Sunday March 31: Easter in the Keys

Happy Easter from Gorilla Guy and the gang on Yesterday's Dream :-)

Saturday March 30: Surona Arrives !

Peter and Cheryl on Surona arrived to Marathon shortly before noon yesterday after spending a very bumpy night at anchor. They had made about 70 of the 90 miles to Marathon before it got dark.

With loads of crab pots all over the Gulf, it was a good decision even though I don't think they slept much with the wind and waves.

Their marina is on the ocean side as Surona draws 5.5 feet and cannot travel to Banana Bay as it is too shallow. So we rode our bikes the 2 miles to stand by as they arrived.

It was great to see them again! We last left them on a rainy nasty day in Fenelon Falls in Ontario last September.

Meanwhile for the last couple of days it was back to unfinished business. We've spent the days with the last projects to be completed before we leave on Monday.

One was the wallpaper behind the dinette seating. I cut a pretty good width out so the replacement piece would totally cover where the old seam was.

It worked great and I was very pleased with the end result!

Now I can have fun just looking at the dinette seating :-)

Steve's bread, on the other hand, wasn't quite as successful! But wow did it look great all through the process as he food processed the sprouts, added a bit of flour, let it rise and finally into the oven it went.

Really looked and smelled great when he removed.

And then he cut into it ......

Yikes! What happened? It was totally gooey mess and even baking it a bit longer didn't help. Something was NOT right.

Turns out the sprouts are to be harvested when they are between 1/4 and 1/2 inch long. The ones Steve used were about 3 INCHES long :-)  Oops - guess they were left to grow just a bit too long! But he already has a new batch grown and will try again - probably tomorrow.

In the meantime, Peter and Cheryl joined us for dinner after they had a much needed sleep. Amazing how well they clean up :-)

Steve made beet burgers - yes, they really are good and that coming from a person who does not like beets!

Today it's off to Key West for the day although I suspect it will be a crazy place since it's still Spring Break and there are kids everywhere.

We were going to take the $1.50 bus down but our neighbors Valerie and Frank offered to give us a ride. They are headed down anyway and have room for the 4 of us in their Cigarette boat! What a fun way to get to Key West! How nice of them - should be an interesting day ......

Only one green flash so far this season - I've not given up hope yet though. Perhaps it will be tonight ....

Wednesday March 27: Little Jobs and Laying Low

The north winds have made the last couple of days 'inside' days :-) Go outside only on need ....

But we're getting the little things finished up that need to be done before traveling.

First yesterday was to replace the ailing bilge pump in the front of the boat. It was moaning quite a bit when it ran which is indicating something is not quite right.

It's a great pump though. Runs every 2 1/2 minutes and checks to see if there is enough water to pump. It keeps the bilge nice and dry.

No problem - we have a spare one of those! Except the spare (brand new) didn't work :-(   Then I remember - it's a boat :-)  So off to West Marine on my bike while Steve continued to clean up the wiring for the pump. Let's hear it for computers!!

They were able to find the purchase date of 7/11/10. We purchased the extended plan for $15 so we had a $70 pump replaced for free - plus the $15 for the new extended warranty :-)  Now normally I don't believe in extended warranties but since we have burned through MANY of these pumps in the 7 years we've owned this boat - we learned. We're slow learners sometimes but not always!

My job for the day was to sew a bag (little gray bag next to dive tanks) for the dinghy fuel tank. It has rubber parts and sitting in the sun all day is just bad. 'Bout time I did this .....

Steve's been growing sprouts again - some for salads, some for stir-fry and some for (believe it or not): bread!










It will definitely be interesting to see how it is!!

Today I am FINALLY getting around to getting rid of a source of constant (or at least daily) annoyance.

When we originally decided to just cover the ruined wood with wallpaper, I experimented with what to use to keep the paper up. It's quite a heavy paper so I thought some type of glue might work.

My first piece went up behind the seating on the dinette - and it worked just ok. Not happy with it really so I then tried a heavy wallpaper paste and was much happier with the result.

But the first original piece just eventually curled at the seam and just was irritating. No fix seemed to work.

So today, I cut the irritating part out and will finish tomorrow. Supposed to do it today but changing the generator oil and filter just took us too long ......

