February 7 Through March 4 (Click on the images to see and scroll them in full size)
On February 7th, we took the 7:30 bus to Key West for the princely sum of 5 dollars each way. We toured Ernest Hemingway's home, saw many of the famous 6 toe cats, ate at Sloppy Joe's, saw the Mel Fisher treasure museum. We also found out that Gert can catch a city bus in less than 3 blocks when he forgets his backpack. We also caught up with crew of Pelican on the bus ride home. We finally caught the bus home only after searching and walking some sketchy neighborhoods when I could not find the right bus stop.
Over the next several weeks our schedule was pretty straight forward, get up, walk to our favorite Cuban restaurant, La Nina, get Cuban coffee and our sandwich of the day. Then head to the pool to stay cool and read our many books. Finally grab dinner and watch the sunset (Which was almost always amazing.)
On the weekend February 11th, I did take a freediving course at the local store, unfortunately Sunday was too rough to get out to finish it up, so that goes on my list to finish someday. Great information and I learned a lot even if it was for only one day.
On Monday we walked the 3 miles to the Crane Foundation, which had nothing to do with cranes, but to do with the Crane family that bought a big tract of land back in 1954 and kept it as a wilderness preserve. We got a fish pedicure which tickled a lot and then we grocery shopped and took a cab home. We took a sunset kayak and ate on the boat.
On one of our many walks we did find free coconuts which I was able to open up for the milk and the coconut meat which was excellent and you could not beat the price.
On Wednesday, February 15 we walked to Pigeon Key which was one of the places that the workers that built the first railroad that spanned from the mainland to Key Largo. We Learned a lot about the engineering feat that it was back in 1912, and took a tour.
Over the next few days, I finally got around to fixing our onboard toilet, washed and organized the boat and finally saw 5 manatees in our marina. The next day, tragedy struck and my phone took a swim. Fortunately there was an AT&T store in Marathon so I was able to replace it, but unfortunately, I did lose some of my pictures from the last few weeks.
On the 20th, we had our first guests of the trip. the president of my Guardians of the Children , Belle City chapter and his fiance stopped by on his Harley that he had trailered down from Milwaukee. We ate at Sunset grill after dingying over.
Later that day, we had a Mechanic come over. Our overboard discharge valve was stuck shut, so I arranged for Patriot to be pulled out of the water, put on the hard and we got a room at the marina while we replaced our valve and our zincs on the boat.
The next day after the adhesive cured, we put Patriot back in the water. The next day we took the bus back to Key West, to do the things we missed on our first trip. We saw the butterfly conservatory, ate lobster pizza, toured the USS Ingram, farmer's market, ate conch fritters, and did the sunset at Mallory Square. It was quite the full day.
Finally on February 25th it was time to leave Marathon and head north. Our first stop was Tarpon basin around 4 PM, where I replaced a 6x12 anode on back of Patriot that I could not get to when we were out of the water. The next day we headed out around 9:30 arrived at No Name Harbor at 2:30, which was VERY crowded, our next anchor was at Sunrise Bay north of Fort Lauderdale. Our last night out before arriving at our friend's condo was anchored at Latana, where we had our 2nd visitors of the trip, Sharon Cook and her friend, Mary. It was great to catch up. We Left Latana 8:30, arrived Stuart at 3:00 PM, had dinner with Glenn and Carole at a great BBQ place and the next day I changed fuel filters and our transmission and generator oil so we would be ready for our crossing to the Bahamas.
Today is March 4 and it looks like a window is opening up for our crossing tomorrow, fingers crossed. I will update the blog when we get back in 3-4 weeks. Till then, fair skies and following seas from the crew of Patriot.
Sounds WONDERFUL!! Prayers that the crossing goes smoothly!