Our good friends Bill and Karen flew in on Sunday, February 16th. They were staying at one of the suites right at Legacy Harbour. On Sunday evening we went to Ford's Garage downtown for dinner. Also, today Blue Moon pulled in. We travelled with them during part of our adventure on the rivers and also saw them at the rendezvous at Joe Wheeler.  We also saw Eddie from Spiritus. They are staying with friends at the high rise condo next to Legacy. Monday was a quiet day. Tony waxed and I washed. Bill and Karen settled in and relaxed. We grilled salmon and zucchini  and ate dinner in Bill and Karen's suite.  Tuesday was an exciting day. We took an airboat tour in the Everglades. We drove to a shopping plaza and were picked up by the tour bus.  After a few stops to pick up more passengers, we made our way to Imokolee and Lake Traffor, where we boarded the airboat. The guides both on the bus and on the airboat were extremely knowledgeable about the flora and fauna of the Everglades and surrounding area.  Guess what? We finally saw alligators.  Tony was super excited. We also saw a great variety of birds including three types of Egrets, two types of Heron, two types of Ibis, Roseate Spoonbills, which get their pink color from their diet of shrimp and red algae, storks, a Red-shouldered hawk, and a Black Vulture.  We thoroughly enjoyed the ride. When we got back to the dock, we got a hands on experience with some of the wildlife. I held a non-venomous snake and Tony held a baby alligator.  It was a great morning and afternoon. On the way back we went to Pinchers Crab Shack for lunch.  We all piled into the car on Wednesday and went to Tampa to visit Tony's brother Pat and his wife Sue. They are renting a condo on the beach.  We had a great time sitting on the beach and wading in the ocean.  The weather was perfect. We had an early dinner at Sea Breeze and arrived back at Legacy around eight.  Thursday was shopping day. Karen and I dragged Bill and Tony to Coconut Point Mall in Estero. We shopped and they sat. Dinner that night was at Pastabilities. At the restaurant we met the harbor hosts from Joliet, Illinois, who drove us to the grocery store. It is certainly a small world. What were the chances people we met four months ago would be sitting right next to us in a restaurant in Fort Myers, Florida. Friday was another relaxing day enjoying the glorious weather.  We grilled steaks and corn on the cob and again ate in the suite. Sadly, we bid farewell to Bill and Karen. They had an early flight on Saturday.  We had a terrific week with them. Saturday, March 22nd, was the looper party. The hosts Karen and Dennis completed the loop in November, 2014 and graciously opened their home to 47 loopers. Paul and Stephanie from Intimate Sea drove us to the party.  They are from Oscoda, Michigan and will start the loop next month.  The party was fabulous. The food was outstanding.  We met gold loopers, loopers in progress, and people who were going to start the loop. We talked with Clay and Sally from SaSea Sally, Bob and Monique from Q's Cabin, and Deb and Rick from What's Next??. We had met these couples during our journey so far. On Sunday, walking home from church and Starbucks, we ran into Mike and Judy from Michigan in the Legacy parking lot. They have a slip close to ours at Belle Maer Harbour. We were excited to see them.  Mike and Judy have a condo in Cape Coral. They had errands to run so we agreed to meet at Cabo's downtown for dinner. We had an enjoyable time. They had many questions about our adventure. Tony and I decided that during our last days at Legacy, we would catch up on boat jobs that needed to be done. Tony started with a thorough scrubbing of the outside of the boat. We then proceeded to take out the anchor and all the chain, so we could clean the anchor locker and repaint the chain.  We have color combination markers that tell us how much chain has been let out.  I did a good cleaning on the interior of the boat included wiping down the cabin floor. I cleaned the isinglass on the stern of the boat. We also rented a car to reprovision.  It was not all work however. We had great docktails on Tuesday with Jay and Sharon on Golden Hawk. We traveled with them on the rivers. It was fun to catch up on their news. We had docktails with Clay and Sally on Wednesday evening. We took time out to attend two seminars on Tuesday and Wednesday morning.  The first was an overview of the route from here to Norfolk, VA. We heard most of this information at the fall rendezvous, but we got some new insights. The second was an overview of whole loop.  This was interesting because everyone had personal experiences to share and we could even answer some questions, since we are no longer the newbies. This brings to a close our month at Legacy Harbor. We really enjoyed being here. We talked to a lot of people. Many of them were not loopers, but all our part of the boating fraternity.  Tomorrow we continue moving east to the Atlantic seaboard.

                                                             Everglade Highlights

                                                                   Cattle Egret

                                                                Purple Gallinule

                                                       Bees nest with dripping honeycomb

                                                              Karen and Bill

Judy and Mike