Thursday, November 14, 2013

Winter 2012-Spring 2013

Key West recap

So I have been slacking on my blog and not keeping up with it. No real excuses, just having too much fun.

Last I wrote I was living in Key West in floating accommodations working hard during the week and enjoying playing tourist on the weekends. Jon and I took advantage of being “locals” and getting discounted or free entry to the attractions in town. I think our favorite was Truman’s Little White House, for me the Florida Keys Discovery Center was a close second.

I worked as a painter. This isn’t as simple as it may sound. The marina where we worked is a floating dock system, so to accommodate the tides there are metal pilings that are strategically placed to hold the dock attached to shore and not drift off. These pilings see a bit of wear and tear from boats coming and going as well as their lines to tie up with. So before I could paint I had to remove the rust and corrosion from the metal, then use a special primer and then 4 coats of paint later voila! To remove the rust is a dirty process. I was usually a sight to behold at the end of the day! I used a device called a needle scaler, which has little metal rods that act like little jackhammers so this created flakes of paint and rust and a hefty amount of rust dust, which usually coated me from head to toe. My job also included a bit of strategic planning so as to not get said dust and flakes on fancy expensive yachts.

Our floating accommodations came via a Sea Base friend. Bruce owns three sailboats and he had one that was not the right set up or size for the scout program so it was sitting in a marina in Islamorada unused. Part of the deal working at this marina in Key West is that dockage is free except for two weeks when big events were happening in town, so Bruce got free dockage for his boat and we got a free place to live, win-win! As a thank you to Bruce we cleaned the interior, exterior and scraped the bottom of the boat, replaced a missing custom cushion with the creative hands of Capt. Holley, replaced the refrigerator thermostat with the skilled hands of Capt. Denny, as well as replaced the marine head(toilet) to repair a crack and leak. During the two weeks of the events in town we tied the boat up at the Conch Pearl mooring and went back and forth via dinghy. Luckily for us both weeks had poor weather so not all the boats showed up that had reservations so we were able to bring the boat back in earlier than we anticipated. This was a special treat when my parents were visiting so they could see the boat and Jon and I didn’t have to transit back and forth in the dinghy.

Jon and I participated in the locals parade for Fantasy Fest with several friends which was a lot of fun. We also took a few days to camp out at the Dry Tortugas/ Fort Jefferson. The weather wasn’t great so we didn’t get to do much snorkeling but we explored every inch of the fort and took all the tours offered. We even saw one of the float planes that operates in Southeast Alaska in the summer and the Florida Keys in the winter time! Jon was of course wearing a SE Alaska Forest Service t-shirt for a photo op with the plane! My parents flew down for a few days to visit and took the ferry out to the fort. This was Jon’s first face to face introduction to my parents and we were also out of cell phone range so we requested that my parents bring the newspaper because the presidential election was going on and Jon was eager to find out the results.

Holidays

With Christmas on the horizon Jon and I packed up our things and headed north. We made a stop in Tampa to visit some of Jon’s family, then flew to his mom’s in the DC area. We spent about 3 weeks relaxing and touring around DC. Christmas was celebrated with Jon’s family, and New Years was a low key night out to the movies.

We then took the train to Burlington and spent several weeks painting my parent’s condo. We painted the entire first floor, ceiling, walls, doors, trim, baseboards, even radiator covers. We even installed a few new light fixtures. We then took the train back to DC so we could take advantage of a great flight deal to Istanbul, Turkey. We spent about a week in Turkey, mostly Istanbul seeing the sights and walking the city.

After Turkey I flew back to Vermont, and then resumed painting. I finished up a few things at my parents, then moved on to my brother and sister in law’s condo and painted their place as well. I was also researching jobs in Southeast Alaska so that Jon and I could be together for the summer as well as applying to jobs to hopefully return to Antarctica.


I interviewed for and accepted one position to work for a tour company in SE Alaska and then got a phone call while I was out running errands from another company that Jon thought I’d be happier with and quickly accepted the offer and booked my flights to head to the 49th state!

No comments: