Wonderful Cape Coral

I can't believe it has been so long since I wrote a blog entry.  After we spent a month in Cape Coral, we loved it so much that we decided to stay two.  This is a town that was built in 1957 by two brothers, Leonard and Jack Rosen, who purchased 103 sq mi of property previously called Redfish Point for $678,000.  They platted out housing lots and 400 miles of canals and began a huge marketing campaign to sell the properties.  It is a unique city as there are only a couple of main thoroughfares and the remainder of the roads end at canals.  The majority of the homes in the southern area of Cape Coral are on canals with access to the Caloosahatchee River and subsequently to the Gulf.  You can keep your boat in your back yard and head out for a sail or a fishing trip by walking out your back door.  A majority of the homes have a swimming pool covered fully by a screened enclosure.  What a way to live!!  The city has been hit very hard by the economic downturn and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of homes that have been abandoned by owners who can't afford them any longer.  It is sad, but it is also a significant opportunity for someone to pick up a home with wonderful amenities for a fraction of its previous value.  The weather here is superb and we have had 70 and 80 degree weather most of the time we have been here.  Lots of days at the beach working on our tan!!  An no that is not a "beached whale" on her blanket.

We borrowed a Sailrite sewing machine from our friends Ron and Linda and sewed new shade covers for the front and side windows of the boat.  We used a fabric called Phisohex that partially shades our interior from the sun but allows enough light in to brighten up the interior.  We previously had a front screen cover but there were no covers on the side windows so we cut the front screen by using the old one as a template and then begged some butcher paper from a couple of meat counters in area stores and created a template for the side windows.  All went well until we attempted to put the side windows shades on and found that we had made two for the same side.  I ripped it all out and redid it with the bindings on the other side of the fabric.  It didn't take long and we were very pleased with the result.  The 45 ft long cover that encased our power cords was falling apart because of sun rot so we decided to make a new one and purchased some vinyl material and sewed Velcro along the edge as a closure.  It is much easier to deal with than a 45 ft zipper for a closure. 



Side curtain and electric cord cover

 While we were in the sewing mode, we thought it was time to replace the ugly, stained drapes on our windows.  We visited a couple of fabric stores and were very blessed to find a perfect Williamsburg striped material that we felt would work well.  It had a sign on it that said "damaged" but we couldn't see anything wrong with it.  She showed us that there were blue stains on the inside of the material, but we were going to line it and it didn't show on the outside.  So for $5.25 a yard we purchased both the damaged material and lining for the drapes.  What a bargain!!!  We were thrilled.  Now I had to create the drapes.  I had never made them before but I had done a lot of sewing in one of my past lives.  The yacht club allowed us to use one of their meeting rooms and we moved a couple of long tables together to make a cutting table.  We measured, pulled threads through to make a straight line and cut.  Thirteen panels of drapery and thirteen panels of lining!  Now it was time to sew and I was nervous, but plunged forward and got better at it with each panel.  It took about a week of 6-8 hour days, but they are all done and (I must say myself) they are beautiful.

We have had some wonderful visits with friends from various parts of the country.  Mary and Karl Piekarski came to visit after they had cruised on a ship out of Fort Lauderdale.  We enjoyed spending time together on the boat and, after checking out a couple of unsuitable restaraunts, finally found one that was very nice.  Mary is one of my Scrabble partners on Facebook and she "kicks my butt" most of the time, but I love the challenge she gives me.  We are terrible at taking pictures when people come, but here they are:

We also had two visits with a couple we had not seen in about 35 years.  They are Larry and Cecelia Brown from Des Moines.  They used to live near us in South side of Des Moines and Cecelia helped me with my Girl Scout troup.  They purchased a boat in 2000 and did the Loop in 2001 so we had lots of great memories to share.  They live in a motor home in Ft. Myers in the winter and have a home in Ankeny, IA, where they live in the summer.  So many of our cruising friends have gravitated to land "cruisers" after they complete the Loop.  Will that be our future???  Only the Lord knows and He will tell us when the time is right.

We rented a car for a long weekend and traveled north of Orlando to visit with Walt and Iris Lehmberg in DeBary, FL, whom we hadn't seen in about 20 years.  We were part of their home group on Friday night and went to a Flea Market in Daytona on Saturday.  We went to church with them on Sunday at St. Andrews and found out that one of my favorite Bible teachers, RC Sproul, was their pastor.  We met him after the service and I shared with him that I had worked in the financial planning field in the 80's with one of his colleagues, Tim Couch, in Baltimore.  He gave me the sad news that Tim had died two years earlier.  The church had built a new sanctuary a couple of years earlier that was magnificent and reminded us of the cathedrals in Europe.  After church we went to lunch with a couple who was from our previous hometown in Maryland, Eldersburg, and they now live half the year in MD and half in FL.  It seems to be the going trend.  It was so good to see the Lehmbergs, meet new friends and meet one of my Bible scholar heroes.

 

Last night we attended a Cruiser's Net party where we saw people we had cruised with in 2008 and many new cruisers who were from Canada.  Everyone brought a dish to share and we had a great time sharing stories.  Tomorrow we are having an opportunity to fulfill one of Flint's dreams and that is, going to the Miami Boat Show.  We are going on a bus that is sponsored by the yacht club and he has spent days going over a list of all the booths that will be there so we don't waste time just looking around.  It would probably take two days to go through the whole show.  We'll share our experience with you in the next blog and that won't be long in coming as we are leaving here on Monday to start cruising across the state to the East coast.  This will be our goodbye to Cape Coral.  We have loved it here and have considered selling our property in South Carolina and buying a home here.  Even if that doesn't happen, we can always live in SC in the summer and rent a place down here for a couple of months in the winter.  We only want God's plan for our future so we need to be patient and wait for His best!!  So long and see you soon.