Wed March 2: Treasure Harbor Marina - Tavernier

Moving another short day of only 14 miles brought us to the Atlantic side of the keys and Treasure Harbor Marina. This is where we first chartered a boat and traveled the Keys - like 15 years ago or so (with Paul and Miriam - the only folks we knew who would go on vacation with us :-) ). At that time we thought how great it would be to have our own boat down here so we told Pam and Pete (the owners) that "Someday we'll be back in our own boat" - yesterday was that day!! The aerial view sort of gives you an idea of what it looks like. The water is so clear and as it was calm part of yesterday, it was easy to spot the rays as they glided out of our path. No dolphin though. Strange. Steve finally fixed the light in his bathroom - it was the wrong kind of bulb and put out a miserable amount of light. He fixed the bulb holder with superglue (amazing the uses for that and duct tape on a boat!) and now has enough light to actually see! While he did that, I put a retaining collar on the propeller shaft. This is a "one less thing to worry about" item as we heard from a couple who experienced FIRST HAND what happens should the shaft come out of the transmission coupling. The shaft falls backwards. If you're lucky the rudder will stop the prop and shaft from coming totally out. If you aren't lucky then you suddenly have a 1 1/2 inch hole in the bottom of the boat through which water will enter at an alarming rate! The retaining collar will keep the shaft in place (well, at least it won't be able to drop out of the boat). A bike ride (3.6 miles) to Craig's for Steve's favorite lunch: grouper sandwich! Nice back roads so we don't have to ride on Route 1. Very enjoyable.

The marina is going to be a good home for ?? weeks. Not nearly as much around as in Marathon but maybe that's a good thing. Dinner tonight is a pot luck with Bonnie, Ty and Dan (on the sailboat a couple of docks down from us. They seem really nice and are here until the end of May. There is also a couple here on their catamaran from Marblehead on Lake Erie (if I'm remembering correctly). We met them last month when we stopped by to discuss staying here with Pam.