Another great season in Marathon

12-15-2012

We had a get together on our boat to watch the Christmas Boat Parade. We had a great time with lots of food and fun. The boats were great this year. I think my favorite was a sailboat with a huge Christmas tree on its mast. Sorry, I don't have any good pictures...its hard to get a good picture of a moving boat from a moving boat when it's dark!

Shay heard a noise and went out to investigate and found this bird on our dinghy. He was looking for his dinner.

We went out to Washer Woman Reef on Blue Heavens for a ride and snorkel or swim whichever you preferred. Matthew and Julie from Coup d’Amore and Mike and Jennifer from Three Sheets went too. We had a great time and the water was beautiful. I got a little yucky feeling after we stopped so I went down and sat on the swim platform. It felt so good with the water cooling me off. We had a great time and appreciate our new friends taking us out for a day trip.

Washerwoman Reef

The next day we went sailing with Rocking B and their guests, Tina and Brent. The water was a little rough but it was a great day for sailing. Margaret was a great hostess as always. We had shrimp cocktails, then pasta salad and cold cuts sandwiches. On the way back in we stopped for a swim. Guess what? I got in and it was great.

Swimming in the warm Atlantic.

We have made our reservations to fly home and are looking forward to spending the holidays with family and friends. 

We flew home to North Carolina for Christmas. We had a great trip back but had to wait for 2 hours at the airport for Lauren to pick us up. She got stuff in a traffic jam in Wilmington and another in Raleigh. I was glad to see her again. I miss her….. I know I saw her when we were in Wrightsville Beach but that was over 2 months ago.

It’s cold. The temperature is in the 30’s and we are cold. We left all the warm weather back in Marathon.

We are all staying with Jean. Lauren keeps saying her bed is in the closet… well I guess it technically is, but it was once a bedroom that has been converted, so it’s bigger than it sounds. She has a blowup mattress that is queen size and it takes up most of the floor. So she has a wall to wall bed. But she is happy since she had fixed the windows so no light comes in. It is totally dark and that’s what she wants.

Lauren putting her ornament on the tree.

We had lots of stuff planned…appointments for blood work, doctors, dentist. We were very busy getting all that stuff done and visiting with family and friends while we were there. I said I hope I can get them all in one day next year, instead of being spread over 4 days. Thank goodness, everything checked out ok.

Of course, one of our first places to go was Chile Rojo. We met Joey and Lisa there for dinner the first night we were home. We went to visit daddy and spent some time with him. I’ve been very busy going thru the presents I bought online and deciding if I want to keep them or send them back, shopping, and wrapping presents. I even took back some things I had already wrapped when I found something I liked even more.

Shay, Lauren, and I spent the night at daddy’s on Sunday night. My family met on Christmas Eve at daddy’s house to have Christmas. We met there for a great meal and then opened presents. For daddy, this was the year of pictures. Chelle and I made him a 2013 calendar with the grandkids pictures on each page. I gave him some pictures we had made at Cape Lookout. Chelle gave him pictures of her kids. So he has lots of pictures to enjoy. We had a great time and enjoyed being together, except Billy was sick and couldn’t come. We missed him. You can see by the pictures that everyone was happy.

Papa and his grandkids!

Me, Daddy, and Michelle

We went back to Jean’s to wish her happy birthday. She got a camera from her kids. We played around with it so she could take pictures in the morning.

We got everything ready for Christmas morning. Lauren left Santa his treat of milk and cookies. We got all the gifts separated from the other gifts and put the stockings out so Santa could do his thing.



Santa's snack.

She looks like she's surprized that he ate his snack. He's busy and needs his energy!

Lauren and her presents! Looks like she had Santa fooled again this year. She must have been on the "good" list if she got all those presents.

Jason, Travis and Lauren

We had Christmas with the kids on Christmas morning. Jason, Holly and Travis had spent the night at a hotel so they were ready about 8 to open presents. Everyone was so pleased with their gifts. We had gotten the boys and Holly a warm jacket and they all loved them.

We cleaned our mess and then finished getting things ready for the “Glass” gathering. Jean has been cooking for days and we are all looking forward to the goodies. I even baked a cake for her. I baked an Italian Crème Cake and she iced it. I asked if the cake looked pretty and she said “so-so”. I reminded her that if I looked rough, she could tell everyone I iced it and that’s why it looked that way.

All the kids and all grandkids except Zach and Sabrina and Jason and Holly were there. Jason and Holly went back home to celebrate with her family. Zach and Sabrina live in Florida and couldn’t come home. But we got great news from them. They are expecting a baby and we found out yesterday that it’s a girl! We are happy for them.

