Will it stop raining?

The pool has been close to overflowing for a while.  But the rain has kept the water temperature below hot tub levels.  Every day is much the same.  Pop-up thunderstorms, which are short lived, during the day and occasional heavy downpours in the late afternoon.

This one was particularly heavy and arrived with nice cloud formation:

Of course, in times like these, one has to time arrival at the local bar in between downpours. Radar apps on the smartphone are essential.

Then one can watch the rain in the comfort of other die-hard happy hour folks.

The forecast?  You guessed it...

• Currently

  Partly sunny79°
  RealFeel® 93°
  
  

• Today

  Sep 29

  Couple of thunderstormsHi 87°RealFeel 102°

  
  

• Tonight

  Sep 29

  A couple of evening t-stormsLo 71°RealFeel 74°

  
  

• Tomorrow

  Sep 30

  Heavy thunderstormsHi 85°RealFeel 97°

  more
  

Road trip to Bradenton

 Jo had to get her hair stained at Gloria's place in Bradenton so we had another excuse to go see Jamie and Jen and Jon and Janice.  We had lunch with Jamie and Jen at one of our favourite lunch places; O'Brick's, on Friday.  Jen was looking smart in her business attire.  Jamie wasn't.  Always great to chat with these folks.

Then to Jon and Janice's place so Jon and I could go get his boat out of the shop and bring it home.  Forecast was for heavy rain but mild winds.  We had the boat back from Bradenton Beach within a couple of hours.

Saturday was Singapore Grand Prix qualifying for breakfast.  The we split for shopping so I could get a new phone  and later we joined up for lunch.  Janice's sister Jen was visiting for the weekend from Naples.  Later Jo had her staining done.  I thought it was too dark but she said it was exactly what she wanted.  What do I know?

Jon had a couple of electrical snags on the boat so we went down to fault find.  One remedied itself (for now) and the other turned out to be a faulty electrical actuator that needs to be replaced.

Next, an Indian supper in Sarasota:

Wine and dice games in the evening.  Sunday breakfast included the Singapore Grand Prix yielding an excellent result.  Then Jo and I hit the road back to Vero Beach.  Very heavy rain storms enroute.  They were heading east with us but much slower of course so we temporarily overtook them.

Spooky was much better on her own this time.  She had eaten and was in good spirits.  She must be getting used to our occasional sojourns to the Gulf Coast.

The storms caught up with us around supper time. This brief movie shows the contrast in the sky as I panned from east to west.

When it arrived, the rain was very heavy and prolonged.  Not the typical afternoon thunderstorm.

In the evening we Skyped with Catherine using the TV.  I like Smart TVs!

That's the diary for this last weekend.

Another day closer to fall..

It's been a very warm summer.  Both in the Bahamas and here.  But we are starting to feel the changes occurring. In Ontario you can feel the change in the air and see it in the cloud formations as the weather pattern changes.  We are not used to the weather patterns here but we can detect a change.  It is too hot here in the summer to do very much but siesta in the a/c in the boat or bask in the warm pool waters.  I look forward to the winter when we can take the bikes out without an ambulance following along.  There was a fair breeze yesterday so we drove over to the Atlantic coast to enjoy the surf.

We decided to lunch at the Riverside where everyone was watching Florida's NCAA team. 

A few laps in the pool and we retired to the dock with the cat.  Life's like that.

Marina views

Jo has been complaining that I haven't posted pictures of this marina here in Vero Beach.  Here is a post to correct that. The first thing we saw when we came into the marina was this; the gas and pump-out dock.  Diesel prices are excellent here.  The time before this that I filled up was at Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas en route TO Hope Town.  There we paid almost $5 a gallon.  Here the price was discounted to $3.15.  Pump-outs are free and you can help yourself but there's no pump out at the slip which is a bummer.

Looking the other way shows the Entry/Exit channel to the IntraCoastal Waterway.

The Captain's Lounge is where we watch Formula 1 as they have Cable TV in there but not on the docks.  We do get about 15 over-the-air channels at the boat.  Jo is watching Ellen in high definition as I type.

The pool is a highlight of the facility, especially now when midday temperatures are over 90F.

The dual waterfalls are purely decorative and hide the gas dock awning.

Ed, in the following picture, just had a hip replacement and has a boat identical to ours on the other side of the marina.  We meet he and his wife almost every day in the pool.

This is Cadence; In the marina for the school semester.

And this is the view down our dock as you leave the pool deck:

So these and previous photos should give you a qood idea of our current home base.

Road trip

So our Destiny friends, Jamie and Jenn, left for the west coast which gave us an excuse to head likewise. We drove their car and ours across to St. Petersburg so their car would be at their new marina and we could see and stay with Jon and Janice. Half way across Florida I was sorely tempted to stop here for the night.

Once we got there we found out that Jamie and Jenn had pretty much decided to stay in our old marina Twin Dolphin, that we had recommended previously.  We had a great weekend with Jon and Janice and had lunch with all six of us on holiday Monday at Pier 22 served by our own Megan.

Jo's leg has made two major reductions over the last couple of weeks.  Overnight, her hematoma has shrunk drastically on two separate occasions and it looks like it could be back to normal sooner than we were advised.  Fingers crossed!