Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Keys Disease

Here are some photos I took of our friends Elaine and Lawrence on their sailboat 'Elle & I' the morning we left Mantanzas Inlet off of Ft. Myers Beach   (was it really last week?).  We followed this power boat out and I couldn't figure out what in the heck they were doing.  Cut off, ram or chase....anyway all was well. 'Elle & I' out ran them  (fib, fib fib) and all was well. If they were playing Pirate they weren't very good....maybe it was just "practice".







After a long day...8 hours for us and over 10 for 'Elle & I' we met again in Little Shark River in the Florida Everglades.  Our halfway stop to Marathon and their halfway stop to Shell Key anchorage on their way back north.  We haven't seen them since lunch last year in Marco Island and this visit was even shorter. Gary was fighting off the beginning of a urinary tract infection.  Elaine turned out to be his 'Florence Nightingale" , Enough said...... Elaine & Lawrence you know we LOVE you both!


Tuesday, March 17th, St Patty's Day....Gulf of Mexico.....water and sky become one....perfect
that is of course until we ran aground.  Gary was having a very bad day with the UTI and I was driving the boat most of the way,  BUT.....I was (thank God) not driving when HE ran aground within sight of the Seven Mile Bridge off of the south tip of Vaca Key (Marathon).  I may not have been reporting this if it had been me, I would have already paid the price....anyway, we were 4 feet, just 4 little feet,  from 6 feet of water.  We need at least 4.7 feet and I think we ended up in 3. Anyway as I was  on the back deck looking down at the very clear water and VERY clear bottom I was 'gently reminding' DO NOT WRECK THE PROPS!  (been there, done that)....and we were actually listing quite a bit.  But of course the captain ascertained that the bottom was soft and if he spun the props and used the controls he could plow us sideways into the deeper water.  Of course he was right, isn't the Captain ALWAYS right?  No vibration followed and we made it into Marathon without further ado.  (And since he was not feeling well at all and had just been relieving me at the helm I dropped it)

There were no moorings available when we got there so we anchored in the harbor (a first here) and enjoyed our first Marathon Sunset.



                               It is still very busy here....one of the two dinghy docks.


A new addition to the Harbor....the "Harber Hillbillies"....touting an Ozark breakfast at Ozark prices! We haven't tried it yet.

Is this squatting or what", though they do have FL numbers so I guess they are official.
                                                 Hey, do they get a pump out??

One of the low key houses on Boot Key Harbor and one of the views from our back porch.  Reminded me of 'old Florida'.....well the 70's anyway  (guess that's old enough)


Tie A Knot just past the black hull.  We are very close to the entrance which means we are in on ALL the action coming in and out of the harbor.  Not so good for nap time but good for 'boat' watching.


Saturday's very awesome vegetable market. a one mile trek from her but worth it..fresh from the fields in Homestead.

                                                 Grabbing it right off the truck

Last nights adventure was a dinghy drift from Boot Key Harbor off the dock of Dockside restaurant to listen to musicians who were raising money for a local veteran. That's me with the black tshirt.  It was a lot of fun for a good cause.

So that's it in a nutshell.  We haven't done much.  We finally got our bikes off the boat only to find out they are pretty much toast from the salt air abuse they have had over the last five years.  We think we may put together one usable one out of the two of them.  We are just now, after a week starting to meld into life here.  We have been napping, reading, napping, not able to make decisions, and thanks to our friends Terry & Larry from S/V Vixen who just arrived today we found out what our problem was.......
We have Keys Disease!!!  So glad we found out what was wrong...I was getting a little worried!

1 comment:

  1. When I seen that last picture I thought you were at a Florida version of Jobbie Nooner!

    ReplyDelete

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