3/3/15 Marathon FL Posted by Bill On Sunday, our friend Shelley that lives in Key West came and picked us up, drove us back to Key West, and we spent an afternoon at the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor. It was a really nice beach and a wonderful day to chill out there. Then Shelley gave us her car for the week…wow, an amazing act of kindness! On Monday we were supposed to have a solar powered system installed to keep our batteries charged and to reduce battery consumption during the day. As it turned out, the installer had a different sense of reality than the person who put the quote together, and we had to regroup. We went with a different type of panel (more to come later on that) and agreed to try again on Wednesday. We also noticed that a weather window was opening to make the crossing to the Bahamas over the coming weekend, so we started to get our act together and see if we could make the window. To make the window we needed to get the solar installed, put some diesel fuel in the big boat, buy some gas for the dinghy and generator, buy (provision) enough food and liquor to sustain us for 2-3 months, fill the water tanks, clean the bottom of the boat, return the car to Shelly, and get everything ready for passage. When you have sat in one place for 6 weeks like we have, it is hard to get momentum to achieve such a goal, but we had the car and it provided us a perfect opportunity. Today, we set out early in the morning for Miami, venturing into what we call the “Real World”. This is only the second time since we started cruising that we went into the “Real World”, and the first time was a shocker. The second time was even worse…. We started by taking the batteries back to Walmart. If you recall from previous posts, our new batteries died in 4 months, and I have spent far too many hours trying to get our money back, setting the stage for the actual visit to a Walmart store. I was fully expecting to choke the life out of some poor innocent clerk when they told me that the batteries were fine. I also expected the charging and testing of said batteries to take 4-6 hours of my day. We walked in, took the batteries to the automotive section, told the clerk we wanted our money back and that we had talked to the store manager. She promptly hailed an assistant manager to approve the transaction, and we got a full refund…in less than 30 minutes…no testing, no charging, no choking. Awesome!!!! We then loaded up the cart with crap we needed to provision the boat, went to lunch, went to Costco, went to a liquor store, went to a dive shop, and then drove home. The “Real World” was full of traffic, crazy drivers, crazy people…most speaking no english, packed stores, and total stress. I was so glad to get back to the Keys and park the car…double martini pronto. We decided (for the second time) that we don’t like the “Real World” and don’t want to go back there. However, we did get most of our supplies and provisions, and at a better price than we can in the Keys. Thanks again Shelley…you really helped us out. On Monday, I got into the water and used a hookah rig that we borrowed from our friends Matt and Shirley on Sofia Jeanne. The hookah is a 50 foot long tube attached at one end to a scuba regulator (that you breathe with) and the other end attached to a compressor or scuba tank. It works just like scuba diving but you leave the air source on shore. It allowed me to stay under and clean the bottom of the boat. Now the rush is on to get all of the other work done so we can leave.