Dear Reader,
Alas, bad news for those of you chomping at the bit to read of Miss Pink and Baby Blue’s continuing paddle along the Florida Circumnavigational Paddling Trail this winter.
Instead they are heading overland from where they spent the winter in my sister’s garage in Winter Park, Florida, near Orlando (after we relocated them from the Homossasa Marina last July) on top of our truck to their new home in Nicaragua.
Yep. Nicaragua. And yep, that’s a long-ass road trip.
So, why the change of plans? Finances, mostly.
John and I are retired and we’re attempting to live off of our social security and monthly dividends from some stock investments.
Last year we had the added income generated by renting out our home in Nicaragua, via AirBnB, while we were paddling and moving out of our barn in Colorado and running the Yampa River.
Then things changed in Nicaragua this past April, just after we got off of our two-month and 500-mile paddle portion of the 1500-mile Florida Circumnavigational Trail, which we’d hoped to pick back up and continue on this winter.
Political hell broke out in Nicaragua. We had AirBnB clients calling us up, wondering if it was still safe to travel to our home for their upcoming trip from the States. We didn’t know. We weren’t there. So we were madly calling and texting our Property Manager and friends. Those clients did go, but they were our last. Our later clients cancelled.
In July, John and I parked our truck and kayaks in my sister’s garage in Winter Park, Florida, and flew to our home in Nicaragua just as things were calming down. But the media hype has kept the tourists away.
Consequently, this year we haven’t gotten a single nibble on our vacation rental, well other than the family that’s staying in our home right now for three weeks, and I found them outside of the AirBnB site.
So, with last year’s considerable chunk of vacation-rental change now missing from this year’s travel budget, and us not wanting to leave our house sitting empty for the entire winter, we reluctantly couldn’t justify continuing the paddle around Florida. At least not right now.
We’ve missed having our kayaks in Nicaragua to paddle. So, bottomline was we decided to just pick them up in Florida while there and at my dad’s in Orange Beach, Alabama for Christmas, and drive them home.
We watched the full moon rise over Perdido Pass from my dad’s condo in Orange Beach. That’s where John and I started our Florida Circumnavigational Paddle last February.
We loaded the three food resupply boxes we still had leftover from our trip, unused, into the back of our truck. And turned our vision and truck and sea kayaks west.
Yep. We are right now driving them from Florida to Nicaragua.
Yep, that’s a long drive.
But it’s still an adventure! Please come along!
We are healthy.
We are alive.
We are adventurers.
Cheers!
Susana
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