I bought the “soon to be grandmother” a brag book for Christmas. She was so happy. I also got the baby a small, soft pink baby. We all have so much to be thankful for.

The "soon to be" grandma!

Lauren and I got some “mother-daughter” time in while we were visiting. Of course, we did some Christmas shopping while we were there. It will be a while before we see her again, probably at spring break in March. We will miss her very much.

 

We have visited with our families and friends and had a great time. We miss everyone soooooooo much.

So Christmas is over and its time for us to start back to Marathon. Joey, Lisa and Adam are going back down for a visit. We brought our car back to Marathon, which could be a problem. If we can’t find someone to come down and drive it back, we won’t be going to the Bahamas this year. Well, maybe, it will work out.

Oh, while we were there, Jean’s black cat, Bella went outside one night and didn’t come back in…we thought she had either ran away or something had happened to her. We looked around several days and no sign of her. The night we left, Haley came in and said she saw a cat in the yard that looked like Bella. They looked outside and didn’t see anything so we figured it was nothing. We told everyone bye and left. We hadn’t been traveling long and Lauren sent me a text… “It was Bella” and Jenny sent another one…”Bella is back”.

Shay didn’t believe it and called to talk to them… they had gone back out to look for the cat and Luke said he heard a cat in the garage next door. When they shined a light in the window, the cat jumped up. They got the cat out and took her home. Everyone was so happy. We didn’t talk about the cat when it was gone, but we knew Jean was upset and worried.

We had a great visit with Joey and family when we got back. Of course, Adam wanted to fish. His fished some off our boat, but as you can see he didn’t have a lot of luck.

Adam with his catch!

He did go out deep sea fishing on evening, but no luck then either. Well at least he got to fish. Remember, we have already discussed the differences in “fishing” and “catching”.

We enjoyed having them visit, but much too soon they were packing up and heading north again. Come back and see us again! 

Another beautiful sunset.

I just wanted to show you that it's not always sunny in Marathon. We do have storms and bad weather.

Ken and the other musicians at the marina have been playing music for us on Saturday nights again this year. Ken is so talented and amazes us each time he plays. Remember, we stopped on the way down and he got a keyboard. Well, we made a trip back to Miami so he could get a set of Bose speakers and it sounds even better. He was invited to play with a group at a local place, Salty’s. 

Boot Key Harbor had its own Flag Day and asked the boats to fly their flags. So we put out all the flags from all the countries the boat has been to. I said the boat, not us!

 

Marathon had a big Music Festival and here we are, enjoying the music!

Yes, another sunset.

This was a beautiful moonrise on the harbor!

We have been working on projects. I cleaned the windows on the boat and Shay has been working on the teak. He has worked on our refrigerator, and it is working better than it ever has. It would run forever without shutting off. But not anymore. We have had to replace the motor in our davit, which involved a trip to Miami to get the motor. Then when he got that replace, he had to repair a hole in the dinghy.

We have a friend we met here last year; Terry that is coming down the first of February and then taking our car back to Wrightsville Beach. So… it looks like we will be going to the Bahamas after all. If we get all our projects done…..

So I have been provisioning. Have you ever tried to think about all the supplies you would need to last about 3 or 4 months? Well, I have and it’s overwhelming. So I made a list of meats and how often we would have them. Then I made a list of canned stuff and how often we would have them.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are stores in the Bahamas, but not like we are used to here and the prices are definitely not like they are here. A bag of chips costs around $9.00. Now you all know how frugal I am and know that I do not want to get anything over there…so I make my lists and go shopping. Each week Margaret and I look at the sale papers from Publix, Winn-Dixie, Walgreens, CVS, and K-Mart. We find things on our provisions list and go buy them.

 

It’s not really that easy to provision a boat. After you decide what you need and get it, you still have to get it in the dinghy, get it to the boat, get it in the boat, and then the fun part—finding a place to store and a method of knowing where things are when you need them.

The day I provisioned canned stuff I had two shopping carts full, which means a dinghy full, which means a boat full of bags when we get the dinghy unloaded. We had bags on the bar, on the table, in the floor and on the cabinets. I was overwhelmed. Where am I going to store this stuff? Shay had already added two shelves, which made a big difference in my storage, but this was a lot of stuff. Shay looked under the drawers in our nightstands and found lots of nooks and crannies for cans. So I carried the bags downstairs and he stuffed the nooks and crannies while I made a list so we would know that there so many cans of beans and peas and corn and….. But we had enough space for all those cans and that was so much easier than I thought it would be.

So it’s now January 30^th and most of the provisioning is done. There are a few more things I’ll get as they go on sale and then a few perishables that I will get just before we go, but most of it is done.

