We started the year in the New World, at Charleston in South Carolina, and ended it in the Old World at Falmouth, UK. From January 1st through December 31st, we traveled 6,281 miles at an average speed of 6.9 kts and put 913 hours on our John Deere 6068AFM75. Our main engine now has 9,522…
November and December 2017 Wildwood, Ocala, Daytona, Jacksonville, FL
It seemed to take forever to move from the boat to our coach. Even though the move isn’t from house to house, it is from home to home with the coach having FAR less room than Kindred Spirit III. To take a break from the drudgery, we attended an excellent lecture in Ocala on the Florida Panhandle which was of particular interest to me since I was “born and raised” in Pensacola.
Boating/RV friends, Dinata and Andy have just moved to Arlington Ridge Retirement Community near Leesville. During construction, Dinata took photos every day and posted them so that everyone could watch the progress. It was very interesting to us so we went down for a visit, to see their new home where boxes were still being unpacked. They gave us a tour of their new neighborhood and we ended the day at The Village Green, a little pub and grill, where Dinata surprised us by singing. She has a wonderful talent and voice. We’d never heard her sing before so this was a huge treat.
More boating/RV friends, Sue and Rich, met us at Silver Springs State Park. We wandered around over the grounds reminiscing of when we were there 60+ years ago and my, how it’s changed!
That was one of Florida’s main attractions so long ago. There’s so much algae in the water that there are only a few bare areas that are free of growth so that the clear water can be appreciated and with a view of the sand.
The air was perfect and we vicariously lived through their tales of their month long hike through Ireland. These kids have lived a most adventurous life and every time we’re with them, we’re awed by yet more stories of experiences and feats we’d not known about before. They’re an amazing couple. Our time together was culminated at the Mojo Grill where we had the patio all to ourselves. A good thing because the guffaws and howling laughter would’ve been disturbing to others. We love spending time with them and Rich is hilarious.
While we were still at Alliance Coach in Wildwood, FL, we had lunch at TooJay’s, across the street in The Villages. One of our fave lunch spots that we were first introduced to while in Vero years ago. I went back to the coach after lunch and Bill spent the afternoon at a Tractor Museum in Leesburg and devoured every second of it. How many more museums of old mechanical things could there possibly be that he’s not yet seen??? Probably not too many.
The day before Thanksgiving we were finally sprung from Alliance Coach where we had repairs and service. They are excellent and very fair in their charges. Josh, service manager, was outstanding in expediting our repairs. We traveled 30 miles north on I-75 and thankful that we didn’t have to go farther. Traffic is atrocious as it seems to be nationwide. We’re now in Ocala RV Resort and can see the interstate from our site. The traffic out there NEVER stops. Our intentions are to be here for a couple months to get the flavor of the area and to make sure this is where we want to land one of these days. We’re in Ocala RV Park and Resort–that last word is loosely used. A ‘resort’ it isn’t.
Duck Pond at our ‘resort’
The retirement community that we’re considering when get older, grayer, and infirmed, is Ocala’s On Top of the World. From this point forward we’ll refer to it as OTOW. We’ve taken advantage of quite a few of their offerings and one afternoon we listened to a couple recount their recent experience touring Cambodia and Thailand. They had 3000 photos from their trip and shared a mere 300 with us. Fascinating!
Thanksgiving Day was our first day in Ocala and also my birthday so we celebrated both at a wonderful French restaurant. Bill Bender really racked up some “good boy” points on my birthday. He did a super-excellent job!
Bill has a Facebook account but he doesn’t post so I’ll do it for him. One day he went to the Daytona Speedway for an old car show. He left at 6 AM, got home at 8 PM and walked 9 1/2 miles while he was there. He wore his Garmin because he always wonders how far he walks at these events. There were 1000 cars for sale and 5000 for show. He came home dragging his tail behind him and he was done for the next day BUT he had a good time!
Friends we knew from Greenville, SC, Bill’s colleague at Michelin and his friend for 40+ years, Wolfgang and his wife, Pily, came down from their home in GA with their new travel trailer to see what we’ve been raving about at OTOW. While they were here, we took a day trip to Rainbow Springs State Park
Friends we knew from Greenville, SC, Bill’s colleague at Michelin and his friend for 40+ years, Wolfgang and his wife, Pily, came down from their home in GA with their new travel trailer to see what we’ve been raving about at OTOW. While they were here, we took a day trip to Rainbow Springs State Park
and then to Cedar Key, a quaint little fishing village reeking of Old Florida. We enjoyed a Gulf-side restaurant for lunch.
Every weekend, OTOW has live music in their Circle Square so we took Pily and Wolfgang there for unabashed dancing in the streets on a Saturday night. We’ve missed only one since we’ve been here.
Shaking a leg on a Saturday night
I just finished a 5 week acrylic painting class and my initial undertaking was the little TR6. Not a good choice for a green horn but I finished it and it sort of looks like what it is supposed to be. I finished one week early so, at the instructors’s suggestion, I chose a simple one and finished it in a couple of hours at our last class. At the first class there were 5 of us. At the last class, only 2.
We’ve found a church here similar to our Seacoast in Mt. Pleasant and we felt right at home the first Sunday we visited.
Six months ago we were here for several days and met JoAnn and Lee with whom we’ve stayed in touch. We reconnected when we arrived and they had us to their home for brunch. Bruce and Patty were also guests and we’d met Patty 6 months ago when we were looking at the model homes. Patty’s in a Bible study with a large group of women. She invited me to join and I’m really enjoying it.
We had a Christmas luncheon that was fun to be able to chat with each the women and, of course, my primary questions were, “how long have you lived in OTOW and how do you like it?” Bill and I have walked extensively in the development and everyone we meet or even pass on the street or sidewalk will wave. The ones who are walking, we stop and interrogate them, too. Everybody LOVES it here.
We had a Christmas luncheon that was fun to be able to chat with each the women and, of course, my primary questions were, “how long have you lived in OTOW and how do you like it?” Bill and I have walked extensively in the development and everyone we meet or even pass on the street or sidewalk will wave. The ones who are walking, we stop and interrogate them, too. Everybody LOVES it here.
While I was at art one day, Bill attended a presentation of the Quirky Influences that Florida’s had on the U.S. We’ve both attended classes by an attorney on documents needed as a Florida resident of which we’ve been since 2007. We had our durable power of attorney and will executed in SC but FL has a few twists and turns, as I imagine do most states, so we’re going to have them reviewed before leaving Ocala. The information was great and we learned some things of which we weren’t aware.
OTOW’s Concert Choir performed Christmas music at a local Ocala church and, of course, we were right there. Their voices blended beautifully and it was a treat for us.
OTOW’s Concert Choir performed Christmas music at a local Ocala church and, of course, we were right there. Their voices blended beautifully and it was a treat for us.
Have you ever heard of a Cracker Cowboy Poet? Ocala is the horse capital of the world and cowboys here call themselves Cow Hunters. Hank Mattson provided an afternoon of entertainment. He brought many props—gator hide, snake skin, skunk skin, cow skull and more things than I can name but maybe in the photo you can identify some things. He’s put 400 years of cow hunting facts into poetry that he recites in the Cow Hunter dialect. We laughed and I had tears. This was all from his heart and so intriguing that we could sit through his presentation again!
A group of ‘elderly’ (I’m no longer certain of that definition) gentlemen who comprise the Ocala Jazz Society presented a concert that was out of this world. We tapped our feet and grinned the entire time. A lagniappe was a couple very proficient in ball room dancing who danced to several of their pieces. Their movements were beautifully graceful.
Christmas Day, Bruce and Patty invited us to join their friends in their home for a Yule Celebration. We loved meeting new OTOW friends and being asked to share Christmas with them.
Pily and Wolfgang returned here to escape the GA tundra. Pily went to Disney for a few days and Bill and he went to Jacksonville to look at a BMW for Wolfy and a Corvette for Bill. Bill was looking for pewter and this one was silver. Thought several passes with steel wool would dull the silver and give it a pewter look.
You may recall us talking about Charmaine, our cycling guru in DC. She came down for a visit and brought her bike. She, Wolf, Bill, and I went out for a little spin to show her the area. This is the gal who works downtown DC and rides her bike to work, rain or shine, unless the snow is deeper than 3″. She’s an animal on a bicycle and my hero.
Charmaine and me
Surveying our intended potential home site.
Sidney Colen, developer of OTOW, has donated to the city, an exquisite piece of land, a 44 acre botanical garden, named Sholom Park. It’s designed as a place to find inner peace and is landscaped to thrive in the Central FL climate. There are 2 miles of paved pathways created throughout the park’s woodland areas and meadows that are teeming with native wildlife and more than 250 species of plants and trees. Sholom Park is named after Sholom Colen, the grandfather of Mr. Sidney Colen. It’s a most tranquil respite.
Wolfgang, Bill, and I hiked a very pleasant 5 miles on the Baseline Trail area of the Cross Florida Greenway. Once upon a time, in the 1930’s, it was slated to be part of the corridor for the sea-level Cross Florida Ship Canal project and the latter Cross FL Barge Canal in the 1960’s and ’70’s. There are remnants of the digging from the ’30’s that still remain, so they say but we couldnt find them. Despite the number of parents and children on new bikes, skateboards, and scooters, it was still very quiet and peaceful.
