Our Last Few Days in Marathon - Countdown to the Bahamas!

Frequent visitor - very cool!

Someone looking for a handout....

Another frequent visitor

Sunset at Lorelei in Islamorada
 

Can't get enough of the sunsets in Marathon
Just sitting on our deck.......

Really, does it get any prettier?

One of the last last last hurrahs on the dock

Having fun with Cheri and Ray

Quite a threesome!
Mike, Phred and Mike

Pizzas are here!!

Saw this coming down the harbor the other morning!
Got pretty close!

Got her name on the Whaler finally!

Gathering for pizza night!

Car show in Islamorada - beautiful day

gotta love this one!

Very very cool!

Purple flames - yeah!

Sand castle on the beach at Islamorada

I want this one, please.....

Another last last last hurrah at
Keys Fisheries

Always love this view at Keys Fisheries

Rose and Steve heading out

Casting their lines for September Song

Conched Out Too - on their way

Heading to another adventure

We’ve been really busy these last few days here in Marathon.  There is always lots to do to get ready to go to the Bahamas.  Since some things are so expensive over there we need to stock up the boat. Other things are really hard to find so we want to be sure the boat is in tiptop shape and ready to make the voyage.  If you can avoid it, you really don’t want to have work done on your boat in the Bahamas. Our plan is to leave here in the next week or so and spend about 2-3 months there.  That takes planning!  Not always our best suit……  Ha!  Mike has been working on the generator problem.  He finally has decided that it is fixed “good enough”.  Just so we didn’t really have to worry too much more about it – we bought a small portable one that can work as a backup.  Hopefully we won’t need it but it helps to know we have one.  So now Mike has been changing oil, filters, belts and everything else that needs to be done before our journey.  I’ve been busy stocking up on everything – beer, Diet Pepsi, food and everything else I can think of.  I’m still trying to figure out where to put everything!

We did make it to Key West where we were able to acquire our Local Boaters Option (LBO) cards.  This allows us to simply call in when we return stateside rather than to actually have to go through customs.  They run a background check – fingerprints and all.  But Mike and I passed with flying colors.  Was there any doubt?  Ha!  It’s been known to be rather a fiasco to get it done but it was pretty simple this time.

Dock Dynasty held a last last hurrah “again” – with a pizza party.  It was great to visit with everyone and find out where they were all headed.  Several boats left within the next day or so.  First Optimystique left heading up the west coast for Bradenton.  Finally left next and headed up the west coast of Florida and eventually home to Jekyll Island - September Song and Happy headed over to the Bahamas making a 29 hour crossing from here to Nassau - Gypsy Rose and Conched Out Too headed out together up the west coast to Ft Myers Beach and beyond.  Rambler left for the Bahamas and traveled with Pura Vida -  and Floating Stone headed north then hopefully on to the Bahamas as well.  Everyone is starting another adventure and most will return to Marathon this next winter season.  Hopefully we’ll be back here again this next November too.  It will be great to see everyone again and hear about their adventures.  This group here at Sombrero Dockside Marina is made up of a great bunch of people.  We have had a great time being a part of “Dock Dynasty”.  We’ve made a lot of good friendships in such a short amount of time.

Our next adventure will take us to the Bahamas along with Jeff and Linda of Jeremiah.  They haven’t been before so we will try to play tour guides for them somewhat.  We plan to head up to Key Biscayne (just south of Miami) and then stage to cross to Bimini (Bahamas) when the next weather window opens.  From there we’ll go to Lucaya (Bahamas) and then on to the Abacos.  At least that’s our plan now.  It could change tomorrow.  Hopefully we’ll get to stay two to three months. 

I think our plan is to be back stateside in July and travel up to Ortega Landing which is near Jacksonville where we’ll stay the summer.  It’s a good hurricane hole.  So for those of you wanting to visit – that’s the plan for now.  Come see us in the Bahamas or if you can’t do that – come see us in Jacksonville!

It hasn’t been all work.  We did go to the “Taste of Islamorada” festival last weekend.  We had been there the last couple of years.  It’s weird saying that we’ve done any of this the “last couple of years”!  Anyway, it’s a great festival right on the beach, a great car show, sand castles and with lots of good food! 

We got together for a Cincinnati Chili Dinner the other night on the dock.  It was Karen and RL’s idea on Last Call. They wanted one more hurrah before they headed back to Virginia.  Cincinnati chili is a sweet type of chili with cinnamon and nutmeg – I’m told.  It’s really good though.  Not quite like our chili back home but its good!  They served it with spaghetti.  Back home that’s called “spaghetti red”.  They haven’t heard of that here!  J

We also had a gathering at Key Fisheries.  We had to have our stone crab claws one more time! 

