Summer moves along

 After several months here in Florida, I ask myself why am I here? Really. Well, there are many good reasons I suppose like reconnecting with family and friends, getting Freedom cleaned up implementing repairs and upgrades, as well as pursuing another dink. While the Bahamas have grown on us getting back in the U.S. where we have good, no, great shopping and access to whatever we need is a necessity. Living life here for so long has left its mark making it difficult to live without all of those things we have grown accustomed to.
 Part of being here for the Summer ensures we will experience some weather and that begs the question, "you want to be here for hurricane season?". I will admit Andrea had us concerned for a while. Initially the forecasts were for quite a bit of rain  and winds were predicted to be quite high. But as it turned out the worst affect we noticed was surge coming into the marina raising Freedom up so far I had difficulty getting onto the boat to double check settings and lines. So Andrea came and left without much ado.
 In fact she didn't get in between us and celebrating our anniversary. That went without a hitch at the The Veranda in Fort Myers. The service was outstanding as well as the food. We were going to take Freedom across to the City marina but with all of the commotion caused by the weather, a taxi seemed like a less challenging approach. Docking Freedom in 40 MPH winds is an experience left to the uninitiated and less aware. Since we used a taxi to get there and back we had no apprehensions about splitting a bottle of wine over dinner so the environment was all good. It was a great night out and we had plenty left over for lunch the next day!
 And that takes me to the OP where I wonder why we are here. All throughout the Winter we sort of wander aimlessly around the Abacos during its off season. Beaches are empty, shelling is good and peaceful since no one else is around and the establishments are all pleased to have some business. We get over here, and even though the West coast of Florida is more laid back than other areas, it's still culture shock returning to the area. Leaving the tranquility of the Bahamas has a price. But life goes on.
 With quite a bit of maintenance done on Freedom we still had more to perform so opening up the salon floor again came sooner than I was ready for. It was time to boil out the heat exchangers and oil coolers because Freedom would start to run warm under a heavy load. Calcification and crud accretion from the salt water inside the exchangers reduces their effectiveness. Along the way through this chore several old zincs that snapped off inside the exchangers along with other debris in the form of weeds were removed from the input side of the transmission oil coolers. These particular coolers are first in line from the sea strainer so cleaning them up along with the boil out had a pronounced and positive affect.
 But in a surprise the new dink showed up pretty much unexpectedly so we took a break to get that transfer accomplished and then check it out on the water. For our first ride we took the dink down stream to Pine Island and after a little confusion we made it to Woody's where we had a great lunch with a really cold beer. The confusion was born out of all the canals in Florida and my lack of ability to pick the correct one on Google Earth to transfer to the Garmin hand held plotter we have. I was off by one canal so we shot 20 minutes going up a dead end which turned out to be about 20 yards from Woody's. Oh well.. However I was rescued by the new Galaxy S4 droid I upgraded to. A few days before we received the dink I received it and installed Plan2Nav on it along with the charts for the East Coast of the U.S. and Bahamas. Since it includes Active Captain I was able to locate Woody's and correct the mistaken turns. That made the investment in the charts well worth while given how reasonable they are for a smart phone. All in all an awesome application backed up by some very good chartography. The only issue is the lack of visability the S4 display has in sunlight.
 Back on Freedom the upgrades and maintenance continued in between visits from friends and family. With all of the work in tight quarters I'll take all excuses to break away from Freedom. At this point at least the bilge work is winding down. So far the list goes something like this; turbos removed and replaced with factory remans, wifi booster replaced, cell phone booster installed, props removed and tuned, splice up a bridle for dink towing, engine battery charger replaced, battery monitor for the house bank installed, all oil and filters along with fuel filters changed out, buzz out some rust on the genny and replace the OEM muffler that didn't for the genny, various zincs replaced, and order a custom pizza stone for the oven. Yes, a pizza stone. It was "one of those things".