On a personal note, we were married in a lovely ceremony on July 28th, 1996 in our new home in Punta Gorda, FL. Our first and second anniversaries have come and passed. Amazing how time flies! We came to Florida with a partial retirement in mind. We are both busier working and playing then ever before in our lives.
Paul has an unexpected new career consulting for Ultra-Tech Enterprises, a small but growing Punta Gorda company specializing in railroad electronics.
In the summer of 1998 we acquired a lovely 1981 Marine Trader trawler named Esoteric. After some work on the diesel power plant and other odds and ends, we plan many exciting trips.
In the spring of 1999 we have begun to follow through on our resolution to have more boating adventures. We spent a couple of weeks tweaking Esoteric and setting up rigging for our new dingy and little 4HP Johnson outboard. We have taken several trips, overnight and more. One of our favorite spots is an island called Cayo Costa. Cayo Costa is a barrier island between the Gulf of Mexico and Charlotte Harbor. It forms the south border of Boca Grande pass, the major access route to the Gulf. Here is a short photo essay of a 3 day stay we made in April 1999 at this fairly isolated and very romantic spot.
Another great spot to visit is Cabbage Key. This little island is a real getaway and we made a photo essay of our boat trip (it's another real island) there in early May of 1999.
In August of 1999 Paul made a work related annual pilgrimage (Baltimore) to the RSSI show of Railroad signal technology. The Ultra-Tech booth was busy showing off the latest in microprocessor based technology.
Jean, potentially bored with all this, went to visit her daughter Debbie in MA. Together, they spent some time with Debbie's S/O Richard and his children. A real highlight was this wonderful Whale Watch - amazing creatures!
In the month of September of 1999 we made a trip to the Lake Tahoe area on the border of northern California and Nevada. We had a great time touring northern California, driving a total of about 1500 miles. The week we were touring was quite clear, but the next week saw the ignition of several wildfires that rendered the visibility extremely poor. Really sad for those vacationing in that period, to say nothing of the destruction.
We spent some time around the beautiful Lake Tahoe and we appear in a lot of the pictures taken there. Our friend Lynette Bellini has spent a lot of time in Lassen Volcanic National Park and we felt this lesser known park well deserved her great reviews. Here are some shots of the incredible and varied landscapes in the Lassen Volcanic park. You do need to be in good shape to even think about climbing these mountains.
Next we explored the strange volcanic beauty of Mt. Shasta and Lava Beds National Monument. Both of these places have a harsh and moonscape-like, almost surreal beauty. That tunnel in Lava Beds photo #7 is 80 feet high. It is a partially collapsed lava tube (the area is honeycombed with them) and caving is allowed. Again, equipment and experience is necessary to enter the icy cold lower reaches - we passed!
We also stayed in B&B's in a lot of great little towns in Northern California and Southern Oregon. A great vacation!
We are making boating a priority in the late fall of 1999 and we have made several weekend trips to nice local spots. What a great way to relax.
At the beginning of 2000 we have decided to make some changes. We have sold Esoteric to new owners who love her. We have ordered a wonderful new boat! She is a 36 foot TrawlerCat named Sea Dancer. The preceding link give a lot of details. We hope and plan to greatly extend our marine adventures in the coming years.
In the fall of 2000 we made a great looping motor trip around the northwest part of the US. We stopped in many wonderful places including Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Many little adventures and several lifetime goals realized. The wildlife and open vistas - it was wonderful.
We have since taken many weekend voyages with Sea Dancer and she is living up to our expectations. We love the added convenience, space, facilities and speed that our TrawlerCat provides. Both of us have become reasonable proficient navigators and pilots, but Paul still gets to maneuver during docking while Jean handles all the lines. We have had many relatives and friends aboard as guests and we always have a memorable time. Some have even come back a second time.
We are launching a new business www.sharkseye.com involving the development and marketing of Internet based video and audio equipment. Exciting and hopefully rewarding. In addition, the Ultra-Tech product development efforts are starting to bear fruit. We are thinking about a return trip the the northwest this fall.
On a recent trip on Sea Dancer we happened upon a pod of several Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins (Jean's reading up) that stayed and surfed in our wake for quite a while. What a wonderful experience, seeing them up so close. After the excitement faded just a bit we got out the Sony FD91 camera and managed to capture a couple of nice MPG videos of our aquatic friends. These files dolphin1 and dolphin2 are 1.4 MB each, but worth the wait!
On May 9th, 2001 we cast off for our longest boat trip yet - from Punta Gorda to Key West and back. We took 2 days in each direction and covered a total of 400 nautical miles. At one point we were 50 miles off shore in any direction - make the boat seem pretty small. We had a great time. The color of the water cannot be described and the town of Key West is wonderfully laid back but diverse. Here are some photos we took during our stay,
Chelsea (our lovely Snowshoe Siamese cat) was a lost little stray that wandered up from the dock in the summer of 2001. She was malnourished and needed a trip to the vet, but Jean saw here potential. She has been part of our family ever since.
Our vacation in the Fall of 2001 was a motor trip around the North West United States with friends Bill and Carol Heimann. We have posted a photo and written record of this journey. We had a great time, but the tragic events of September 11th happened while we were in Cody, Wyoming - we'll remember that forever.
Our vacation in the Fall of 2002 was another motor trip around the West United States with friends Bill and Carol Heimann. We have also posted a photo and written record of this journey. Fortunately, no further events marred our great time together. This web presentation is in the form of a time line which we feel is a great way to present the day by day record.
The year of 2003 was great with many adventures. We have become more consistant about keeping photo and video records and you can see those using the Video link on our home page.