At the Post Office in Stuart, John was asking for change for the photocopier when someone said “that must be a kiwi accent!” Vanessa, from Tauranga and now resident in Florida, stepped forward from the queue and invited us home for a bbq with her family. Vanessa did say that her work colleagues thought she was mad as we may be “random axe murderers”. We had a lovely evening and thoroughly enjoyed a little kiwi company after being on the road for a couple of months.
Heading north on the IntraCoastal Waterway, we are currently on the Indian River and anchoring out at night in the shelter of small tropical islands to the side of the waterway. Lloyd has had considerable success, and a fair bit of excitement, with his fishing rod. Last night he caught four catfish just before dinner which John filleted and put straight into the pan. They were good eating.
The weather has been very pleasant in the time that we have been in Florida. They have had 2 inches of rain in the year to date rather than the normal average of 7 inches. The only weather challenge is the windy conditions that we have experienced in the past week which tends to take the lettuce off our plates and occasionally the furniture right off the top deck.
A couple of weeks ago we had an incident with a swarm of bees that attacked us. John had a bad reaction but managed to sleep it off over a few days. Then just a couple of days ago Lloyd was stung again by a bee and his hand swelled up. It was as big as the puffer fish that he has been catching. I note that his hand was too sore for school work but he could still catch fish! He shrieks with fear and excitement with every fish that he gets. Usually they are pleasant sized catfish that are good eating but occasionally he runs inside as if the fish is chasing him. He puts the rod away when the fish are too big. It's just too scary and he has dreams about whales chasing him. There are some seriously big and weird looking fish here. It's a lot of fun.
Alice is also having a great time. She talks excitedly about everything but is also much more inclined to settle down to her school work. Sometimes there are a lot of distractions. We have been known to take the kiwi flag down because we get so many people wanting to chat to us about New Zealand and there are always boat dramas happening around us all the time. Tonight we hope to see a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral from the boat.