Along this woodland is a swath of true urban wilderness. We’re not fans of paved trails but the value of providing a ribbon of asphalt through a forest is amazing when you’re in the thick of humanity with subdivisions and strip malls on both sides of the park but gratefully out of sight and sound. People actually USE this trail and lose their fear of the woods. Another attribute of the paved path is its accessibility for bikes, strollers, and wheelchairs. BTW, there are hills in flat Florida.
We’ll leave Ocala 22 January, so if you’re in this area, please call and come visit. We feel so enmeshed and ingrained in this community that it seems like home. It will be difficult to pull up our roots here as we move on to another adventure.
Happy New Year to all and we wish for you a happy, healthy and better than 2017, 2018!
Bill and Laura Bender
We’ll leave Ocala 22 January, so if you’re in this area, please call and come visit. We feel so enmeshed and ingrained in this community that it seems like home. It will be difficult to pull up our roots here as we move on to another adventure.
Happy New Year to all and we wish for you a happy, healthy and better than 2017, 2018!
Bill and Laura Bender
November and December 2017 Wildwood, Ocala, Daytona, Jacksonville, FL
It seemed to take forever to move from the boat to our coach. Even though the move isn’t from house to house, it is from home to home with the coach having FAR less room than Kindred Spirit III. To take a break from the drudgery, we attended an excellent lecture in Ocala on the Florida Panhandle which was of particular interest to me since I was “born and raised” in Pensacola.
Boating/RV friends, Dinata and Andy have just moved to Arlington Ridge Retirement Community near Leesville. During construction, Dinata took photos every day and posted them so that everyone could watch the progress. It was very interesting to us so we went down for a visit, to see their new home where boxes were still being unpacked. They gave us a tour of their new neighborhood and we ended the day at The Village Green, a little pub and grill, where Dinata surprised us by singing. She has a wonderful talent and voice. We’d never heard her sing before so this was a huge treat.
More boating/RV friends, Sue and Rich, met us at Silver Springs State Park. We wandered around over the grounds reminiscing of when we were there 60+ years ago and my, how it’s changed!
That was one of Florida’s main attractions so long ago. There’s so much algae in the water that there are only a few bare areas that are free of growth so that the clear water can be appreciated and with a view of the sand.
The air was perfect and we vicariously lived through their tales of their month long hike through Ireland. These kids have lived a most adventurous life and every time we’re with them, we’re awed by yet more stories of experiences and feats we’d not known about before. They’re an amazing couple. Our time together was culminated at the Mojo Grill where we had the patio all to ourselves. A good thing because the guffaws and howling laughter would’ve been disturbing to others. We love spending time with them and Rich is hilarious.
While we were still at Alliance Coach in Wildwood, FL, we had lunch at TooJay’s, across the street in The Villages. One of our fave lunch spots that we were first introduced to while in Vero years ago. I went back to the coach after lunch and Bill spent the afternoon at a Tractor Museum in Leesburg and devoured every second of it. How many more museums of old mechanical things could there possibly be that he’s not yet seen??? Probably not too many.
The day before Thanksgiving we were finally sprung from Alliance Coach where we had repairs and service. They are excellent and very fair in their charges. Josh, service manager, was outstanding in expediting our repairs. We traveled 30 miles north on I-75 and thankful that we didn’t have to go farther. Traffic is atrocious as it seems to be nationwide. We’re now in Ocala RV Resort and can see the interstate from our site. The traffic out there NEVER stops. Our intentions are to be here for a couple months to get the flavor of the area and to make sure this is where we want to land one of these days. We’re in Ocala RV Park and Resort–that last word is loosely used. A ‘resort’ it isn’t.
Duck Pond at our ‘resort’
The retirement community that we’re considering when get older, grayer, and infirmed, is Ocala’s On Top of the World. From this point forward we’ll refer to it as OTOW. We’ve taken advantage of quite a few of their offerings and one afternoon we listened to a couple recount their recent experience touring Cambodia and Thailand. They had 3000 photos from their trip and shared a mere 300 with us. Fascinating!
Thanksgiving Day was our first day in Ocala and also my birthday so we celebrated both at a wonderful French restaurant. Bill Bender really racked up some “good boy” points on my birthday. He did a super-excellent job!
Bill has a Facebook account but he doesn’t post so I’ll do it for him. One day he went to the Daytona Speedway for an old car show. He left at 6 AM, got home at 8 PM and walked 9 1/2 miles while he was there. He wore his Garmin because he always wonders how far he walks at these events. There were 1000 cars for sale and 5000 for show. He came home dragging his tail behind him and he was done for the next day BUT he had a good time!
