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| Mr Manatee coming to visit |
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| Get together at the dock for St Patricks Day! |
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| The beach on St Patricks Day |
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| This guy came to visit me while I was at the laundromat! |
Most of you know that our family suffered a terrible tragedy
back in late January. We went home to be
with our family and were gone about 8 weeks.
We recently returned to NautiNell and are trying to get back into the
swing of things. I want to thank all of
our cruiser friends here in Marathon for watching over NautiNell while we were
gone. It was nice to know that
everything on this end was being taken care of so we could focus on the tasks
at hand back home in Joplin.
We got back to the boat on Saturday, March 16 just in time
for St Patrick’s Day. And of course,
just as expected, everything here on the boat was fine. It just needed to be aired out a little and
maybe a little cleaning. We on the other
hand have had to decompress a little.
It’s nice to be back in the sunshine and warm weather.
Sunday our dockside friends threw a get together for St Patrick’s
Day. It was really nice to see everyone
and to enjoy the great food. Several of
the cruisers left while we were gone.
And several new faces have joined our little community. It didn’t take long to feel at home again.
We spent most of this past week working on the boat. Nothing major – just cleaning and stuff. We purchased a new television while we were
home. Mike installed a wall mount for
it. We are really uptown now!
We took a short dinghy ride up the canal the other day. It looks like there has been a lot of work on
the new marina being built. It still
looks like it’s a long way off from being in business. The way things go around here – I’d guess
another five years. Ha!
Even with all the “work” we’re doing we did manage to make
it to Hurricanes the other night for their 25-cent wings. J Mike doesn’t want to miss that. Oh, and of course, Sparkys. Where you can also get 25-cent wings and
jumbo shrimp. We had to hit that too!
Saturday we went to the Key West Air Show at the Navy Air
Field. It was really amazing! What a great show – and it was free! The Blue Angels put on a spectacular show. There were several other performers too
including a female wing-walker from Tulsa.
This is the first Air Show I have ever been too. I was really impressed. It was a gorgeous day and I even got sunburned.
Dan and Elise (they live here in Marathon) took us to Happy
Hour at The Marathon Yacht Club on Sunday evening. It’s a really nice place with a great view of
the Bay. I think that if Mike and I were
going to stay here permanently, we would look into joining.
We can’t decide what we are going to do. It’s hard to think about leaving here since
we really just got back. We should look
into going north either up the west coast or the east coast of Florida. We had originally planned to go up the east
coast – cross Florida on the Okeechobee River – then up the west coast and on
up the rivers. We were going to do that
with a couple of other boating friends.
Now their plans have changed too so we really have no idea at this
point. Several boaters here are going
home for Easter and are planning to head out when they return – some to the Bahamas
– some back home, wherever that may be. I
guess we’ll make up our minds in a few days.
Of course, our plans will be in sand and you know how they can change! Meanwhile – we are enjoying it here in
Marathon. We had a huge fish fry last
night with a bunch of the cruisers.
Can’t beat that!
It’s different having a car here now. We traded our motorcycle that we still had
for a car while we were back in Missouri.
We drove it back down here. Now
we have a car, two scooters and two bicycles.
Hmmm! It’s going to take some
planning when we decide to leave! But
now we can go to Key West whenever we want and not have to deal with the
bus! Think we’ll go tomorrow!
Stay tuned!
Admiral “C”
