Back in Marathon

Mr Manatee coming to visit

Get together at the dock for St Patricks Day!

The beach on St Patricks Day

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”