Laisley Marina

We left Noblesville about 7 am Sunday morning.  The weather forecast called for more snow on Monday, so we took the window of opportunity to escape.  Drove until about 11 pm and decided to get a motel room with heat instead of sleeping on the boat in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  Turned out to be a good decision as the overnight temperature where we stayed in Lake City Florida was 14 degrees.

We arrived in Punta Gorda around 1 pm today.  (Monday)  Once again, everything was frozen solid.  The boat soap, the docklines, the dish soap.  Everything that was in the boat.  We packed all the canned goods, bottled water, soft drinks etc inside the cab of the truck.  Even then, when Pam got a bottle of water from the back seat of the truck, it had ice in it. This global warming thing is really something.....................

We launched at Laishley Marina, and rented a slip for tonight.  (It costs about the same to tie our boat to the dock as it did for the motel room last night.)  The temp here is to be in the lower 30's tonight, and we can run our little heater on shore power all night.  Tomorrow, we'll inflate the dinghy and take the truck and trailer to the storage place.  Then we'll go out and anchor somewhere--maybe Pelican Bay.

When we were walking back from checking in with the harbormaster, we saw a couple looking at our boat.  As we got closer, we recognized them as the Wilhelms from Indiana.  I had worked on thier boat when it was on Lake Monroe.  They've traveled all over, and now their boat is here in Punta Gorda.  Small world.

We've heard from Steve and Jan who are from Canada and are also cruising this area on a Rosborough.  (We met them on Lake Champlain.)  They started out here, and are now down in the keys on Marathon.  We plan to get down there before the end of the month.

I think the drive down here is getting farther every year.  Either that or I'm getting older.  I'm pretty sure it's farther.