansion ruins (below) and across to the Atlantic Beach. We look forward to more hikes today and tomorrow and then plan to continue north on Thursday.

 

 

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Cruising 'Uphill' and efficiency

Hello from Marineland FLA, where we are hanging out for a few days. Our last 2 days cruising northwards involved many hours of going 'uphill', or against an opposing current. As we slogged along at reduced speed I had time to think about what engine rpm would achieve maximum efficiency when pushing against opposing current. Since today is gray and cold (60's !!) it seems a good time to crunch some numbers.

 

[Warning ! The analysis below relies on many rough estimates and a few WAG's. Hopefully any errors in the input numbers do not impact the conclusions reached.]

Normally a displacement boat (non-planing hull) like Spray gets better fuel mileage (mpg or since we measure speed in knots we'll use nmpg = nautical miles per gallon) when you go slower. When I bought Spray I was told that when cruising at 1600 rpm she makes 6.5 knots and burns 1.5 gallons of diesel per hour (much cruising since then has verified those numbers), but that increasing engine speed to 2000 rpm brings speed to 8 knots but at the cost of double the fuel use, or 3 gal/hr. Going to full throttle yields 2400 rpm and top speed of 9 knots but again doubles the fuel use to 6 gal/hr.

Here's a table that summarizes all this and includes a slow cruise rate of 1200 rpm:

Spray performance in still water

rpm    speed in knots    fuel use in gph

1200         5.0              0.75

1600         6.5              1.5

2000         8.0              3.0

2400         9.0              6.0

Here is the fuel use data graphed, with rpm on the horizontal axis and gph on the vertical axis. (A cubic polynomial has been fit to the data points)

The non-linear aspect of this performance is obvious. Basically what happens with a displacement hull is that when you reach a 'hull speed' based primarily on hull length (at waterline), pushing harder makes a bigger wake and uses more fuel, but gives very little added speed.

 

What about efficiency, as measured in nmpg ? It's easy to calculate since nmpg = nmph (aka knots) / gph, so for our basic cruise speed we see 6.5 nmph / 1.5 gph = 4.33 nmpg. Now 4+ miles per gallon stinks for a car but its pretty good for a cruising boat (we see many that are yielding 1 nmpg or less).

 

Here's the table from above with nmpg data added :

 

Spray performance in still water

rpm    speed in knots     fuel use in gph      Efficiency in nmpg

1200        5.0                 0.75                   6.7

1600        6.5                 1.5                    4.3

2000        8.0                 3.0                    2.7

2400        9.0                 6.0                    1.5

Now lets graph this efficiency data :

This confirms what was stated earlier : for a displacement hull slower speeds yield better fuel mileage and at higher speeds (especially above hull speed), fuel mileage suffers badly.

 

Why don't we cruise at 1200 rpm and yield nearly 7 nmpg ? It's a matter of compromise between efficiency and making progress. 6.5 knots is slow enough. 5 knots would seem glacial. I have met boaters who cruise that slowly though.

 

Next lets look at the effect of opposing current with water speed v (we'll use negative v's for opposing current). If you pick an extreme case of v = -6.5 knots, you yield zero efficiency at 1600 rpm since Spray would be effectively motionless as it fought such a current, and to get any forward motion at all you'd need to push rpm > 1600. So there's a case where you need higher engine rpm for better efficiency, which is the reverse of what we see in still water.

 

I took the table above and repeated it 6 times, each time adding v values of -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6 knots to the 'speed in knots' columns. The resulting nmpg numbers are graphed below :

The still water case (v = 0) is shown in blue for reference. As I study the plots, here is what I notice.

 

A) All the plots are below the v = 0 reference plot, so opposing current always reduces nmpg (Duh!).

 

B) The hit on nmpg is biggest at low rpm and smaller at high rpm.

 

C) For opposing currents up to 3 knots, the plots always slope downwards, which means that slowing down the engine rpm will still increase fuel mileage.