Now we await the arrival of Peter and Cheryl on Surona (hopefully tomorrow). You may remember them - we traveled part of the Great Loop with them (and Selah), traveled the east Florida coast last year with them on Deja Vu and finally meet up with them for a short period of time on the Trent (we were on Guppy).

Sounds like it's going to be good times as they are going to join us as we travel up the east coast of Florida! We're very glad we can travel together as we just really have a lot of fun :-)

Monday March 25: Flower Guy and a Change in Weather

As you can see (click on the arrow in the lower left and turn your computer volume on), flower guy has healed well! Thanks to all who expressed concerns - especially my nephew Matt who offered to get another one if Steve wasn't able to fix the bumble bee stem (not sure where he saw them but the picture he included in his email showed it definitely must have been a cousin or some close relative of flower guy as he was exactly the same except for the color of his pot!). How nice, Matt :-)  Thanks!!

There was not enough sun today for flower guy to actually dance so Steve put him in the spotlight of a flashlight :-)

Meanwhile, things are starting to wind down here at Banana Bay. Most folks are getting ready to travel - some to the Bahamas, some up the west coast of Florida, some to continue their journey on the Great Loop, and some (like us) up the east coast of Florida. A few will spend the summer here as well - too hot for us though.

It was a hot dog roast on the beach with much food shared and fun cooking hot dogs over an open fire. It's been a long time since we cooked over an open flame that wasn't a gas grill :-)

Of course, we were eating veggie dogs - amazing how good they were grilled. Good thing Dave and Joyce shared that knowledge with us.

Ice cream for dessert was provided by several of the boats as well as home-made hot fudge topping by Nancy on Jenna Star.

The sunset was nice but you can see the haze coming in to block the green flash. South wind = too much haze.

It's been in the 80's and humid for the last couple of days so we've just kind of hid in the boat with the air conditioner running and getting inside work done.


And then there's today. The wind and rain started sometime last night with a thunderstorm and north winds.

It's definitely cooled off! Steve spent an hour or so this morning putting a new zinc on the propeller shaft and scraping the bottom of the boat. There is definitely a downside to just sitting in one place for long periods of time and growth on the bottom of the boat is one.

What a change one day makes! It's now just plain nasty out with 20 mph winds (with gust of 25 mph) and rain. But it's still pretty neat - we'll be rocked to sleep tonight for sure!! The north winds are supposed to continue for the next few days and hopefully it won't rain ALL day tomorrow :-)

The good thing about a cool day? Steve is motivated to make pizza for dinner! The oven really heats this place up and on a day that is already hot and humid the last thing we need to do is make something in the oven!

It was GREAT as always. He's done quite a bit of experimenting with the dough for the crust and pretty much has it down at this point.

No worries - the 'cheese' is a veggie concoction that has no dairy :-)

Even on a night like this the sunset is spectacular ... as long as the camera can be steadied in the wind long enough to take the picture!

Again, no green flash but we are ever hopeful that it will be tomorrow night :-)

Friday March 22: Thinking About Heading North

NOTE: Pictures are still not working right ..... you'll have to go back to stay on the blog if you click on a picture.

As hard as it is to believe, it's time for us to start thinking about heading north. After spending 60 years of winters in Cleveland, it is amazing to me how much more quickly the winter passes when the days are sunny and warm :-)

We'll be leaving here at the end of this month - which means it's time to finish up the last minute jobs and making sure that everything on the boat is ship shape.

Which means more boat work. Steve took care of soldering some wires on the electric stove that were old and in need of being reconnected (it was the smell of wires overheating that was the clue!).

Next job was to grind a part of the anchor to make it a bit thinner - this will allow Steve to attach another line to the anchor.

The hole (circled in red) is the place to attach a "trip line" - a smaller, separate line. The trip line is to be used if the anchor gets stuck on something on the bottom and the normal pulling in the anchor line doesn't work.

Ideally, the trip line could then be pulled straight up. This would pull the anchor the OPPOSITE direction from the way it originally dug in. And since we've almost lost the anchor twice now because it was stuck on something (in 70 feet of water), it seemed like the thing to do! Better late than never :-)

Meanwhile, I'm busy swapping out the cabin lights with new LED lights. The old style bulb (on the right) draw somewhere around 20 watts.

The new matrix array LED lights draw 2 watts. It doesn't seem like a big deal but when anchored out any battery power that can be saved is good!

