Back in Marathon

It was a beautiful morning so Kinvara left the dock at 7AM and proceeded out of Key West Bight Harbor. It was too early for boat traffic so we had the seas to ourselves for a while.  We went past a large Carnival cruise ship docking for the day. There is at least one cruise ship in this port every day.  Once Kinvara turned east toward Marathon, the sun was rising, the winds were blowing a balmy 12knots and the seas were choppy...apx. 1' waves.  As we got further east the wind picked up to 13-14k from the east and the waves increased 2-4' every time we came out from behind the reefs.  Our total trip today was 6.5 hours. We paid for a month in Marathon, which finishes tomorrow so we had the mooring ball to return to.  As we motored slowly to the mooring a dolphin came swimming alongside and rode in our bow wave before dipping underneath and moving on. It was an exciting return! We await the weather tomorrow to see if we leave to head back north again.

Last Day in Key West

After 2 very long busy days in Key West we decided to rent an electric car for the morning to see the parts of Key West we could not walk to. We found a French restaurant at the end of Duval St. for breakfast then moved on to the southern most point in the US, marked by a large land buoy. In this little corner there were dozens of man o war jellyfish washed ashore. We drove by the Key West lighthouse then through some neighborhoods to see the houses. The morning ended with a stop to reprovision at a grocery store. Once the food was put away we took Pretzel in her backpack, again, returned the car, and browsed around the cruise ship docks, stores, an art fair, and the Mel Fisher Treasure Museum. When the day was done we returned to Kinvara to watch the sunset and commercial tour boats come back into dock. Tomorrow we return to Marathon to prepare to head north and home again.

Our little car

Man o war

We have now travelled the entire East coast of the US!!

St Augustine Lighthouse

Every person is a statue..except the one in front of the dancers!

Pirate Heaven!

Out & About in Key West

Today we put Pretzel into the backpack and hit Duval Street.  Shops & bars & shops & bars & dogs!!  This is the most dog friendly town we have ever been in!  The streets were mobbed since we were sharing the space with 3 cruise ships.  One was exclusively for Ohio State alumni. Talk about a sea of red!!

Duval Street

Shopping

Bars

Chickens on the street

Dogs!

This dog takes money out of your hand.

Then he puts it into a bucket.

Pirate dog

Pretty storefronts



Today's lunch



Mile 0....Key West!!!

Easy sail to key West!

Relaxed Admiral

On Wednesday morning we decided to drop the mooring ball and travel a short way to the Boot Key Harbor entrance to Burdines fuel dock.  We breathed a sigh of relief to find our engine and propeller worked after getting caught onto an old crab pot rigging when we arrived 3.5 weeks ago!!  After filling with fuel and water we went back to our mooring.  Well, since we had come this far along the Florida coast we decided it would be a shame not to go all the way to Key West. Jane made a quick phone call to Key West Bight marina and got a slip for 3-4 nights right in the heart of the old city. So first thing yesterday we dropped the ball at 6:45 and had a terrific sail into Key West by 2PM.  This is definitely quite a place. There are boats everywhere, resorts, shops, restaurants, etc. We wish we had been here a month!  After checking in we put Pretzel into her bag and started to explore the Harbor walk. We ended up at the cruise ship area where there is a sundowner festival every night. There are street performers, local craftsman stalls, and bars!! There must be more bars per square foot than Ireland.  Exhausted and hungry we returned a tired Pretzel to the boat at 7PM and then had a delightful dinner at the end of our dock at the “Raw Bar”. Delicious!!! Today we will get our bikes out to explore further…and tire Pretzel out so we can do the Duval Street Crawl tonight!  Enjoy the pictures!!

Big Fish!

Really Big live fish!!

Might try this tonight.

Notice the sign next to Jane!

Love this bar! rivel the one in Bury St Edmunds, UK!



Should we add Franklin, MA to this sign post?



