SUMMER BREEZE: Week of March 25: A trip to the Lowcountry, Gardening and a Happy Hour Solution for the islands!

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The azaleas are in full bloom in the lowcountry.

We made a quick trip home for an appointment for Bruce's back. It has started to act up a bit again and thought we would take care of that now, before we head to the islands.

The azaleas are prime this week and we are lucky to be able to see them.

Florida is experiencing the rain and wind front that came through this week. On Wednesday, winds were clocked with gusts up to the mid 40s. The seas were "horrific" as Chris Parker says. The local news channel reported up to 17' foot seas offshore of us. The marina is packed! The ICW has white caps, in fact the marina had white caps and waves!

Dinner at Chuck's Seafood with a waterfront table.

When cruising in the islands, we have to be conscience when it comes to disposing trash. We are having to be creative when it comes to preserving our happy hour. Bottles can be a problem that can build up and hard to dispose of unless you stay in a marina all the time, which we don't. We will dispose of all card board containers, repackaging into something more useful for storage on board and reusable.

Our solution

We purchased refillable wine bags in which the vodka will be stored. (from Amazon) We will mostly resort to boxed (bagged) wine getting rid of the cardboard before we leave. Handling these bags without a box can be tricky. I had some plastic jugs that protein powder comes in, so we cut the tops, made a hole for the wine/vodka bag spout, 2 holes for a rope handle. And voila! When the bag is empty, we can dispose of the wine bags and wash the refillable ones storing those.

As for wine, we have been experimenting with several box ones. (I know, yuk!) We have found one that is tolerable. Black Box Cabernet. We have actually thrown others out. Can anyone suggest a good one? We will have some bottles but will have to limit those. We aren't big beer drinkers and will probably have some in cans (another yuk) that can be squished down for trash. We are big water drinkers and we are set as we will be able to make our own with the newly serviced water maker.

I've missed gardening and every spring, I always want to try my hand at the vegetable garden. We had a very successful one our 1st year or so but ever since, they have been failures. I've been researching hydroponic gardening since I love to buy those lettuces here on the Saturday market and in the supermarket.

I bring my air plants and orchid(s) with me on long cruises and usually 1 basil plant. I now have converted my 2 orchids to hydroponic and have 2 basils, a thai basil, parsley, 3 romaine and 1 curly kale growing hydroponic. If this works, I'm doing it bigger on the back porch at home.