 

D) But for opposing currents of 4 knots or greater, there is an optimum rpm above 1200 that will yield best fuel mileage.

- For 4 knot opposing current it looks like 1600 rpm yields best efficiency.

- For 5 knot opposing current it looks like maybe 1800 rpm yields best efficiency.

- For 6 knot opposing current it looks like just under 2000 rpm yields best efficiency.

- (it should be noticed that at these high opposing current speeds, even the optimum efficiency stinks)

 

E) At high opposing current speeds and low rpm we see 'negative' nmpg values. This means we are burning fuel but Spray is moving backwards relative to land. Obviously not a good situation.

 

So what conclusions do I draw from this, and should I change how I drive Spray uphill?

 

1) I mentally knew that this analysis would yield the 'optimum' rpms to run at for opposing currents (thinking about the v = -6.5 knot extreme case) but I didn't predict that it would occur only for such large opposing currents, which we rarely encounter. For the 0.5 to 2.0 knot currents we regularly do encounter, the old rule of still slowing rpm for better nmpg still applies.

 

2) What I had been doing was this : when cruising at 1600 rpm and saw that opposing current slowed Spray to below 6 knots, I would bump the throttle up to maybe 1750 knots, adding a few tenths of a knot to our speed. This helps to keep us near schedule for a day's travel but what does it do to nmpg? For a 1 knot opposing current the red curve above yields the following:

2.1) Keeping at 1600 rpm we see nmpg reduced from still water value of 4.3 to about 3.7. A hit but not a huge one.

2.2) Moving down the red curve to 1750 rpm reduces the nmpg value further to about 3.1. We have gained some of the lost speed back but at the cost of a double-whammy to nmpg.

 

Conclusions :

 

I) Avoid extended runs into opposing currents above 2 knots, if at all possible. Better to drop the anchor and wait for the tide to change.

 

II) If time allows, when running into opposing currents of 1-2 knots, just keep the rpm at normal cruising value of 1600. Fuel mileage will drop somewhat but we won't be making it even worse. Besides, what's our hurry?

 

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Going Coastal

IntraCoastal, that is. After crossing Florida from west to east via the Okeechobee Waterway, we are back on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AICW), and headed North.

 

Today we are at Adventure Yacht Basin, just south of Daytona Beach and about 130 miles north of St Lucie Inlet, where we turned off the Okeechobee Waterway and onto the AICW. We've been mixing days of travel with 2-3 day stops, which is probably what we'll do most of the way back to Maine.

 

The last blog entry was made from a park at the St Lucie Dam and Lock, and last Friday morning we locked through there to drop about 14 ft. down to sea level and back into salty water. 7 miles of easy travel down the St Lucie River (south fork) brought us to Sunset Bay Marina, which operates a mooring field serving Stuart FL. We rented a mooring ball for 3 nights which gave us plenty of time to explore Stuart's trendy 'old town' section, replenish grocery supplies (we used the marina's loaner bikes), and walk the dogs through nearby parks. On Saturday we had lunch here, and on Sunday we checked out the farmers market which had many more craft sellers than farmers. Overall, Stuart was a nice place to wait out the weekend (to avoid idiot boaters we much prefer weekday travel to weekend travel).

On Monday morning we got Spray's waste tank pumped out and then continued down the St Lucie River for 6 miles to join the AICW at the St Lucie Inlet. This marked the point where we had completed the loop around southern Florida.

 

As we headed north on the Indian River we had strong tailwind but travel was pretty easy, and 30 miles later we pulled into the protected mooring field at Vero Beach City Marina, only to find that all the moorings were occupied (sorta). It turns out that we aren't the only boat headed north out of southern Florida right now but instead are part of a large pack of such boats. When we came south we were behind the majority of AICW cruisers, and I liked that there was always plenty of space at anchorages and marinas, which may not be the case as we head north.

 

Anyways, Vero has a way of dealing with too many boats in the mooring field, which is to ask (require) boats to raft together, often with strangers. We had already arranged with the Siegels, who had arrived aboard aCappella the previous day, to be rafting partners if needed. The marina people were hesitant as they try to raft same sized boats together and noted that Spray's 32 ft LOA doesn't quite match aCappella's 53 ft. I radioed and convinced them that we could make it work and so, using seemingly dozens of fenders (of which only 2 actually touched both boats), we tied Spray's starboard side to aCappella's port side. Of course Riggs saw the Siegels' blonde labs Dylan and DeeDee and went nuts until I tossed him aboard aCappella and he sniffed butts and peed on the boat (making Riggs the new owner of a DeFever 53), and all was OK. Funny how we can't get him to relieve himself on Spray but on someone else's boat - no problem!

We paid for 2 nights on the mooring and headed for the nearby dog park, which draws many dogs and their slaves. That night (Monday) our rafting scheme got tested as a front came through with some serious wind gusts. The lines and fenders did their jobs, and the mooring held, and all was OK.

 

Tuesday involved dog play, dinghy tours, and a nice dinner at nearby Riverside Cafe with the Siegels and with Castiners Kathy and Gene Spinazola, long time cruisers who now winter 'on the hard' near Vero. Great conversation centered on the joys of cruising. Kathy and Gene left each couple with a large bottle of local orange juice, which was a great treat!

 

On Wednesday morning we untied from mother ship aCappella and continued north, this time for 33 miles up to Melbourne, where we pulled into the Eau Gallie River, which has a great protected anchorage next to a nice park and is where we spent New Years Eve nearly 3 months earlier. Amazingly we were the only boat anchored there.

 

After an easy overnight on the hook we made another 33 mile run on Thursday up to Titusville. The weather has been agreeably cooler and drier, with nights in the low 60's and days in the 70's, and northerly breezes.

 

We had stayed at Titusville Municipal Marina for a couple days back in late December. We liked it then and still do. Of note are the nice dog park right next store and especially all the manatees here. We must have had a dozen of them swimming behind Spray yesterday evening.

Today we left Titusville at about 9 am, crossed from the Indian River over to Mosquito Sound, and continued north to Adventure Yacht Basin, a smallish marina south of Daytona. The Atlantic beach here looks great and is only a few blocks away, but unfortunately they don't allow dogs on the beach. We also had hopes of having dinner at the adjacent restaurant, but it is a VERY popular place and had a 1+ hour wait. So we adjourned back to Spray for spaghetti. Color us disappointed.

 

Tomorrow we chug farther north to Marineland, where we will stay for a few days. Stay tuned to see how that goes.

 

 

 

 

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On the move

Sheila and crew with the Big Giant Head on N. Captiva :

 

After 3 weeks of very pleasant lollygagging around Gulf coast Florida, we have resumed more focused travel, with the focus being on our return to Maine.

 

We left Safety Harbor on North Captiva Island at about 4 pm last Saturday, timed to agree with high tide. This allowed us enough time on Saturday to borrow Deane and Sandra's electric golf cart for a trip to the SW corner of the developed part of the island, then a nice walk down the gulf beach in the state nature preserve section. When we returned the golf cart we were ready to hit the Over the Waterfront for lunch but instead found that Sandra had just fixed a great smelling lunch and we couldn't turn down their invitation.

 

When we left the harbor Deane escorted us out in his smaller boat, just as he had done when we arrived. Our visit to N. Captiva will remain a highlight of our journey.

 

Since it was late afternoon we made a short trip south to Captiva Island and anchored near a very nice restaurant, the Green Flash. We used their docks to land dogs and later had a nice supper there. Captiva is more upscale and civilized than N. Captiva, and you can drive there. These are negatives to the Richardsons, and to us. Still a nice place though.

 

On Sunday morning we were up early to walk the dogs and visit the Chapel by the Sea, which was setting up for its morning service, both indoors and outdoors. A very unique church experience no doubt.

 

Then back on the water and off to Ft. Myers, a 26 mile run down Pine Island Sound then up the Caloosahatchee River. It was Sunday so the local boaters were out in force. Here's an armada approaching us in an area known as the 'miserable mile'.

Eventually we reached the Fort Myers Yacht Basin Marina to starboard and pulled in to tie up directly behind the Siegels aboard aCappella. We had last visited them in Sarasota and they had been roaming around the area since as had we but now also were planning to cross Florida via the Okeechobee Waterway.

 

We had a pleasant overnight stay at this marina, which abuts downtown Ft. Myers. We walked 4 dogs along the waterfront park, caught up with showers, and Sheila did laundry plus even got her hair cut on this cool houseboat :

We also emptied Spray's waste tank, and filled her water and fuel tanks (80 gal. diesel @ $4.21).

 

Monday's cruise was to be a fairly short 27 miles so we didn't leave until 11 am, then headed farther up the Caloosahatchee to the W.P. Franklin lock on the Okeechobee Waterway, which raised us about 3 ft. into fresh water. Here's our crew observing the locking process.

We continued on towards the NE through scenic farmland until we reached the town of LaBelle, where we nosed into a slip on their municipal wharf. It was hot (mid 80's) here inland so after exploring the town a bit we had sandwiches for supper. Sadly we were too late for this festival:

Tuesday morning we started with ball/frisbee play at the adjacent park, then continued up the Caloosahatchee (now canal rather than river) to the next lock at Ortona which lifted us another 8 ft, then onwards to another lock at Moore Haven which lifted us another 3 ft to the level of Lake Okeechobee. We turned to starboard to follow the rim of the lake, with a large dike to starboard and swampland to port. It quickly became clear that we were in alligator country. After a while we pulled in to our destination : Roland Martin Marina in the farm and fishing town of Clewiston.

 

Once again we tied up aft of aCappella which had arrived a bit earlier. The marina here is basically a long channel with a wooden dock on one side and while we could drive in and then turn around before leaving, aCappella's 53 ft length required that Jeff back her a couple of hundred feet down the channel, and that with a large attentive audience at the Tiki Bar. Now that is pressure.

 

After draining the dogs the Tiki Bar beckoned for cool drinks, then a much needed shower for me. It was sweltering aboard Spray and we tried not to be too envious of aCappella's air conditioner. Here are the 2 boats stern-to-stern.

Wednesday promised strong SW winds, so we started early so as to cross Lake Okeechobee (22 miles of shallow water) before the waves kicked up too much. For most of the crossing the waves were from astern so not bad to deal with. Spray headed out first and was followed by aCappella, the idea being that with our shallower 4' draft we could report any shallow spots such that aCappella (5.5 ft draft) could steer around if needed. I set our depth finder alarm for 7.5 ft and while it did sound off a couple of times, both boats had plenty of depth for the crossing.

 

At the east side of Okeechobee we left the lake through the lock at Port Mayaca, which had both ends open since water levels in the lake and the St. Lucie Canal were the same. It was a bit hairy passing through the lock with lake waves at the entrance and some current running through. Here is aCappella following us through with Jeff keeping her centered :

As you can see above, the St. Lucie Canal was much calmer than the lake, so the next 20 miles towards Stuart FL, were very easy going, with minimal boat traffic. Nearing Stuart, aCappella pulled into a marina and a mile later we reached the final lock at Port St Lucie but, rather than lock through, we nosed into a slip at the park here which like the lock is run by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

 

[Fun diversion - on aCappella Jeff mounts a GoPro camera pointed forwards and records time-lapse video as they travel. Here's the link to Wednesday's travel across Okeechobee and down the St Lucie Canal. If you view with a big screen you can see Spray leading the way. I think the vid needs race car sounds added.]

 

This is a nice park, with power for us to plug into, clean showers, 8 boat slips plus several RV and tenting sites, and lots of grassy space for dog play. We can even play horseshoes right off Spray's bow. If we get bored the lock here provides a great show.

We are staying 2 nights as a front went through yesterday evening, bringing welcome cooler temps (mid 60's) and gusty N. winds. Tomorrow we will lock through, dropping 14 ft back to sea level (and salty water), then only 7 miles to the mooring field at Stuart, where we plan to hang for a few days. We don't want to overdo this 'on the move' thing.

 

 

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On Vacation

We've been making the most of our lack of a travel schedule as we meander along Florida's Gulf Coast, looking for Paradise. It does feel like we are on vacation.

 

The last blog entry had us with a couple more days to stay at Marina Jacks in downtown Sarasota, and we made the most of those days. Last Wednesday Sheila and Jeryl attended an Einstein Circle discussion, then a quick trip to the Ringling Circus Museum, while Alex and I took his 1972 MGB out to his garage/shop space to see his Florida car collection and take a spin in his cool 1941 Plymouth Coupe. Great fun.

 

Alex and Jeryl loaned us a car for the night so we could hit the Publix to stock Spray's pantry. On Thursday morning we returned the car to them (many thanks!) and filled and drained appropriate tanks before departing at 11 am. We headed North about 7 miles to the home of Priscilla and Dudley, where we squeezed into their dock on Sarasota Bay :

They summer on Islesboro island across from Castine and winter in their beautiful house here. Right after we arrived Dudley showed up with Chinese take-out for lunch and that night Priscilla cooked us a fantastic supper. We are definitely getting spoiled by all this hospitality. We walked the dogs around the neighborhood which has a neat variety of homes.

 

On Friday the fun continued. First Doug Endicott showed up and took Dudley and us to the Ringling Art Museum (see top picture) and Mansion for tours. We bought our first Castine house through Doug's realty brokerage and now he is the best booster for the Sarasota area and a great tour guide.

 

After lunch Dudley and I hopped into his 16 ft. outboard boat and buzzed 20 miles north to check out the amazing fleet of paddle/peddle/wind powered watercraft assembled for the 2014 Everglades Challenge, a 300 mile 'race' from near Tampa down to Key Largo, via the Everglades. Quite an interesting collection of adventurous people and their boats.

 

We had to zip back in time for Alex and Jeryl to pick us up for drinks at their condo, then supper and music at this hopping joint. Whew, what a day!

No rest on Saturday as Dudley, Sheila and I took Dudley's boat up to Longboat Pass Inlet and then out to the Gulf to watch the Everglades Challengers on the 1st leg of their adventure as they headed south. The wind was calm so at this stage the paddlers had the advantage. Here you can see several Challenge boats on a calm Gulf of Mexico :

 

On the way back in we stopped at Jewfish Island to see some neat homes of Dudley's friends (Dudley is the friendliest guy in the world and thus knows everyone).

When we returned to Spray, Dudley and I jockeyed a Bimini top onto his larger Albin boat. Then it was high tide, necessary to float Spray off the dock, so we started her up and bade farewell.

We crossed Sarasota Bay for a short cruise to Buttonwood Harbor on Longboat Key, where we anchored overnight and then got an early start on Sunday, heading back southwards past Sarasota, on the inside to Venice, then on the outside down to Boca Grande Pass and back inside to Pelican Bay, at Cayo Costa State Park. It was a long 55 mile day.

 

[Important Milestone : when we started south from Sarasota Bay, we actually began our return trip back to Maine. Even though we are moving southwards, we are now on our way home.]

 

So it was Sunday evening and we were anchored among maybe 20 other boats, in 6 feet of water, near the docks of this interesting state park. It is on one of the largest undeveloped barrier islands in Florida, and accessible only by boat. For our evening dog walk we crossed the island to the Gulf side, where there are campgrounds for tenting, and also some rustic cabins. This looked like a place where we can stay a while. So we did stay for three days.

