28 February 2025
I, Ev, woke up this morning with vertigo. Lying on my back everything was normal, but as soon as I rolled to one side or the other the room started to spin out of control. Later, someone asked what me had to say about the experience, and I said, "Stop the ride! I want to get off!" It was a miserable experience that left me woozy for the rest of the day.
I had a one-on-one photography session scheduled at the library this afternoon, but I dared not walk there on my own. I decided I better cancel. Luckily, weekly photography classes are being offered for the month of March in lieu of the sewing classes that have been in place since we arrived in December. I hope to see some familiar faces at these sessions.
At 3:30 I had a tough decision to make - go or no go to the free concert at the library. I decided to make the effort as I would have Clark to hold on to on the walk there should the need arise. We walked into the library "concert hall" shortly after 4:00, and the duo was already performing. The tune was a lively one we both knew, and we walked in singing. The husband of the duo commented how much he appreciated the audience coming in singing to the music.
Veronneau is a pair of traveling musicians. They perform one of two different shows - either a mix of Carole King and Joni Mitchell or one of their French songs. They opted to do the King / Mitchell version for us but ended their show with "La Mer" sung in French. They followed that with a second encore -- the Brazilian song "Girl from Ipanema". King songs they sang included "So Far Away" and "Natural Woman". Mitchell songs included "Carey", "California", "River", and "Case of You". They did one song from the Who as well as the King / James Taylor song "You've got a Friend".
Lynn, the singer, is from Montreal, Canada and French is her first language. She whistled part of one song. I have never heard anyone carry a tune so well while whistling! Ken is an excellent guitarist. He, like Clark, has a carbon fiber acoustic guitar, which of course fascinated Clark. Interestingly, the guitar can be collapsed to fit into a carry-on sized bag!
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| "Veronneau" |
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| Lynn Veronneau |
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| Ken Avis |
Having enjoyed our musical outing, our next scheduled event of the day was a Haitian Dinner prepared and served at the St. Columba Church that we attend every Sunday. We have met the Haitian couple, Wenise and Joseph, who hosted the dinner at church. They are wonderful people who have turned their retirement home in Haiti into an orphanage. Children appear from out of nowhere with no adults and are taken in to be fed, clothed, and educated.
In an effort to raise money to help Wenise and Joseph, the church offered to put on the Haitian Dinner event. For $20, the food consisted of deviled eggs as an appetizer, followed by black rice, baked chicken, fried plantain, cole slaw, and a delicious cake for dessert. The church kitchen, which had not been used to cook a full meal since 2017 after Hurricane Irma, functioned well with many hands helping Chef Wenise to prepare and cook the meal although Pastor Deb said she failed at her job of cutting up radishes. The radishes were included in the coleslaw to give it a bit of a zip!
Besides the food, we also got to enjoy a display of Haitian art. These items were not for sale. They came from a private collection just for this event.
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| Similar to French, but not the same |
Metal art ...
As part of this event, three folks from the Marathon steel band group played music in the background. Mary, on the right in the picture, attends St. Columba church.
As this was the first time with this fund raiser, Pastor Deb was concerned with how it would go and how many people would attend. She decided that if 20 people attended, she would declare it a success. Over 60 people attended the event. Tip jars were left in conspicuous places, and folks generously dropped $$ in the jars. Needless to say, it was definitely a success!
Wenise and Joseph have not been to see their "retirement home" in over 5 years as it has been impossible to travel to Haiti given the unrest in that country. Fortunately, they have family there that take care of the house and all the children.
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| Pastor Deb |
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| Wenise thanking the crowd |
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| Pastor Deb, Wenise, and Joseph |
We are fortunate to have friends who attended. They picked us up at the library after music concert and drove us home after the dinner. That was extremely helpful since Ev was still not totally secure on her feet given the morning Vertigo experience.
1 March 2025
Ev woke up this morning with all signs of vertigo gone as if it had never happened. Hopefully, it will not recur!
The marina had a surprise for the boating tenants that they unveiled today. Over the past few weeks they have been diligently working on installing a laundry facility for us. Every time someone looked into it in the past, they came back with "it's too expensive" or "someday we will put up a building".
This year however, the person in charge of maintaining the property "took the bull by the horns" and decided to come up with a solution. He found an unlikely space, in a closet, where he could install a stacked washer / dryer combo. The staff held a grand opening of the washroom today at the boater's lounge. Clark and I wished to attend this event, which was scheduled for 1:00 in the afternoon, so we hung out at the marina until time for the big reveal.
Clark disappeared for a while to work with Steve on "Journey" to order parts for his boat. When he returned he just had enough time to eat lunch before going to the "grand opening" of the laundry facility. Had we known this even included lunch, we could have skipped eating beforehand.
The staff put on a nice display of food intermixed with laundry products. Boxes of Tide and Bounce decorated the table along with an array of Tide Pods. April came up with a way to provide mixed drinks that resembled the contents of a Tide Pod. Since we don't normally drink alcohol, we were not tempted to try the unusual concoctions.
