2/22/15
Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

The weather has started to turn for the better. Winds have died down and shifted to the east, and the temperature has been close to 80 the last 2 days. This is the normal winter pattern and it is a welcome site. Our sympathies to friends and family up north who are dealing with a nasty, nasty winter, and I am sure the worst we had here would be a delight to those folks. All I can say is…move south! If I had known how much better this is, I would have pushed harder to get here sooner.

We had a fantastic couple of days with our extended family members Jim and Linda. They are some of the best people you could ever meet in this world, and we were delighted that they made the trip here to spend some time with us. We went to Key West yesterday and hit all of our favorite spots. Here we are at the Green Parrot:

We also stumbled upon this really cool Banyan Tree:

We wish they could have stayed longer.

Also thanks to Jim and Linda, we had the new batteries for the boat before we needed to pull the old ones out. That gave me the chance today to charge them up and make sure they are ok before going through the pain-in-the-ass effort of changing them out.

We heard on the cruisers net today about lots of people finally getting a weather window to make a run to the Bahamas, and several of our friends that have been waiting in the Miami area are also going too. There is a lot of discussion here at Harbour Cay about making the next move, some going to the Bahamas, some moving slowly back north. Maris and Linda on Amekaya left Saturday, and Mark and Jane on Average Looper are leaving Tuesday. There is an element of bittersweet in all of this, as we have made new friendships and have enjoyed spending time with everyone here. At the same time, it is exciting to think about the adventures to come and checking out new places.

As for us, we are still planning to shove off to the Bahamas early in March, hopefully after getting some solar panels installed. Stay tuned….