February 8, 2011

We cannot believe that we have been at Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, FL since January 16th. The time has really flown and we have been very busy having fun and doing just what we want to do, well, most of the time.
Every Wednesday night, we go to the Marina for a pot luck dinner. We carry a dish of something we make and others who go do the same. We have met many new friends and also have enjoyed the entertainment that follows after we eat. There are many boaters who have guitars and they like to get together to sing and play. The others of us enjoy listening to them. We even had a girl dance with fire on one occasion. She was really good. Yes, all the guys really enjoyed her. There are losts of activities that are offered here for us to do daily. They have yoga three mornings a week. No, I haven't gone yet. We do much walking as that is our only means of transportation here unless we catch a bus. We did call a cab last week when we had to buy many groceries. Only cost us $4.00 for a one way trip. There are six washers and dryers here at the marina and we pay $2.00 per load. Not bad but we try not to go often. Nelson said I brought too many clothes and I guess I did. We had two other couples here to eat with us last night. We had a fun time. Dean brought his guitar and we enjoyed listening to him play and sing after dinner. We went to the movies one night to see "True Grit" and the next week, we went to see the production at the little theater, "A Bad Year for Tomatoes". It was entertaining and had some really good actors who live here in Marathon. Each and every morning at 9:00, we tune our VHF radio into channel 68 where we listen to the Boot Key Harbor Radio Net. They welcome new boats into the Harbor and give them a chance to tell where they are coming from and then talk to boats who are leaving and where they are going from here. Then, they have people radio in any announcements or points of interest for the day. Then, they let boats announce things they want to sell or buy or give away. Also, if a boat needs help, they say what they need and if someone else listening can help them or knows of someone who can, they come on the radio and tell. After all boats who want to make a comment have finished, they do two or three trivia questions and anyone listening can answer. We usually listen to this when we are eating our breakfast. Because we are not at a dock, we have no way to keep our batteries charged, therefore, we need to run our generator twice a day to keep the refrigerator running and other electrical things going on our oat. The generator is not too loud but I think it is annoying. We try leaving it running when we are away from the boat. We have had beautiful weather for the last week and have been spending much time at the beach. We take our dinghy(small boat) and carry our chairs and the beach is not far from our mooring area. Last Tuesday, we took our sailboat and another couple took theirs and we sailed to Bahia Honda which is west of here about 12 miles. It is a National Park and the water there is very clear. We only stayed overnight as we did not like the anchorage there. There was a lot of coral and it was hard to find a good place that the anchor would hold. It was a neat place to walk on the beach. We went into the harbor docks there with our dinghy and enjoyed an ice cream treat. The remains of the Flagler raidroad bridge is here and we walked over to the bridge and took pictures of the harbor. The day was perfect for sailing on our return trip on Wednesday, so we sailed for seversal hours before returning to our mooring ball here in the harbor. There is a delicious Fisheries Seafood place here that we have eaten several times. Everything we have eaten is always fresh and delicious. We ate breakfast Sun. am at the Americal Legion close to the Marina. They served a wonderful meal for $6.00. We went with three other couples. We plan to leave here next week as soon as we find a good weather window and head back to the west side of Fl. where we will leave our boat at Nelson's brother, Ike's house and head back to NC in our car. We have enjoyed our time here and hate to leave this beautiful weather.