 

On Monday we took the dogs for a romp on a nearby beach, then walked them to the campground where Sheila could take a refreshing (ie.: cold) outdoor shower, then back to Spray where we left the dogs so we could take a 2 mile dinghy ride to Cabbage Key. We had a nice lunch at the popular restaurant there to celebrate our 35th (!!) wedding anniversary. Here's the view :

On the dinghy ride back we detoured to the "tunnel of love", which is an inlet near the south end of Cayo Costa Island that narrows to a sinuous creek through the mangroves. Our dinghy just barely fit through and we were lucky that it was high tide. Eventually we popped out into a small lagoon and landed at a sandy spot. A few steps brought us to a very remote section of the Gulf-side beach, where there was a guy named 'Ray' to welcome us :

 

When Sheila waded in Ray bolted off like lightning.

The next day (Tuesday) we again started with dog play on the beach, then back to Spray for some fun maintenance work, then to the park for a walk down the Cemetery Trail up to the north end of the island. We kept the dogs well leashed to keep them from chasing critters such as armadillo, and to keep them out of the abundant poison ivy. Poison ivy is native here so park officials do not remove it (nor even warn you about it!).

 

Wednesday we walked the dogs on the Gulfside Trail and then took the most amazing dinghy ride into a small bay a few hundred yards south of the park docks. In that bay were maybe 20 manatees and a guy there says that its mating time for them. Sheila rowed as manatees swam all around us. We also glimpsed our first alligator of the trip in there. Here's Sheila's photo of some manatee nostrils :

At 2 pm we hoisted anchor to head for our next port of call which was North Captiva Island, an 8 mile cruise south, past Cabbage Key. We were headed to Safety Harbor which has a shallow, tricky entrance. Fortunately we had 2 advantages :

- It was high tide.

- We were invited there by Castine summer residents Sandra and Deane Richardson, and Deane had taken his boat out to the ICW to meet us and guide us into Safety Harbor. Local knowledge is a good thing.

 

Sandra and Deane own a lovely home in the Safety Harbor Club development, and the club has a nice dock setup where Spray is now tied up. This place is very cool : an island community accessed only by boat. No golf course, no cars, essentially no stores, and super casual. The roads are 6 ft. wide sandy paths and travel is by electric golf cart, bicycle, or foot. South of the developed area are many miles of nature preserve and 3 miles of empty beach on the Gulf shore. There are a few restaurants including Barnacle Phil's where we 4 had supper last night.

 

Sandra and Deane are super friendly people and know almost everyone on the island (same as they do in Castine) and they've been great hosts to us, arranging for dockage, opening their home (including shower!) to us, and guiding us around the island. They really enjoy having Katie and Riggs visit.

 

One aspect of our visit here is that we are riding out 2 days of weather, with thunderstorms/rain Thursday and strong wind Friday, and Safety Harbor is living up to its name. Thursday we were treated to breakfast by Sandra, stayed and chatted while it stormed outside (seemed like a tropical rain forest surrounded by their lush yard), and then Deane made us all lunch. Katie and even Riggs were good house guests.

 

After the storm we retreated back to Spray at the dock. For our evening dog walk we ended up on the Gulf side beach which was of a completely different temperament from yesterday, not smooth and welcoming but rough and noisy. After clouds all day the sun broke through just before sunset. It was spectacular!

 

Today (Friday) we helped Deane and Sandra with some community planting they are doing then went to a nice lunch at the Over The Waterfront restaurant, which is a stones throw from Spray's dock. Deane played a large roll in the rebuilding of that restaurant and it sure is over the waterfront.

 

We will spend another day or so here, then we will head down to Ft. Myers and turn up the Caloosahatchee River towards Lake Okeechobee. Are we leaving Paradise?

 

Oh, 2 more things :

- at night we've been visited by these odd critters. Can you identify them (another photo from Sheila) ?

- [another major milestone : last night we saw the final episode of 'Breaking Bad' on Netflix. My baby blue.]

 

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