Turtle Hospital

On Monday morning we set out early to have breakfast at 'The Stuffed Pig'. After breakfast we took a bike ride along route 1 to the seven mile bridge. On the way we passed a sign which brought back a lot of memories from across the sea.

For those of you who are not aware of this my home, Kinvara,  in Ireland was on the south coast of Galway Bay.

At 10 o'clock we had an appointment at the Turtle Hospital. It was a bitter/sweet 90 minutes. Only days before I had swam with a Loggerhead turtle in the wild on the reef and experienced something that so few have the privileged to do. Looking at the effect that humans have on these beautiful creatures is devastating. We were shown items such as fishing line with the hooks attached that have been removed from the intestines of the ones that were lucky to have been rescued. Many more are hit by boats and propellers every day and most die from their injuries. The impact of plastic in the ocean is beyond comprehension. We were reminded of the huge skeleton of the whale we saw at the sea park in the Bahamas who's stomach was full of plastic bottles which eventually killed him. The ironic part of all this is the fact that there is no effort in most places we have been on The Keys that have recycle programs. 

How about their very own ambulance!

Born with a bent spine he has weights
 attached to keep him upright.

Some of the items removed from rescued Turtles.

Turtle X ray room

Turtle surgery



The largest is a Leather Back and the smallest is a Green Turtle.



A Toast to the new Divers!

A champagne toast to Peter and Bill, Key West's newest divers.

Shopping Day

Just a few pictures to show how we have to do grocery shopping!  It goes from the store cart to the bikes to the dingy to the boat!! Jane carried all the cold items in an insulated bag. Peter carried 4 bottles of wine, a case of diet coke, and 2 packs of beer in his back basket plus 2 hanging bags  of general groceries. Then we filled 2 five gallon water jugs and 4 gallon bottles. The dingy was loaded!!  Ahhhh food for 3 days then we do it all over again!!

Peter is now SCUBA certified. Today he completed a 50' dive and another shallow dive on a reef. He saw loggerhead turtles, lobster, and all the tropical fish you can imagine!! If you click on the "Where is Kinvara?" link the google map will show a flag south of Boot Key Harbor in Marathon where he completed his dives.

This picture shows sombrero reef with an outdated lighthouse tower marking it.  The diver is, of course, just a picture on the postcard.  Wait....maybe Peter was taking her picture??   We are meeting with the other couple, Bill & Nancy for champagne and appetizers later. then Peter and I will go out to dinner to celebrate. Yippee!!!

The dive boat going out for the last day of ocean dives.

Almost SCUBA certified!!

This has been a busy week in Marathon for Peter. He has been to scuba classes every day but Tuesday. Thursday and Friday were double dives but he chose to do a single dive on Thursday so he finishes his last dive this morning. Yesterday when he jumped in from the dive boat he said he was surrounded by fish! He loved the free dive part. Jane is just a little bit jealous but hopefully we will both get out to the reef to snorkel. Peter did see man o war jelly fish though so we are not in a rush. Of course the full wetsuit protects everything but our hands and head. We will see!!

Jane has been doing the usual boat stuff...laundry, grocery shopping on a bike....minding Pretzel. She has also spent time with Nancy, our new friend from Maine. Her husband, Bill, took diving lessons with Peter.

On Tuesday we went to breakfast at the "Stuffed Pig" restaurant across the main road. It's somewhat like the Bahamas....if you only look at the front of the building you would not choose to go in. BUT they have indoor seating and a beautiful outdoor seating area under 4-5 tiki roofs. And we can bring Pretzel along with us!! The food is great and the atmosphere is even better. Breakfast is better than lunch. They even have lobster benedict for $14. (Think about that one Eric!) Verena will love these pictures!

There are pigs everywhere in the place!

Jane's new friend!

Two days ago we watched the space station fly overhead for about 3 minutes. It was very clear. Made us think back to the sputnick days watching for the satellites fly over!! This morning Jane tried to take pictures of the moon and "Fat Albert", the US blimp monitoring boat traffic from Cuba. It reflects very clearly in the morning sun. If you double click on the photos you can clearly see the little blimp near the moon!!

The blimp is at 2:00 just off the moon!

Out and About in the Keys

For over a week now as we sit in the cockpit looking west (toward Key West) we have seen a "spot" in the sky. At first we thought it was a plane or helicopter but it did not change it's position. sometimes it looks black and in the mornings it looks bright. So Jane looked in her cruising guide again to find out what it is...

 Further west, about halfway to Key West, is a little island, Cudjoe Key. At the very northern end is another somewhat secret government facility which does not admit unauthorized people. It has 2 blimps that fly as high as 10.000 tethered to the ground. Sometimes they both fly but we have only seen 1 at a time. They have been named by the locals as "Fat Alberts" but the US Air Force calls them a "Tethered Aerostat Radar System". One blimp has beamed TV Marti signals to Cuba since 1990, which the Cuban government routinely jams. The other blimp sends signals across the horizon to detect planes and ships out to 150 miles. This is for drug intervention and monitoring Cuban refugee boats. Unfortunately we cannot take a picture of the blimp, but use your imagination........sitting on the boat watching a little black speck in the sky. Have we been on the boat too long??  Beam me up, Scottie!

The other day we walked to the Keys Fisheries for a drink and dinner. The pictures show how cool this place is. Even though it is up on "stilts" we still wonder how these buildings survive hurricanes!!










The Gulf of Mexico behind Peter



Two Weeks in Marathon

Two weeks down and two more to go in beautiful Marathon, Florida Keys! The weather has been awesome for most of the time. Of course it is much better here than in most areas of the country. The sunsets each evening are awe-inspiring. We have to pinch ourselves constantly to realize that we are living a dream.

The Admiral & the First Mate

I have to explain a little about our surroundings here. When we walk about 50 yards from the dingy dock there is an awesome public park. It reminds us a lot of the recreation area in Solivita, our Florida home. There are several tennis courts, 2 softball fields, 2 soccer fields, Bocci courts, a skate-board park, a band stand and several picnic areas with loads of seating. This past weekend there was a wonderful craft fair in the park. I found an awesome solid silver pendant for Jane which I had promised her for her heroics over the past few weeks. By the way she also bought me a gift, a hand painted wooden egg from a very special man.

He has painted thousands
 of wooden eggs

Peter & the Egg Man

Another interesting little story about our surroundings, which Jane read in a local publication, is about a high security government facility, marked by four radio towers just a short distance from our marina. The facility is a Spanish speaking radio station which broadcasts 24 hrs a day to Cuba. The aim is to get the US point of view to Cubans and possibly influence policy. The US has been broadcasting since the 1959 Cuban Revolution. It started out as pure propaganda and has evolved into “Radio Marti” under the authority of the Voice of America. It broadcasts soap operas, news, entertainment, shows, music, and messages “back home” for Cuban Americans. Some say it is the most listened to station in Cuba.

Peter & Bill in pool class. Picture taken with
Jane's new Cannon camera.

As mentioned earlier we have taken a class on snorkeling. We both loved the program and can’t wait to snorkel some of the local reefs. I decided to continue on and acquire a scuba diving certification. I have spent 12 hours in the pool and by the end of the week I hope to do my first open ocean dive. It has been a little more intense than I first thought but I am sticking with it and hope to cross it off my bucket list by this weekend.

Fabulous Fishery

On Monday Peter was changing the filter in our water maker and Jane thought she would help out. She carried the old filter outside to dispose in the trash bag and tipped the filter housing to empty the water overboard.  Unfortunately there was a rubber o-ring that also went overboard. So she immediately called a store advertising watermakers to inquire about o-rings.  Since they had them in stock we rode our bikes and bought 2 of them. The watermaker is back in business now!  On the way back we stopped at a little place called "The Stuffed Pig" for breakfast. Yummy!!! At the end of the road we rode to an advertised fishery and tiki restaurant. WELL....they have the best fish store. The pictures show before and after our late afternoon snack before dinner!!  Delish!!!