February Fun

Well, the weather has been improving since the end of January. We've not had much rain at all and the strong winds have let up a bit in duration. One of the things on the to-do list has been to clean the bottom of the boat and change the zincs on the propeller shafts. I had picked a warm sunny day to do this job but the wind had been blowing from the north for a few days causing our area of the marina to get filled with floating sea grass, no big deal really I could work around it.

However, upon further review we saw the north winds had also brought in a few critters to visit. Seeing a few Portuguese man o'war floating around led me to find other projects that day.

The visits also have continued and we have enjoyed them all. Next up was my sister Kathy and our good friend Gretchen. Jill was able to get in some serious girl time with this visit. The nights were cool but the days were sunny and warm as we spent time showing them around the keys. One place we visited was a canal house we had seen on our dinghy pub crawl. This place was a large boat shed on the water side but built to look like a steam ship from the front. I'll try to get a pic of the water side if we get back that way.

We spent Super Bowl Sunday on a road trip to Key West and had a blast as usual. All to soon it was time for them to head back to the frozen north...hurry back,

Hello Ladies...

After a quick turn of the pillows our friends Ann and Grant checked in to the B & B. We wasted no time in also showing them around our winter home (for this year). First stop was for happy hour at the Sunset Grille. It really helps folks get into the "island time" mood.

It never gets old.

We also paid a visit to the Turtle Hospital which is only a short walk from the boat. They put on a very nice tour and explain how they rehab sick or injured sea turtles. If you find and help rescue an injured turtle you get to name him...that's our goal!! You can find out more about what they do by following the link above.

We also put our guests to work while they visit. Some projects are a bit too big for just Jill and I. Besides, you have to pay for that room and board somehow. One particular project that I had been wanting to do was to lay down the radar arch and measure our height with it down. When we set off on this Loop trip we really didn't know if we could make the boat short enough to clear the 19' bridge outside of Chicago. If you can't do that the Great Loop becomes the Great U-Turn...that didn't sound like fun. Good news is the radar arch isn't too heavy and can easily be laid down by 2 people. The boat is 17' 3" with the arch down and that is in salt water. We'll be even shorter in fresh water so there is no sweat getting through the loop.

Top Down Day

 
We also made the pilgrimage to Key West as well as checking out a few new stops like the Big Pine Key flea market. It don't get better than that!! One other note about Big Pine is that it is home to the Key Deer and we found several as we were trying to find the No Name Pub. Nice thing about Key Dear is they are trained to only cross the road near the deer crossing signs....This buck is about the size of a large dog.

Again too soon, our friends were heading back to the (this time) foggy north. If you see Grant ask him about the adventure getting home.

This week was spent getting some more boat projects completed that we've been putting off. I think they call it Keys Disease when you keep thinking you'll get to it tomorrow. We have another round of visitors coming next week and then our time is up here in Marathon. The "plan" for now is to head west to Key West for a few days in early March before making our way up the keys toward Miami in mid March. At that time we'll look at the forecast and see if the patterns are right to head to the Bahamas. If not we'll just move more slowly up the east coast of Florida being careful not to outrun the warm weather. As nice as it's been to be in one place for this long we've both said how ready we are to get moving again....I guess it's a boater thing. One salty old boater told us "when you're walking down the street and someone honks and waves at you, you've been here too long....that happened yesterday.

Until next time, remember.............

Marathon in January

I figure we should get another blog out before things really start to get busy this month at the Chasing 80 B & B (Boat and Breakfast). They keep talking about island time but we haven't seemed to slow down much.

I know I mentioned in the last post how bad the weather has been so I thought I'd include a few pics just to prove it. Several of the cold fronts that came through brought some serious squall lines and high winds. Once the front would go through the winds would clock around to the North and blow hard for a day or two. After that they would start moving around to the East and finally South where things would start to warm up before the whole pattern would repeat. I know it's been a mild winter so far up North so y'all should be feeling sorry for us! The picture below is the squall line approaching before one storm. This is the same front that caused tornadoes up around Ft. Myers. It's just after sunrise and you can see we are still in the sunshine but not for long. Winds were over 50 as this line went through.

Next pic is how the forecast typically looked during January. We're hoping for an improving trend in February.

OK, you don't really need to feel sorry for us, we are still living the dream! It's been really interesting hanging out here for a month. In the past we would pass through Marathon on our way to Key West with no more than a stop for lunch or a drink. The past month we've become very familiar with the lower half of Vaca Key by riding our bikes everywhere we go. We've found several new places with great happy hour food and drink deals (I am retired after all). If the wind is blowing hard from the North we go to the South side where it's calmer! One spot we like is Porky's with really good food, great staff and a funky vibe (for the hipsters reading).

Buffalo Fish Fingers

Everywhere we've been down here is very pet friendly so we get our fill of tail wags without having to have our own on board.

So this dog walks into a bar....

We've spent time exploring by dinghy on the day's the wind isn't blowing too hard. One nice day we got about 6 boats together and did a dinghy pub crawl (row?) all the way around the key. I'd guess about 15 miles in total.

Don't think its been all play and no work, we've gotten several boat projects done including one day under the boat checking out the bottom and running gear. I'll do it once more before we head off next month. We've also attended a fishing seminar but it's not been great for fishing here either.

We took a quick trip to Key West to have an interview with Customs and get our Small Vessel Reporting Cards. These make it easier to clear back into the country when we go to the Bahamas and Canada. Work, work, work....

This past week our friends Brenda and Ron came down to visit for a few days and brought along the weather we've been looking for this past month. Finally 80 degrees!! We showed them some of our favorite hang outs both here in Marathon as well as a day trip back to Key West. We took them to the Green Parrot which is our favorite spot in Key West. Check out the music schedule in the link for some pretty great acts passing through town.

Green Parrot

The Sunset Grille here in Marathon has been a spot we hit for "Sunday Funday" which is a great party but last night was the first time we made it there for sunset. It's not quite the celebration of Mallory Square in Key West but we enjoyed the scenery and company.

Well, that's it for now. The next set of guests are checking in tomorrow and I need to turn the pillows over so they think they are clean. We're both looking forward to all our visitors and showing them around our little piece of the rock. Unfortunately it looks like Brenda and Ron took the nice weather back to their RV near Orlando....oh well, I'm sure we'll find something to keep our friends occupied!