Two days after the Ranger Tug 2012 Southern Rendezvous planned festivities there are still five Ranger Tugs at the dock, including Roam, Kismet, Illusions, Gepetto, and Caroline Ann, most staying for the week. This really gives us an opportunity to spend some quality time, as a smaller group, with those still here.

We figured since we are situated almost across from the shrimp boats in the harbor that we should track some down and have a party on the dock tonight. Jim and Mike, on Illusions, took a dinghy ride over to where the shrimp boats are tied up, found a seafood market, and picked up some of the freshest and biggest jumbo shrimp we’ve seen in a long time, a bag for almost every boat. Jim came back to Kismet with our stash, cleaned, and deveined them while I made cocktail sauce, cole slaw, and a nacho dip. We all met on the dock at the appointed time with our differently prepared shrimp dishes and sides and ate and talked till way after dark. Fun night!

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Kismet is hustling to get to Palm Island Marina – Cape Haze

We are attending the 2014 Ranger Tug Winter Rendezvous. Over the four years we’ve own our Ranger Tug, we’ve met lots of other owners, some we’ll see again at this rendezvous and we looked forward to making new friends during the rendezvous. The event was hosted by fellow tug owners, Ted and Carol Whittier and Mike and Jess Rizzo. Many thanks to all of them for a well-organized and fun Ranger Tug Rendezvous!

A Ranger Tug rendezvous is a good place to ask for information about other tug owners. Everyone wants to help if there is a problem. One owner had a hard-to-diagnose situation in his engine room and look how many boaters stopped to give their two cents or to lend a helping hand.

We had already briefly met Frank and Salma (above), on Tortuguilla, during our night on the hook in Pass-A-Grille, Florida, in fact, we had told them about this rendezvous and they signed up to come. One morning they invited us over for a traditional Venezuelan breakfast. They served arepas, a dish we had never eaten and it was delicious.

There was an impromptu happy hour the day before the rendezvous started, it was a good chance to start meeting other tug owners and share tug information and cruising routes and stories.

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Mike Rizzo had organized a post-rendezvous flotilla to Cayo Costa State Park for a one-night group anchor event, about a dozen boats participated. First, after anchoring, most of us dinghied to shore and the entrance of the park where we caught a buggy ride to the beach – we all seemed to be on a hunt for shark teeth. Later that evening everyone was invited to Heart Tug for happy hour. Now, this seemed to concern a few of us because, although Heart Tug is one of the bigger tugs, a 31, we were just wondering how everyone was going to fit on the boat at one time and not sink it. To our best recollection, there were 22 or 23 people at the happy hour. We had to be careful of how we moved around and certainly we couldn’t all go to one side of the boat to get a better look at something in the water. I am happy to report we pulled it off and consequently think Heart Tug now holds the all-time record for how many people are on a Ranger tug at the same time.

We lined up to get on the shuttle to the beach at Cayo Costa State Park.

Birds of a Feather Flock Together. . .
 That was us today as we all “flocked together” at the Cayo Costa anchorage enjoying happy hour on Heart Tug. Those who had dinghies shuttled those who did not over to the party. It was a bit hard to maneuver around the tug, but we managed to do it very carefully. It was also mentioned that we should not all go to one side of the boat, at the same time, to look at something, that would have been a disaster.

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