11/12 - 11/24 Looks like I’m stuck at a dock for at least a month. I don’t necessarily like being at a dock but it’s a good thing & a bad thing - thing. Good things are: best friends are here; we have 
access to a car; easy access to shopping, bars, restaurants & the like. Bad thing: we have to wear clothes. Wayne & Captain ‘Ron’ installed a The 'girls' watched every move he made
new A/C compressor for the aft cabin. You’d think it would be a simple project right? Remove & replace. Of course, nothing is that simple when Wayne is involved - again, a good thing & a bad thing. Switched out the Vessels & Membranes for the water maker. Now trying to sell the old parts on Craig’s list. We’re also changing out some of our old fluorescent lights with some of the newer LEDs that are more effective & efficient. We’ve spent many fun nights playing dominoes with Tom & Susan aboard GLASS SLIPPER. They haven’t played since we left here in 2010! We went to ‘The Walk’ on Old Main St. & enjoyed the food, music & bars. Old Main St has been beautifully restored with small restaurants, boutiques & bars, most with pool tables. We searched out the best 
Outside McCabes bar & grill
Great music @ McCabes
happy hour deals around town; I got tickets for the play, ‘White Christmas’, at the Manatee Players theater on 12/11; Susan & I had a “what were we thinking” moments when we chose to cook Thanksgiving dinner instead of going to a restaurant. I have the oven so the bird was cooked at our ‘house’. I had to take a tape measure to the grocery to make sure it would fit in the oven. 
Wayne & Susan moved so fast the picture blurred
11/24 Thanksgiving day was fun & relaxed aboard Glass Slipper. We had a miss-mosh of foods from the traditional turkey, dressing, candied sweet potatoes to fresh steamed green beans & 
GLASS SLIPPER
caramelized pearl onions. Of course, we played dominoes into the wee hours of the night. Left-over’s on Friday. It was pretty cold, windy & down-right miserable the rest of the week. It was determined by Cap’t Ron & Wayne that simply installing a new compressor wasn’t gonna cut it. Two new air handlers were installed as well - one in the aft cabin & one under the dinette seat. It’s a large unit that supplies heat & a/c to main & aft cabin. We'll have A/C & heat that works! Monday, 11/28 was cold in the 60’s, rainy & grey. Looked like it would snow any minute. I made turkey soup & my 1st really good homemade bread - a perfect night to have Tom 
& Susan over for dinner &, of course, several games of dominoes. We met a great couple, Tom & Karen, who tied up next to us on 11/25. They were returning in week to attend the local Artist’s Community ‘walk’ & invited to join them. “We’ll be there with bells on’. And on the 26th, they were going to entertain a client but one couple couldn’t make it so they
Jim, Mike, Karen, Tom, W&W
invited us to join them on the on their boat for drinks & dinner at Pier 22. By now, we were playing dominoes at least 3-4 times a week. Dinked around & getting things done that you do on a boat. What exactly? Can’t tell you. But at the end of every day, we say we got lots done. Final installation of the new A/C/heating unit took place on December 2nd…good thing too, the temperature dropped into the 40’s. Tom & Karen drove us to the Artist ‘colony’ - little cottages being used as their studios. It was a festive night - 
barbershop quartets (they sang Sweet Gypsy Rose to me), groups of carolers & Santa himself. Wayne bought me a beautiful, hand crafted necklace as a surprise Christmas gift.
12/3 - 12/15 Same ole, same ole for the next few weeks except for several cold fronts that surprised us with temps in the 40’s!!!!! The sun was out most days but the wind chill factor made it down-right cold! I heard an Osprey close by - looked up & 
he was perched on the top of a sailboat…no wonder why we can’t figure out how some things break. I hate to clean the grill but it had to be done. I took a short break & Molly - you know, the old lady who wants to be picked up to go up the stairs - somehow got all the way up to the dinghy deck & inside the grill…
I should have let them do the work for me. Susan’s sister-in-law, Sarah, came to visit for a few days. Such a free spirit…Rosa & Tim visited & 
Beloved Sarah
Winnie, Sarah, Susan, Tom, Rosa, Wayne & Tim
soon we were playing a hot game of-can you guess? - dominoes of course. Almost time for us to head south. Shopping for provisions, playing as many domino games as we can before leaving. The lighted boat parade was on 12/10 - we watched it from the upper deck on GLASS SLIPPER. RIVER 
SKIPPER was decked out too. After the parade, we got the dominoes spread out on the table when Tom arrived with a bunch of friends - all of a sudden, a party broke out. I’m sure gonna miss this. 
Awwwww.....BFF
The day I’ve been waiting for - to get somewhat dressed up & see White Christmas presented by the Manatee Players. It was AWESOME! It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a live show. After the show, we had happy hour & drinks at Pier 22 
Wayne & Tom @ the round table- Pier 22
& our last sunset there for the last time. (Amazingly, Wayne had never seen the movie - how could you be 69 & have never seen the movie? Well, a few days later, the movie was on TV &, of course, we watched it. However, Wayne only watched half of it because he liked the play better - go figure.) Time was getting short & we had to leave in time for me to see my grandson, Anthony in Naples. He was arriving on the 15th & leaving on the 23rd. On the 12th I went food shopping, had dinner & dominoes at Tom & Susan’s. The next morning, with tears in our eyes, we said adieu to Susan & headed south on the ’outside’. It was rough & the flopper’s were deployed. We anchored at 6:45 by the Tom Adams Bridge just south of Englewood in Lemon Bay. On the way south, we saw many, unusual 
white Pelicans. Anchor up at 9:15 on the 14th for an uneventful cruise down the ICW & anchored in the protection of Merwin Key, an uninhabited island north & east of Sanibel Island.
.JPG)