Friends we knew from Greenville, SC, Bill’s colleague at Michelin and his friend for 40+ years, Wolfgang and his wife, Pily, came down from their home in GA with their new travel trailer to see what we’ve been raving about at OTOW. While they were here, we took a day trip to Rainbow Springs State Park
Friends we knew from Greenville, SC, Bill’s colleague at Michelin and his friend for 40+ years, Wolfgang and his wife, Pily, came down from their home in GA with their new travel trailer to see what we’ve been raving about at OTOW. While they were here, we took a day trip to Rainbow Springs State Park
and then to Cedar Key, a quaint little fishing village reeking of Old Florida. We enjoyed a Gulf-side restaurant for lunch.
Every weekend, OTOW has live music in their Circle Square so we took Pily and Wolfgang there for unabashed dancing in the streets on a Saturday night. We’ve missed only one since we’ve been here.
Shaking a leg on a Saturday night
I just finished a 5 week acrylic painting class and my initial undertaking was the little TR6. Not a good choice for a green horn but I finished it and it sort of looks like what it is supposed to be. I finished one week early so, at the instructors’s suggestion, I chose a simple one and finished it in a couple of hours at our last class. At the first class there were 5 of us. At the last class, only 2.
We’ve found a church here similar to our Seacoast in Mt. Pleasant and we felt right at home the first Sunday we visited.
Six months ago we were here for several days and met JoAnn and Lee with whom we’ve stayed in touch. We reconnected when we arrived and they had us to their home for brunch. Bruce and Patty were also guests and we’d met Patty 6 months ago when we were looking at the model homes. Patty’s in a Bible study with a large group of women. She invited me to join and I’m really enjoying it.
We had a Christmas luncheon that was fun to be able to chat with each the women and, of course, my primary questions were, “how long have you lived in OTOW and how do you like it?” Bill and I have walked extensively in the development and everyone we meet or even pass on the street or sidewalk will wave. The ones who are walking, we stop and interrogate them, too. Everybody LOVES it here.
We had a Christmas luncheon that was fun to be able to chat with each the women and, of course, my primary questions were, “how long have you lived in OTOW and how do you like it?” Bill and I have walked extensively in the development and everyone we meet or even pass on the street or sidewalk will wave. The ones who are walking, we stop and interrogate them, too. Everybody LOVES it here.
While I was at art one day, Bill attended a presentation of the Quirky Influences that Florida’s had on the U.S. We’ve both attended classes by an attorney on documents needed as a Florida resident of which we’ve been since 2007. We had our durable power of attorney and will executed in SC but FL has a few twists and turns, as I imagine do most states, so we’re going to have them reviewed before leaving Ocala. The information was great and we learned some things of which we weren’t aware.
OTOW’s Concert Choir performed Christmas music at a local Ocala church and, of course, we were right there. Their voices blended beautifully and it was a treat for us.
OTOW’s Concert Choir performed Christmas music at a local Ocala church and, of course, we were right there. Their voices blended beautifully and it was a treat for us.
Have you ever heard of a Cracker Cowboy Poet? Ocala is the horse capital of the world and cowboys here call themselves Cow Hunters. Hank Mattson provided an afternoon of entertainment. He brought many props—gator hide, snake skin, skunk skin, cow skull and more things than I can name but maybe in the photo you can identify some things. He’s put 400 years of cow hunting facts into poetry that he recites in the Cow Hunter dialect. We laughed and I had tears. This was all from his heart and so intriguing that we could sit through his presentation again!
A group of ‘elderly’ (I’m no longer certain of that definition) gentlemen who comprise the Ocala Jazz Society presented a concert that was out of this world. We tapped our feet and grinned the entire time. A lagniappe was a couple very proficient in ball room dancing who danced to several of their pieces. Their movements were beautifully graceful.
Christmas Day, Bruce and Patty invited us to join their friends in their home for a Yule Celebration. We loved meeting new OTOW friends and being asked to share Christmas with them.
Pily and Wolfgang returned here to escape the GA tundra. Pily went to Disney for a few days and Bill and he went to Jacksonville to look at a BMW for Wolfy and a Corvette for Bill. Bill was looking for pewter and this one was silver. Thought several passes with steel wool would dull the silver and give it a pewter look.
You may recall us talking about Charmaine, our cycling guru in DC. She came down for a visit and brought her bike. She, Wolf, Bill, and I went out for a little spin to show her the area. This is the gal who works downtown DC and rides her bike to work, rain or shine, unless the snow is deeper than 3″. She’s an animal on a bicycle and my hero.
Charmaine and me
Surveying our intended potential home site.
Sidney Colen, developer of OTOW, has donated to the city, an exquisite piece of land, a 44 acre botanical garden, named Sholom Park. It’s designed as a place to find inner peace and is landscaped to thrive in the Central FL climate. There are 2 miles of paved pathways created throughout the park’s woodland areas and meadows that are teeming with native wildlife and more than 250 species of plants and trees. Sholom Park is named after Sholom Colen, the grandfather of Mr. Sidney Colen. It’s a most tranquil respite.
Wolfgang, Bill, and I hiked a very pleasant 5 miles on the Baseline Trail area of the Cross Florida Greenway. Once upon a time, in the 1930’s, it was slated to be part of the corridor for the sea-level Cross Florida Ship Canal project and the latter Cross FL Barge Canal in the 1960’s and ’70’s. There are remnants of the digging from the ’30’s that still remain, so they say but we couldnt find them. Despite the number of parents and children on new bikes, skateboards, and scooters, it was still very quiet and peaceful.
Along this woodland is a swath of true urban wilderness. We’re not fans of paved trails but the value of providing a ribbon of asphalt through a forest is amazing when you’re in the thick of humanity with subdivisions and strip malls on both sides of the park but gratefully out of sight and sound. People actually USE this trail and lose their fear of the woods. Another attribute of the paved path is its accessibility for bikes, strollers, and wheelchairs. BTW, there are hills in flat Florida.
We’ll leave Ocala 22 January, so if you’re in this area, please call and come visit. We feel so enmeshed and ingrained in this community that it seems like home. It will be difficult to pull up our roots here as we move on to another adventure.
Happy New Year to all and we wish for you a happy, healthy and better than 2017, 2018!
Bill and Laura Bender
We’ll leave Ocala 22 January, so if you’re in this area, please call and come visit. We feel so enmeshed and ingrained in this community that it seems like home. It will be difficult to pull up our roots here as we move on to another adventure.
Happy New Year to all and we wish for you a happy, healthy and better than 2017, 2018!
Bill and Laura Bender
Belfast Arrival
The Harland and Wolff twin shipbuilding gantry cranes dominate the Belfast skyline and are a notable landmarks on entering Belfast Harbour. Harland and Wolff are a shipbuilding and offshore construction company founded in Belfast in 1861 who built most of the ships for the White Star Line, including the Titanic and its sister ships Olympic…
2017 Travel Stats
Click here to go to The Pearl’s travel map.
(expand the drop downs on the right side of the map for more information)
This blog post is best viewed in web version.
Stan and I both keep logs of information about our travels. Mine are more about the places we’ve been and the places we’ve stayed, his are more technical. For information on where we’ve docked and anchored please refer to my Travel Logs. We didn’t put a lot of miles under our keel this year, so the stat’s haven’t changed too much from last year. These totals are from the time we left home in 2011 till the end of 2017.
Balls Birds Boxing and Babes
Each culture is marked by its favorite events and sports. One cannot think of the USA without an image of raging football fans with painted bare bellies or the World Series. Europe has its football, Australia has rugby and so on. Here in the Philippines four very different events make the culture what it is and divines its people. I was not a tall boy, that has not changed, so I assumed basketball was not my game, never learned the basics, leaving that for my more elevated buddies. But her…
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Isle of Gigha
The Isle of Gigha, just north of the Mull of Kintyre, was our last stop in Scotland. After an early monrning run from Oban, we stopped at Gigha for two nights to wait for a storm system to pass through before continuing south to Ireland. While there we installed the new Rule 3700 bilge pump…
Exciting 2017 Sydney Hobart Race
It’s 8:21pm on the 27th and what is going to be an exciting finish is near. Wild Oats XI is only 1,200 feet back of the leading and favored boat Comanche. They are just entering the Derwent River for the run to the finish line. As night approaches, the wind in the River Derwent is…
The Sound of Music
One of the few things I truly miss not living in the modern world, live professional musical theater. I have always had a passion for musical theater, even in my youth. My folks took me kicking and screaming to see Yule Brenner in the King and I and I have been hooked ever since. If I had to list my favorites, West Side Story and the Sound of Music would be at the top of a long list. So, when I read a real London production of both shows was coming to Manila, I jumped and bought ticket months…
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Update
As you will note we have not posted to the blog for years. Island Hopper is alive and well in her new home, Pasadena Yacht and Country Club where we now live. It is adjacent to Gulfport, Fl near St Pete. We moved here in late 2016 fro…