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| "Tide Pod" Shots!? |
Turnout at the event was far less than spectacular. The weather offered the perfect opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors. Many of the boaters at Marlin Bay decided to take off in their dinghies to go hang out on "the sandbar". Fortunately, one of the boaters thought to tell the staff of the boating event, so they would know the reason for such a poor turnout at their big announcement.
One washer and one dryer for the whole marina may not sound like much, but it is a big deal to those of us that have been dragging their laundry a mile down Route 1 in backpacks!
The space used for the laundry "room" is indeed a storage closet on the outside of the Marina Office building. Meaning we are doing our laundry outdoors. It is definitely an "out-of-the-box" solution, but it works. Unlike most marinas, Marlin Bay decided to offer the use of the machines at no per-use charge - no tokens, no quarters, no $$ cards!
So far all we have is the washer/dryer combo and a single rolling chair. At the "grand opening", those of us who attended gave feedback on what needs to come next. First on my list was a garbage can, so we have somewhere to dispose of the lint from the dryer. Next on the list was a drop-down table where we can fold the laundry. I also requested shelving in the closet so we have a place to set things down that is not the floor.
As we walked back to the boat, we passed by fellow boaters carrying their laundry and proud to be the first to use the machines! A sign-up process has been set up to avoid conflicts related to using the machines.
Clark recently reinstalled his refurbished depth finder on the dinghy. The display had gone black with age. With a repaired display in place, he wanted to take the boat for a run to check it out. Having heard about the trip to the sandbar from "Moonglade", he decided to check out the sandbar and the depth finder at the same time.
It near 2:00 when we got underway, and we weren't sure how long our friends would stay at the sandbar. We traveled east to Vaca Cut and then out into the Atlantic Ocean seeking our friends. Searching where he thought he would find them, Clark saw nothing that looked like boats at a sandbar. He motored around for a while and then tried calling Roger to ask where they were. It took a few attempts but finally he got some instruction from Roger. We were in the wrong place and had to travel further east beyond Curry Hammock State Park!
Sometime after 3:00 we finally spied them waving their hands while standing on the sandbar. I thought only a couple of boaters went out for the day. We found most of the marina frolicking on the beach - at least most of the crowd we are friends with. They had food, drinks, chairs, and even a game of bocce ball going on.
We tied our dinghy onto Moonglade's dinghy, so we did not have to assemble our anchor. Roger, Barbara, and their dog Reva came out to greet us.
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| Roger on left Barbara, Ev, and dog Reva on right |
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| The assembled Marlin Bay crown |
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| Barbara, Ev, and Melissa watching the game (Clark photographer) |
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| Robin and Lou (on left of picture) playing the game |
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| End or round - checking results |
When the group arrived around noon today, they said the "island" was very small. As the tide went out, it grew and grew!
We enjoyed the outing to the sandbar. When folks said it was time to call it a day (around 4:00), Clark and I made a quick escape. It was easy to just untie from Moonglade's dinghy and get going. We have an oversized outboard on our dinghy (left over from previous owner), and we made it back to Sunset Delight in about an hour. We had our boat reinstalled on the big boat before others got back to the marina.
A couple of folks commented on how fast we got back. The water on the trip back was what Clark calls "sporty". We pounded over a few waves made by other boaters. I had to ask Clark to slow down because the pounding was giving me a headache. He grumbled that if he took the boat off plane we would never arrive. He did, however, slow down some. Unfortunately, my headache was already well established by that time!
2 March 2025
Today, being Sunday, we biked to church where Clark and the band once again played for the service. Normally, we stay to be sociable after church, but today they had a special event they called "Bagpipes and Bloody Marys". The bagpipes were played at the 9:00 service, so we missed that part. Neither of us drink Bloody Marys, so we had no interest in that part.
Clark suggested we stay to be sociable. I suggested we get while the getting was good as they had a speaker that would be talking about the church and estate planning. There would be no socializing going on. We jumped on our bikes and made our exit!
I had planned on waiting until Wednesday to check out the new laundry facility. Then I decided this morning that I wanted to try it today with sheets and towels. I requested the 3:30 timeslot. I got up there a little after 3:00, and since no one was using the machines, I got going. As per usual, the machines, being designed for homeowners (not a marina), have a multitude of settings for what is being washed and how. It took a bit playing with the machines to decide how to set them for what I wanted.
Overall, I took longer than the 90 minutes allocated for my timeslot. I guess I will need to be more efficient in the future. I had carried my laundry up in a bag. I went back to the boat to get my Dolly Trolly so I could wheel it back - much better. The marina sent out a notice that had a movie playing at the bar, so I dumped my clean sheets on the bed and walked with Clark up to the bar to checkout the movie.
It turned out the be the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which we have on the boat and have watched just recently. We could see the picture, but with the talking at the bar, hearing the movie was nearly impossible. By going up to the bar, however, we were able to reconnect with our friends, Marcy and Jeff, who returned to the marina yesterday after being away for the past 6 weeks.
After chatting for a while, we walked back to the boat for dinner and a night of watching television.
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