NautiNell's Adventure!: Our Last Few Days in the Keys!

View of the old bridge from Pigeon Key

One of the original houses on Pigeon Key

Another view from Pigeon Key

There were several kids here on a educational trip.
Here they're releasing all the critters they caught while
snorkeling the day before

View of Florida Bay from Pigeon Key

Porky's - one of our favorites

A visitor here at Porky's

Porky's has a little bit of everything......

Mike and his "pride and joy"

We had some flooding here the first of the month
This is part of the golf course
Hope the resident alligator didn't get out!

Our parking lot - wonder what the diver's checking out!

Sombrero Beach on Memorial Day

We made it back from a whirlwind trip back home. I believe it took us a week traveling back and forth and we stayed about a week. It was nice to see everyone. Our get-together for Shane went really well. There were so many there and we felt truly blessed. Although we still miss him greatly, it helps to see how he touched so many lives. God bless you all that helped get us all together. It was truly amazing.

We’ve only been back for about a week, but we’ve really been busy getting the boat ready to move on to her next adventure. We plan to head up Florida’s West Coast to the Bradenton area where we plan to spend a couple of months or so. We have reservations at the Twin Dolphins Marina. We stopped there to check it out on the way Joplin. We really liked what we saw and are excited for the change.

The first item on Mike’s list when we got back was to install the new head (toilet) we had ordered off EBay. We’ve been fighting the front head pretty much since we moved on the boat. Now we have two WORKING heads! Yea! He also had to repair the raw water pump AGAIN on our generator. It’s a good thing he checked it out before we left. You would think that things should be fine if they were working when we got here eight months ago. However, it’s not that way. It’s a boat! You never know what may or may not work at any given time!

We did take some time off though to check out some places before we leave. We took a dinghy ride out to Pigeon Key. We had wanted to go there but hadn’t worked it in. It was a beautiful day and a great day for a boat ride. Mike was anxious to take the Whaler out with his new motor. By the way, while we were home – he managed to sell his 9.8 hp motor and to buy another one – only the new one is a 20 hp. Yes, now we can go twice as fast. We can go further and faster now. Actually, don’t tell him but I’m happy about that. We took a nice long boat ride around the area.

Oh, back to Pigeon Key - this is an island where the workers lived while building the Henry Flagler’s Overseas Railroad which is now US 1. There are still the original historic buildings and a “small” museum there. You can take the shuttle over there for $12.00 but we went on our own and saved the money. It was worth what we paid for it…. The scenery was pretty though.

We had dinner a couple of times at Porky’s and listened to Dan Sullivan. We love listening to him. You never know what he’s going to do or play. He can play a great John Prine! We also tracked down Captain Josh at Cabana Breezes. We enjoy him too. Oh and I finally had the locals favorite – pizza from Hurricanes. Usually we hit there on “wing night” but this time we had the pizza. Definitely not disappointed and worth the wait!

We’ve stocked the boat (beer, liquor, Diet Pepsi and tonic water). We’ve loaded the Whaler and motor and both scooters. That was a trip. We acquired the scooters while we were here. Had to make room!

We are ready to start another adventure. We plan to leave in the morning (Tuesday). We will stay on anchor a few days on the way up the coast. Hopefully we’ll be at Ft Myers for the Fourth of July celebration.

We’ve enjoyed the sunsets (but not the bugs) here at Marathon. Looking forward to some new ones (sunsets that is – not the bugs) along the way.

Stay tuned!
Till next time!

Admiral “C”