2/22/17
Boot Key Harbor, Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

Well, Tricia made it back from Ohio on the 20th, and the family event went very well. I got up early that day, walked 3.5 miles to the Marathon Airport, and rented a car for a day. I picked up Shirley, from Sofia Jeanne, and Sharon, from Byrd Ketcher, and we went to Miami to provision at Walmart and Costco. It took longer than we expected, and Tricia’s flight was a half hour early into Fort Lauderdale, so mid-shopping, we went and picked her up. Then we finished off provisioning and escaped the insane “real world” and beat it back to the Keys. We then spent the last 2 days finishing the boat prep for the Bahamas, as there is a decent weather window to cross over coming up. It has been a crazy couple of days, but we are ready!

I always find it true that things happen for a reason, and since I didn’t get to go north with Tricia, I was wondering what the reason was going to be. While she was gone, I came back from the grocery and found that our refrigerator was not on and had defrosted. It does that about once a year for some unknown reason, and all I have to do is switch it off and back on, and it works fine again. So I did the normal off and on and all was fine, but, had I not been here to catch it, we would have lost all the food in the refrigerator, which is a lot of food!

Marathon is a nice stop, but we are ready to move on. There are some crazy, as well as shady, people here living in the harbor on boats. The guy next to us is a great example. Here is the boat:

And here is the guy in a crazy outfit:

His is by himself on the boat. He has a little black dog that attacks him, and he yells constantly at him. He also talks to him, and if you closed your eyes, you would think he is having a 2 way conversation with someone answering. The other day he was, as Matt says “slinging buns in the air” at the gulls and pelicans. They were mooching and cawing at him when they wanted more. He talks to them like the dog, and finally says, “You all are lazy beggars. You don’t have Obama any more….you need to get a job!” What a hoot! He is very entertaining. So are the many people that do not know how to anchor properly. The anchorage is a constant source of entertainment.

So the plan is to leave tomorrow, travel up the inside (Florida Bay side) of the Keys, stopping at Tarpon Basin, and anchoring Friday at No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne. Then cross to south Bimini on Saturday. It may be more difficult to get blog posts posted while in the Bahamas, but I’ll keep you posted.

A couple of other pics from Boot Key, our friends Matt and Shirley taking Grady for a Frisbee excursion ashore, and a great sunset: