In the marina and doing chores!

Well, we're back in the marina, aboard our home, Audrey Paige, and 'lovin' it'!! Andreas dropped us off at the boat, after 2 hours of going through airport stuff, and we decided to see how much we could put away that night instead of chillin'!

The next few days were spent doing all those boat chores and installing all the great stuff we brought from the States. Replaced the water pump - the most important thing. Then, before we left and were cleaning like crazy, Dennis was trying to clean the brass saltwater hand pump in the galley. Oops, it just broke into pieces. Happiest day of my life. No more pink and green spewing all over the galley and setees. He's now installed a stainless steel foot pump (so, so much easier than a hand pump) and put a soap dispenser into the hole where the hand pump was. Life is so much easier.

This is our best purchase - an Engel cooler/freezer, that we choose to use as a freezer. We should be able to store about six weeks' worth of food, have ice and keep most of the fish we catch. While it's nice to make new friends in an anchorage by giving away fish, it really hurts to give the majority away!

Dennis has been busy with his sewing projects and I'm just trying to stay out of the way. My turn is coming in the next couple of weeks -- WOODWORK!!

A great new toy is our new IPOD with the car adapter. We plug it into our 12 volt plug, tune in a non-working radio station, and all of our music is on this tiny little IPOD. Don't tell Mom Coon that our two CD albums are hidden in our closet at her place as well as three of our photo albums. We need all the storage on the boat that we can get!

Right now, just hanging out, doing shopping trips and trying to keep busy. The really, really bad thing is that the pool is now very, very green. Not spending time at the pool is killing us. We usually spent a couple of hours a day reading and swimming. Hope they figure that out real soon. At least we have air conditioning.

The next big project is hauling out to put a new cutlass bearing in. We have to drop the rudder and hope everything goes well. We'll let you know how that goes! Picked up one gallon of Sea Hawk bottom paint just to do the waterline and touchups. At $250 a gallon, we're hoping that's all we need. Took us 4 gallons last year to do the whole bottom. Ouch!

Insurance tells us we can't leave this area until the beginning of November, and we're really ready to get out on the hook again.

Hope you enjoy the photos and keep in touch! ~~~/_)~~~

Back to the States

Parker and Avory
at the waterpark


Back in Bahia Redonda, cleaning like crazy, trying to get ready for our 6 1/2 weeks back in the States. It's Mom Coon's 90th birthday, so we have to get back for that. Not to mention, we really need to visit with our 9 grandkids!


Andreas picked us up at 6 a.m. to take us to the airport at Barcelona, along with Una from Dragonfly. We were supposed to travel with Jeff and Una but, unfortunately, Jeff's dad died, he left early and Una was running to make connecting flights. Rented a car from Miami to Tampa and, once again, Larry and Melody, our good friends, came and picked us up at Tampa Airport at the last minute. Well, we gave them 24 hours notice. Don't know what we'd do without them. Obviously, never make it to see Mom Coon! Spent 10 days in Florida and then headed up to Michigan to see our wonderful grandkids. A relatively painless journey, compared to last year. Just a whole different story.


Taylour, Zach and Cody


Tried not to be too much of a bother, alternating our time between Kelly and Charlie's place and Shaun's, with a short visit over to Windsor to visit with Sue and Dan. Visited the waterpark with all the grandkids and just lots of quality kid time. Did chores at Kelly's and Shaun's, trying to be helfpful.



Sold the our car on our last day at Shaun's, and Dennis' good friend Jerry came all the way to Algonac from Royal Oak to pick us up. About an 80 mile round trip. We bought dinner and caught up and did pay for gas, since it's $4 a gallon! Big difference from Venezuela!!



The only sad note was that a friend died while we were back home and so our usual visit with the old Detroit Dive Team was at the funeral. Geoff Coon, no relation, same last name, replaced Dennis on the tow truck and dive team when he retired. Just sad, too young to die at 55 in a motorcycle accident.



Flew back to Orlando, rented a car for a week, visited with Mom Coon again, before driving down to Miami and back to Venezuela. Had a great flight and everything went as scheduled.




Did have a wonderful trip home visiting with our beautiful grandkids. We have Taylour (13), Zach (11), Cody (10), Parker (6), Avory (4), Madison (4), Ryenn (23 months), Brooklyn (14 months) and Emerson (9) months. If you click on our Picasa Web Albums to the left, you'll see our Summer, 2008 photos with all our family.



SO, SO good to be home on Audrey Paige! ~~~~_/)~~~~