Spending the holidays in the Keys

Beautiful sunset a couple days before Christmas

Merry Christmas from Harley and Marley!

Parking lot here at the marina getting full!

Got my Kitty fix on Christmas thanks to
Candy and Fred - they have three kitties!

Lots of food at the Christmas dinner!

 

Mr Manatee came for a visit

It was good to see him.  We had heard that one
was found dead in the harbor -
glad it wasn't our regular visitor

They are huge!

Full moon shot from the dock

One of the firetrucks that came by
Caroling on Christmas Eve

Very cool aquariums in Annette's. No fish just lights

Richard and Jill fixing the fantastic cornbread!

Rick - don't you dare raise that lid!
Let those ribs smoke!!

sending up a sky lantern

wonder if there were any reports of UFOs

Katie knows how to dress for the cold!
It was 68 degrees!!  Brrr!

Beautiful lights in the Prayer Garden

This display of lights was so pretty - hard to describe!

Angel blowing her trumpet!

Redneck ingenuity at its best!

Gathering for New Years Eve!

Another picture of the lights at the church

It was amazing!

Enjoying New Years Eve with friends and food!

Spending the holidays in the Keys can be a bit different. It’s been 80 degrees or warmer pretty much every day.  The radio still plays Christmas songs, there are Christmas lights everywhere, and Santa does visit here.  However he wears his flip flops rather than those big black boots.  Now mind you, I’m not complaining.  I know what my friends and family have been going through in Missouri.  It’s that it just doesn’t really seem like Christmas here.  I baked cookies the other day while listening to Christmas songs.  I had to turn on the air conditioning.  Don’t you feel my pain?  J 

(All kidding aside, I really do miss all my friends and family.  This is our third Christmas away from them. Hopefully we’ll be home for the holidays next year.  Sorry it didn’t work out this time.  We do hope you all had a great Christmas.)

Now back to the Christmas experience – Keys style…..  Most of everyone here at the dock went home for the holidays.  That left a few of us to fend for ourselves.  The restaurant here at the marina threw a great shindig.  They furnished the turkey/ham, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.  All of the locals and the “boating community” were invited.  All we needed to bring was a dish to share.  There was a great turnout and a huge amount of food.  We had a great time visiting and listening to the “jam session”.  We all walked away from there feeling we would never eat again……..

But forget that!  There are new places opening here it seems on a weekly basis!  We’ve tried several of them.  There’s a new sports bar “Marathon Grill and Ale House”.  This is really a neat place.  They have several televisions so no one will miss their favorite team.  Annette’s Lobster House is another place that has recently opened.  It’s not a new place but has been completely remodeled.  We tried it too this week and really liked it.  We will definitely be back to both of them.

Oh, one thing we were able to accomplish this week was retrieving our car.  We left it in Bradenton when we headed south.  Rick, one of the boaters here, was driving to Sarasota to spend Christmas and we were able to catch a ride.  Sarasota is only about 20 miles from Bradenton.  He delivered us right to our car!  It’s about a six hour drive from here. We took the Tamiami Trail through the Everglades rather than I-75.  It’s about the same time and distance.  However very more scenic!  We must have seen over 50 alligators along the canal just out sunning themselves!  FINALLY!  After three years, I finally saw some alligators!  I saw them from the car rather than the boat – but it counts!  Some of them were huge!  Wish we could have stopped to take pictures but maybe next time….  You’ll just have to take my word for it.  They were huge and there were lots of them!  Thanks to Rick for letting us ride along.  Now that we have a car there’s surely a trip to Key West in our future.  But we'll wait for the holiday crowd to thin out a bit.

More and more boaters are returning to the dock now that Christmas is over.  Most are here now and the rest will be in a few days.  It was pretty quiet around here for a couple of weeks but it’s picked up on the dock again.  Things are starting to get back to normal finally.

We’re had a potluck here on the dock for New Year’s Eve.  The guys cooked up some baby backs and we all brought other delicious dishes. It took a little of redneck innovation to get Rick’s grill up to “smokehouse” standards.  After adding a “tool box” to it to use for the “firebox” and a few more adjustments - the guys had a great smoker.  The ribs were scrumptious!  We ate dinner and toasted in the New Year here on the dock.  It was a great night!  

Then for New Year’s Day, Karen (a former boater now a “local”) invited us over to her condo for black-eyed peas and football.  This the same Karen that had us all over for Thanksgiving.  I guess we didn’t hurt the place too bad since she invited us back!  We again had way too much food!  Everyone got their fill of black-eyed peas and other various dishes including Richard and Jill’s fantastic homemade cornbread.  We hung around and watched some of the game.  Mike not being much of a football fan decided his time could be spent better back at the boat (taking a nap).  After all, we did have a pretty busy day the day before! 

Tonight eight of us finally made it to the local Catholic Church to see the Christmas lights.  The San Pablo Catholic Church decorates every year using thousands of lights.  They say it’s a gift to the community.  It was absolutely beautiful.  They have a prayer garden that you walk through – it was so peaceful and beautiful.  They take the lights down this Monday so I’m really glad we finally made it there in time.  Oh, I forgot to mention – today a cold front came through – so it was “chilly” when we were walking through the lights so it really seemed like it was the Christmas season – it was 68 degrees……  J

Another boater that we met during traveling the Loop is out on a mooring ball in the harbor.  Bruce and Karen on “OokPik” from Canada are still traveling around like us.  It was really good to see them.  They are the ones we ventured to Chicago with on the train.  The time we went to Chicago and then ended up missing the train back!  Another story another time.  Ha!

As we enter into a new year, I look back on all the fun times we’ve had.  2013 brought us lots of joy as well as sorrow.  May 2014 be a great year for us all.  Happy New Year!

Till next time!

Admiral “C”