Thanksgiving in Paradise

This is the Tiki Hut where they had the Thanksgiving feast last night.  They also had a movie, Operation Petticoat. I love that movie, it's with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis...funny. 

Today the wind is blowing like crazy and tomorrow it's going to be the same.

The water police were out here in the harbor this week writing tickets to people who did not have all their safety equipment and registration numbers.  No numbers on your dink is a hundred and seventy five dollar fine. So we got the numbers on the dinghy and now we are finally legal.(figured we would do it before we got a ticket)  We had to paint the numbers on while we where at the dock,
because the water was so rough out at the boat.

So for all you are-tist types out there, here is the sun setting on our Mona Lisa.



Now Warren is waiting on the Single Sideband radio to arrive so he can get it in before we head on over to the Bahamas. So after our friends come and go in the middle of Dec, we will be waiting for weather window to cross over and the radio is really important.  We'll probably be here until late December or whenever we get some kind of southernly wind for a couple of days. 

In seach of the beach

The other day we decided that we wanted to go to a beach and chill out.  So,...here we are heading down the channel looking for Sombrero Beach. It's about 1 mile away so we just tootled along, looking at some nice, REALLY NICE  homes.The mangroves you see behind us are on a little island, that no one lives on anymore.

Sombrero beach is a nice man made park that has volleyball courts, bathrooms and a picnic area. 

As we walked along, discovering the beach, we found some really old brain coral. It was cool. I was sure glad I wore my nifty crocks because there are some pretty sharp edges on it. Of course there were not many people over here. So in my searching and discovering this new area, I discovered a small tidal pool.  I love to examine them to see what the tide has left behind. 

Here is one of those pictures like, "Can you find Waldo".   Except, "Can you find the fishie?"  In Alaska there where always crabs but all I could find here was one lone fish.  :(  It took me a little bit to find it because it blended so well with it's background.

Marathon

The Marathon City Marina is a pretty nice place. Here's a picture of the book exchange, you can bring in your old books and exchange them for books you haven't read. This is also where you can find business cards for people who can help you with your boat problems and guide books on what is going on in the Keys. 

Here is another one that shows how the mooring balls are constructed and work.

The Marina also has WiFi, TVs, work rooms and laundry facilities. The monthly charge is only $275 and that includes one pump out a week and full run of the place. One of the people staying here puts on a movie on Thursday nights with his computer and a sheet in an covered area on the grounds.  In the morning there is yoga in that same area.  We have decided to wait here for a weather window to cross over to the Bahama's and drive to the Seven Seas Cruising Gam if we still want to go. The Gulf Stream that runs up the coast of Florida can get pretty bad with any North wind and that is all we are having right now.
Marathon is not what you would call a picturesque town.  So I'll try and find other things to take pictures of.
We hope to take the dinghy out for a beach combing exploration ride tomorrow if the winds die down, they are blowing 18 to 25 mph right now.  We have had to walk everywhere but Warren met another CSY owner and he is letting us use his bikes. Boy it sure makes it a lot faster.  Warren made 3 trips to the West Marine store, I think he had his exercise for today.

This is Tom and Judy Johnson we met them at Marco Island they are sailing on a CSY 37. They left St. Petersburg the same day we did. They are super nice people!