We met up with Marc and Shelley of Rock Chalk the other night in Islamorada.  They are on their boat at Coral Bay Marina where we stayed a few times.  They contacted us to see if we were still in Marathon.  Since we had a car – we drove up there with Jeff and Linda to see them.  We had a few drinks and dinner at Lorelei which is next to the Marina. It was so good to see them.  We met them when we were on the Loop.  It is so nice to meet up with couples we’ve met along the way.  That is one really great thing about the boating community.  You make a lot of friends along the way and several stay in touch as the years go by.

Yesterday, Ricky and Terese decided it was time to use their smoker one last time before we all leave.  They smoked a huge amount of ribs and we all brought sides.  There aren’t near as many of us now but we still know how to have a good time.  However, Rick must have forgot our number had dwindled because we had a bunch of ribs left over!  Leftovers are usually unheard of around here!  Anyway, we’ll do it all over again tonight!  Leftover style! 

At the time of this post it looks like we’ll be leaving Tuesday for the Miami area (April 15^th).  My posts will be rather few and far between due to the fact that Wi-Fi connections are hard to come by once we leave stateside.  I’ll do my best to keep you posted of our fun times.

Till next time!

Admiral “C” 

 

 

 

Our Winter Time is Winding Down..

Taking out NautiNell to get her bottom painted!

You can see Mike might be a little nervous!

All done - after a few little touchups it was
time for her to be back in the water

Scott and Mike catching up on old times

Having fun with Scott and Julie at Sunset Grille!

Great Band at Blue Heaven

Mama and her chicks - they were everywhere!

At least I did get a picture before it was gone!

Blues guy - Bill Whorton

Drumming on about anything he could find

They had a little bit of about everything seafood here

Loved this band!

Everyone kicked back enjoying the day
at the Marathon Seafood Festival

Our motley crew having a good time!

Rejuvenated sign for the "Table of Wisdom"
NautiNell has been added!

Sunset - almost missed it!

This is a submarine - yes it is!

Not much to look at - and also very strange
It goes below water so not to be detected.......

Get together for another
Last Hurrah!

Mike and Mike - the Missouri boys

This is the mural that they painted on the wall beside the pool

Another view - you can see the sign post

One of the other sign posts

Can you see NautiNell?

Sign completed and ready to be hung

Great signs!

Very cool!

Mike couldn't resist grabbing
Karen's coconuts!

Julie and me enjoying the day

Shelf cloud moving in - pretty scary view

Another view from the mooring field

Guys gathered on Jeremiah

Candy took this picture of a Key Deer on
the way to No Name Pub
had to share

Carlton and his girls gathered on Jeremiah

Our winter time is winding down but the fun isn’t down here at the Keys!  Several boats are planning to leave this week when they have a good weather window.  As most of you know we just returned from a whirlwind trip back to Joplin to see all our family and friends – especially our grandbabies! 

Here is a little of what has been going on since my last post before and after our trip. 

First earlier this month we took another dinghy ride through what the boaters call Deliverance Canal (aka Boot Key).  It was just us and another dinghy (Jeff and Linda).  It was a great ride and we were able to go completely around Boot Key.  The area is really “rustic” as I mentioned before in previous posts.  It’s still pretty though and it was a great day for a dinghy ride.

Missouri friends – Scott and Julie – stopped in for a visit.  They were on their way to Key West so we had lunch with them at Sunset Bar and Grille.  We really enjoyed seeing them and getting to catch up on everything that has been going on in Missouri (besides the weather).  We were able to meet up with them again for breakfast a couple of days later on their way back.  They had had a fun time in Key West as usual.

Jeff, Linda, Mike and I took a fun trip to Key West later that week.  It’s so much fun to go there and just hang out watching the people.  Linda and I did a little shopping and of course, Jeff and Mike found a bar or two.  We ate lunch at Blue Heaven.  I love that place.  The atmosphere is like no other – not just anywhere can you eat lunch and watch the chickens and their baby chicks.  Oh wait, I think I used to do that on my grandmother’s farm – completely different thing!  J

The Sauce Boss (Bill Whorton) who is a great blues guy and tours the US was at Dockside the other night.  He cooks up a big batch of Gumbo while he plays the blues and the “heck” out of his guitar.  Mike and I had always wanted to see him but we never could be at the right place at the right time.  We finally made it – we were at the right place “The Keys” and he came to us!  He was quite the entertainer!

Carlton and Becki (Sea Moore) came down to visit us all by car one evening.  They were here last year and we had met and traveled with them while on the Loop.  They live up in Alabama and are traveling in an RV now.  It was good to visit with them.  We, of course, had to go to Hurricane’s for dinner.  After all, it was Thursday – wing night!

There was quite a little squall the came through here a couple of days before we left for home.  I’m glad we were in the marina when it happened.  Mostly just wind (a little rain) and it didn’t last very long but it did send everyone to their boats for a few hours.  The picture I’ve posted was taken from a boater out in the mooring field.  The Weather Channel used it during their broadcast, I’m told.

The annual Seafood Festival here in Marathon was held the weekend before we left.  This is a huge event.  In fact, it’s only second to the wild Fantasy Fest they have every Halloween in Key West.  Several thousand people attended according to the news.  It was a great time.  There was great food – lobster, shrimp, conch and on and on.  In fact Mike even tried a Konchwurst!  He said it was pretty good.  There was great music from several local bands – some came from around the Miami area.  My favorite was a reggae band that really heated things up.  I think the name was Island Vibe.  We spent the day checking out the vendors, eating seafood and key lime pie, drinking cold beer and listening to the music.  What more could you want? 

Since we were going to be gone a couple of weeks, we decided it would be a good time to take NautiNell over to Outta The Blue Marina and have her bottom painted.  It’s about an hour or so away by boat up the Hawk Channel.  The weather was great for the trip and we were able to get her out of the water pretty quickly.  She sure looks big when she’s out of the water!  We spent the night on her “on the hard” before we headed off the next morning for Joplin.  They scraped and painted her bottom, replaced some zincs and made her look “almost” like new again.  When we returned there she sat looking good and ready to take on another voyage.  When we got her in December 2010 she had just had a bottom paint job – and was in fresh water.  It’s been three years now and most of the time she’s been in saltwater. Saltwater is harder on boats than freshwater of course and the warmer the water the more growth.   Of course, we’ve been pretty good about getting her cleaned pretty regular but we were still surprised about how good she looked when we took her out.  Now she’s ready for a few more years!

When we finally got back to Marathon it was really windy.  Several boaters who had planned to leave were still here.  We had another last last final hurrah party on the dock Friday night –  (I think they had had several of those while we were gone!)  Lots to eat and it was great to see everyone again.  We were still on the hard because of the weather so we had to come over by car but we still enjoyed it.  Although I didn’t like seeing our empty slip – something just didn’t look right….  The next day the weather settled down so we were able to get put back in the water that afternoon and made it to the our slip without incident about 3:30 p.m. – just in time for happy hour.  Good to be back – officially now with our boat in the water!

Sunday Karen invited us over to her condo for a pool party and the “unveiling” of the wall mural that several had been creating on her wall around the pool.  No, I didn’t participate in the painting – for those of you who know me and my artistic ability you shouldn’t be surprised.  Karen is happy about that I’m sure.  We do have several “artists” here at the dock and they did a wonderful job.  We also were able to install our “sign posts”.  Each member here of Dock Dynasty made up their own sign with their boat name and any other info they wanted to put on it.  We installed them alongside her pool too.  Now this summer when we’re all gone, she can sit out by the pool with all her Dock Dynasty friends.  It looks really cool!

It will probably be a couple of weeks before we head to the Bahamas.  First we need to get the generator fixed.  Ray and Jeff are going to help Mike with that.  It’s going to be a big project but they’ll get it done.  The weather isn’t going to be all that great for crossing the Atlantic anyway for a few days or more.  Some of the boats that are heading up the west coast of Florida will probably leave this week.  That side won’t be so bad but Neptune is keeping the waters of the Atlantic churning for a while.  We’re not in any hurry anyway.  The Bahamas will be there when we get there!

Mike and I have to go to Key West tomorrow to get our Local Boater Option that lets us check back in from the Bahamas with just a phone call.  We have to apply with Customs down there but it makes it a lot easier to check in once you’re back in the states.  Oh my, another trip to Key West.  Darn! 

I’m also pretty sure there will be another “Last Last Hurrah” this week for Dock Dynasty. In fact, word on the dock is we’re having a pizza party Wednesday.   I’ll keep you posted.

Till Next Time!

Admiral “C”