January 15, 2014 new projects

FINALLY, we were able to get someone to our boat to give us an estimate to replace the bimini and dodger.   The first two companies seemed to ignore us.  The first one from JSI in Tampa finally returned my phone call after a week.  I just told him I'd get back to him (because I wanted to check out the one from Top Stitch today).  Dexter's that Dave talked to on Saturday and Monday have not gotten back to us to set up an appointment as they said they would. Today, we were to meet Tony from Top Stitch at the dinghy dock at 8:30 and bring him to our boat.  At 9:10 we started to wonder if there was something wrong with us, but we called anyway.  The person Dave talked to Monday evidently didn't tell Tony.  But he came right over. 

Tony had some great ideas for improving our set up.  Now they will get back to us with an estimate, we faint, but hand them our credit card and get moving on this project.  Sounds like they are about 3 weeks booked out and the project will take about 3 weeks.  So we'll be in Ft Myers Beach for awhile.  We may even have them recover our cushions inside the boat. 

Now we felt like we could move ahead with other appointments. We took our dinghy across the bay to Diversified Yacht Sales for Dave to order some parts.  From there we walked to  a Marine Electronics business and arranged for an electrician to come to our boat.  Dave wants them to check his connections and operations of the equipment he installed.  We also set up an appointment for an air conditioner/heating person to check our system.  Sounds like it just needs a good flushing after being in Mobile Bay for so long.  Then we can maintain it from there.  He will also check our refrigerator/freezer.  We haven't been able to move the control dial.  AND now I can make dental appointments, too.  Yippee.

As long as we were cruising in the dinghy, we stopped at a local bar on the water, Bonita Bob's.  The restaurants and bars on the water usually have their own dinghy dock to tie up to.  This is where the electrician recommended we pick him up.  So we thought we'd check it out for future reference.  Well, they just happen to have $1.50 draft beers and someone playing music.  We are always on the hunt for the best chicken wings.  So far, Uglies wins.  That's where we had a beer while we were doing laundry and we watched the Seahawks and Saints football game there last Saturday. 

We also lined up a rental car for tomorrow.  We have our day planned out, which includes a trip to Tampa and dinner at the Killions. 

We left the boat early enough to go our for breakfast before our supposedly 8:30 meeting.  We caught the sunrise behind our boat this morning.  We found a great Greek restaurant and had gyro omelettes.