We bought diesel today and had to move the boat to a dock to fill up. We wanted to take full tanks to the Bahamas. We also filled up our water tanks while we were there, but will do that again just before we leave. I will make sure all the laundry is done before we top off the water. Water will be more expensive in the Bahamas, so we want to be full when we leave.

While we were fueling up we watched manatees getting water from a drain on a boat air conditioner. They are big lazy things. But sometimes they are cute. 


Hey, its my turn to get a drink!

We are looking forward to Terry Tonn getting here on Sunday. We will drive to Miami to pick him up and then when we get back, we are having a “Supper Bowl Party” on our boat. Margaret from Rocking B is a Raven fan and we are having a party so she can see and hear the game and not be bothered by other fans. She asked that I make the rule that if you are in the salon that you listen to the game and not talk about solar power or batteries, or invertors. Guess that means the guys will spend most to the time on the flybridge. We have invited Amici and Blue Heavens to come over. I think we will have a good time.
 



Folly left to go to Miami to wait for a weather window to cross to the Bahamas.

Shay, Ken and I left Sunday morning to pick up Terry. We plan on doing more shopping on the way. Ken wants to get Margaret a new I-Pad for her birthday February 13^th.  So we shopped for that. Shay decided he wanted one too. Ken bought his and then we decided we’d get one to. So we told the guy we wanted one just like Ken’s. Well, when we described what we wanted, he said that’s not what Ken had. He said he only had one of those in the store, but didn’t see it in the back. So he called another store and told them to hold us 2. So we went to the other store, or so we thought. We went to the service desk and told the guy he was holding some I-Pads for us. He said no. he only had one and it wasn’t on hold. So we figured out we were at the wrong store and we left. I won’t mention who was navigator; just that it wasn’t me or Shay.  We left the store and picked up Terry and then finally picked up our I-Pads. Back to the boat for our party.

We had a great time at our Super Bowl Party! Amici did not make it to the party, but sent over an appetizer, smoked sausage baked in crescent rolls. It was delicious and disappeared quickly. We had lots of great food and had a great time. It was an exciting game and Margaret was very happy that her team won.

Margaret is showing her team spirit, she has on her Raven's shirt! That's Terry visiting from NC, and Gordon and Jeannie from Blue Heavens.

Richard and Connie on Sea Salt are here now and we are enjoying spending time with them.

Our friends Richard and Connie on Sea Salt are finally here.

We had a Valentines Day party at the Tiki Hut at the marina. There were five couples there. We all brought the meat of our choice to grill and a side and it everything was delicious. We had loaded potato casserole, steamed asparagus, baked beans, pasta, potato salad, and broccoli salad. Then we had homemade red velvet cake for dessert. Great friends, great food and a great location.

Then…. the front came thru. We had been looking at the weather and knew that we could have some weather so we all headed back to our boats. When we got to the boat the sky was clear and there was almost no wind. We got settled in and boom, the wind started blowing---hard and we turned completely around in minutes. It was like someone turned on a high speed fan. We saw winds of 24 kts with gusts near 30. There were lots of people on the VHF radio and most of us were watching weather radar for the area. We watched the rain coming in and when it got to us it was very hard. Well, the boats got washed off. We had more rain during the night, but not as hard as the first rain.

It’s February 15^th and we are still here. We have had a small weather window or two, but we are not ready yet. Shay had a list of things we needed to get done and we are slowly checking things off, so maybe soon. We have filed our taxes, cleaned the bottom of the boat, almost finished the teak work, and have loaded some charts onto our I-Pad.

Remember, we want to get to George Town or somewhere else, so Lauren can fly down and spend spring break with us. We realize we are running out of time, but we are hopeful that everything will go smoothly…especially the water as we cross.

We went to the Miami Boat Show and had a great time with Rocking B and Sea Salt. We walked and walked and walked thru the exhibits and boats. Shay talked to several venders and hopefully had some of his questions answered.

Its 2-18 and we have had some cool and windy weather. When we got up yesterday it was 54 degrees outside with 10-15 kts of wind. That’s cold for the Keys. Today it was 64 degrees in our bedroom and 59 outside, with winds 15-22. Doesn’t look like a time to be crossing any time soon. There are a lot of boats waiting for a good weather window. Wonder when that will be?

Well, we looked at the weather this morning 2-19-13 and it doesn't look like a window will open until Monday or Tuesday. That's too far away to be making any definite plans, but if we don't leave then, we will stay here until after Lauren's spring break.

I am going to post this blog now. We will probably be here a few more days, but I want to get this posted so people will know what's going on. Not sure when my next post will be...the internet is sometimes hard to get in the Bahamas. Well, I'll let you know what's going on as soon as I can. Miss you all and "Wish you were here!"