The downside? Quite expensive. These little things cost $15 - and that was a close-out price. But they should last forever and produce a brighter light to boot.

There was a slight mishap in Steve's next project: replacing a wing nut on the engine thru the hull fitting so it could be more quickly closed if the need arose (like a broken hose letting water in the bilge). Shouldn't take long .... remove the wing nut ..... replace with the brass nut we already had purchased ..... attach a ratchet which will remain on the nut .... done. How hard could it be??

Hah. It's a boat. The amount of floor space in the picture on the left is slightly more than 900 square inches. The amount of floor space that is holes is slightly more than 6 square inches.

So the odds of dropping a 9/16" nut and having it land or bounce into one of the holes is roughly 6/900 or LESS THAN 1% Somebody shoulda bought a lottery ticket today is all I will say.

There was a lot of time spent laying next to the engine exploring the bilge by hand. Not a fun job ... I did not even begin to THINK about volunteering for this one!

My solution was to go to the hardware store (Home Depot across the street doesn't carry brass) and get another nut but the store isn't really biking distance.

So more searching went on - even hooked up our little camera on a wire to try to spot it that way - which in the end worked. When I was pushing the camera around taped to a yardstick, I spotted the nut just calmly sitting in the base of the generator. No camera needed, no laying next to the engine needed - just looking straight down :-)

Then the fun part of the day started - LINK!!

When JP was here last week, we discovered that we were both playing the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - he on his DS (3D to boot) and me on my Wii.

The picture on the right is adult Link in the game. The picture on the left is one JP sent to me the other day.

Don't they look amazingly alike??? It was really great: he helped me find a bottle (used to catch live-saving fairies) and I helped him beat one of the bosses as I was ahead of him in the game. We really had great time Linking together :-)

Bike ride today: 8 1/2 miles roundtrip down to and part way across the old 7-mile bridge. Really a nice day but no spotted eagle rays :-(    Maybe next time ......

Thursday March 21: Fun at Sea; A Casualty; Mystery Solved

NOTE: for some odd reason the pictures are acting weird. If you click on a picture, it just blows it up instead of showing all of the pictures at once. You'll need to use the back arrow each time to get back to the blog itself. Mmmmm.. don't know what that's all about .....

Tuesday night at Newfound Harbor turned out to be a very peaceful night. The rain and thunderstorms passed south of us earlier in the day.

Steve fished until past dark - too bad there wasn't much to catch here - the water was only 6 feet deep so it wasn't too surprising!

The stars were crazy out even with what seemed to be a full moon. Of course when I realized the  "full moon" was our anchor light, turning it off made the stars REALLY come out :-)





Steve was up with the sun - as usual. I awoke to the smell of coffee brewing and Steve's call of "the sun is over the yardarm". I didn't really know what that meant but interpreted it as meaning it was time to get up and get moving!

Turns out the saying really means the sun is high enough to a) take a noon break or b) have a cocktail at 5 pm - it depended on how close to the equator you were.

We were off to Looe Key for diving/snorkeling as the predicted low winds actually WERE low!

The ocean was very calm - what a change from our trip into Newfound Harbor.

Which makes it very nice as Steve spent the 40 minute trip to the reef getting the dive equipment out. Even when it is calm it is still sometimes a challenge to be digging tanks, BC, mask and snorkels out from their storage places as we rock on a mooring buoy.

By the time we arrived at Looe Key, all that needed to be done was to drop the dinghy and into the water we went.

There were no other boats when we arrived but it didn't take long for many others to show up. The water was just too perfect for anyone to stay home!

Steve dove and I snorkeled. There were tons of fish again - all with the bright colors of the saltwater reef fish. They are so fun to see.

A perfect day and we finally made it to dive/snorkel at Looe Key reef.

Next was on to fishing.

At Looe Key, we were about 30 miles from Banana Bay. The weather looked to be holding but Steve thought it prudent to head back in case the weather changed.

What he really meant was it was time to troll back toward Marathon - I mean we were already the 5 miles out from shore that puts us quickly in 100+ feet of water.

So we trolled - zig-zagging between 80 feet and 120 feet of water. But again no luck .... what's with the fish? Normally he'd catch something ...

So we anchored and fished for a while. Caught little stuff like the small grouper above but nothing that was keepable. Still, it's fun to catch just about anything!

And now we were only another 6 miles to Sombrero reef (off of Marathon) so guess we'll stop there and snorkel since the ocean was still flat.

The water though was very murky for some reason. It's like the sand has been mixed up with the water. Glad we had stopped this morning at Looe Key as the water clarity was much better.

After we were back in the boat, Steve rinsed all of our gear off with fresh water. By the time we'd be back at the dock, everything would be dry and could be put away. Nice job, Steve :-)

There was, however, a casualty on Tuesday. When we traveled from Bahia Honda State Park to Newfound Harbor. 

Sadly, little flower guy was bounced off of the windowsill (where he lives) by the not very nice waves. He was so cute - a photocell keeps the bumblebee flying back and forth on the plant stem and the plant leaves moving up and down. Now it's only the plant leaves that remain - the stem of the flower broke. His broken stem is still moving though. Steve feels confident he can fix him up though. Will report back :-) (Click on the small forward arrow in the lower left to start the video.)

But we do think the mystery of the missing coolant in the generator may be solved. If we didn't run the generator too long, it didn't leak. If we ran it 30 minutes or so, it lost about a cup of water. Perhaps it was overheating just a bit (not enough to trigger the automatic shutoff) and blowing water out of the overflow tube. Let's check the strainer ..... wow - is it any wonder it wasn't getting enough water??? Note to self: when running things that intake raw water from the ocean, see if any of the grass has gotten sucked in.

Some days I think we are just not too smart .....

Tuesday March 19: A Two Hour Cruise with Joysea

Mon: Steve was watching the weather again - looking for an opportunity to get back out on the water. And it looked great for the next several days with almost no winds. We are still trying to make it to Looe Key - a reef about 5 miles off-shore but almost 30 miles from Banana Bay. Not that this is far but it's best to be cautious when planning a trip on the ocean side.

The plan: go to Bahia Honda State Park (about 15 miles) Monday then today go to Looe Key for some diving/snorkeling.

The best part was that Dave and Joyce (Joysea) were interested in joining us for the day Monday but wanted to be back to Marathon before dark. But how to get them back? The $1.50 Lower Keys bus!! What a perfect solution!

The bus stop was just a 1/2 mile walk from the marina at Bahia Honda. An excellent plan.

Except that Dave and Joyce (who had never been here to the park) hopped off the boat, walked around about 5 minutes and decided they would just stay the night - it was just too great of a place to not just stay.  How perfect ... we had tried to talk them into that plan in the first place anyway :-) I love folks that are flexible and no plan is set in stone.

So off we went to the top of the old railroad bridge. It was a gorgeous day. Sunny and windy (which kept us on the bay side) but no problem as we were able to again quickly lay the mast back and scoot under the 19 foot bridge to get to the ocean side and into the marina.


Being the very capable boat people that they are, Joyce and Dave took care of getting the boat hooked up to shore power. The power pedestal was very low and Dave ended up having to lay on the dock in order to see how to correctly insert the chord (it only fits one way - three prongs).

Maybe this is why they were prompted to sell their boat after completing the Great Loop and move to motor-homing :-)








Next was lunch under the shade of a nearby tree. Dave and Joyce brought already grilled hot dogs (read tofu) and veggi -burgers that were great. We're definitely going to have to try that ourselves!



After lunch, Dave and Steve went out in the dinghy to try fishing under the bridge here.

It wasn't very good fishing until I showed up in my kayak and suddenly the fish started biting. I think it's because the kayak looked like a giant shark to the fish under the water and they went for the hook as a way to get out of the water  :-)

Anyway, no fish appetizers tonight. Instead it was Steve's spinach and mushroom lasagna. Always a hit with me!

Tues: It poured overnight with a thunderstorm off in the distance. First rain we've had here since I can't remember when but close to an inch fell.

The leftover storm clouds were rolling around south and west of us in the morning but it was a picture perfect day otherwise.

Joyce and Dave made it to the bus stop for their 9:25 bus (only 20 minutes back to Marathon and a 10 minute walk to their condo). We were really glad they decided to stay - it was a fun day/night.

After waiting until about 1:30 for the tide to rise enough that we could make it out of the marina (very shallow entrance!), we headed out onto a very bumpy ocean ride for 10 miles to Newfound Harbor. It's just a nice place to anchor that positions us well for the trip to Looe Key tomorrow morning (assuming the winds do indeed die - you know how the weatherpeople lie :-)).

In the meantime some fun birds were spotted yesterday and today.



First the resident heron that sure looks like the same one we saw last year with Dave and Sue Puffer.


And then the ibis that was walking past the boat.

Both of these were at Bahia Honda State Park.

The best: Pete the Pelican who stopped by after we had anchored for the night.

I think he was looking for a handout :-)

Well, Steve is getting the fishing pole out. The sun is shining brightly, the wind is now a breeze and life is good .....

Sunday March 17: The Survivors!

Yes - I definitely felt like I was on the survivor TV show! And I remember now why it is that nature made it so only young folks with enough energy to keep up with kids actually HAVE kids!

What an action packed week - where did the days go?

Each day was an adventure - often to places that we have never been here in Marathon.







The Dolphin research center was really enjoyable and very informational. The Toracks took part in the Dolphin Dip - lots of fun to watch everyone interact with the dolphin. He was very gentle and seemed to really like the interaction with humans.

That was Monday. Since there were only 2 days with predicted south winds (which is good for going out on the boat bayside), Tuesday was our day-trip on the boat.

Captain-in-training JP took the helm and did a great job dodging the crap trap floats! Steve tried trolling but again no luck.












We anchored off of East Bahia Honda Key for the afternoon. The explorers (Will, JP, Kaitlyn and Steve) headed off in the dinghy for the nearby shoreline to see what was to be found.

Christi and I had to stay aboard as the dinghy was full .... what a beautiful day with sun and wind (even if it was a bit more than was necessary!). Fishing here produced no results that were large enough to keep but JP almost caught quite the barracuda! He had a small fish on the line when a large barracuda swam up and chomped his fish! And then promptly cut the line and took off. WOW - what a fun thing that was!!

Half way back to Banana Bay we stopped for about an hour and the fisherpeople were quite successful pulling in small grunts, yellowtail and assorted other fish. None large enough to keep but fun was had by all.

Wednesday was an all day trip to Key West - sadly no pictures :-(  Suffice it to say there was no tourist spot left unseen!

Thursday was a trip to Crane Point. Not named for the crane birds but for the Crane people who had lived there! It again was a really nice trip with a wonderful guide. For more information, click on the link: Crane Point. Next a trip to Coco Plum Beach for some shelling.

Friday's first outing (after a great breakfast at the Conch Restaurant) was a visit to the Sea Turtle Center just down the road from us. Again a great choice!

Thursday afternoon, Terri and Scott had driven down from their home in Brandenton (on the west coast of Florida) and were able to join us the the last day and a half of Christi and Will's visit.

It was great that they were able to come down - the more family around the better it ALWAYS is!!

After the turtle museum, it was time to drive about 10 miles south to the Bahia Honda State Park. This is a beautiful area that has two really great beaches. It was a good choice by Steve as the main beach faces south so the 15 mph north winds did not bother us at all.

But before the beach, there was a trip up the old railroad bridge that is still standing. The view looking out into the Atlantic from this high point is really great. Quite shallow as you can see by the light color of the water.

Almost all of the railroad bridge is still standing - with a single span removed so boats higher than 20' are able to enter the small anchorage area that is north of the bridge.

Next up was to the beach! As you might guess it was quite hot in the sun so Terri, Scott and I sought out some shade for part of the day.

There was some beach walking and kayaking and playing in the sand.

Why is it that playing in the sand is so much fun for kids? And the young at heart :-)

Steve deflated our kayaks, tucked them in the back of Will and Christi's car, re-inflated them on the beach.

Terri, Steve, Will, Christi, JP and Kaitlyn all took turns for a kayak ride. At first, JP went with Will and Kaitlyn went with Christi but by the end of the afternoon, JP and Kaitlyn were tooling around on their own quite well! Nice job guys :-)

Seems I never left the shade :-) People watching is always great on a beach so I was quite content. It was nice to have some time to catch up with Terri and Scott - as well catching up with what Stephanie and Christopher are up to.

There was a really nice shell fossil where I was sitting. Best of the season!

Of course all good things must end. The final sunset was a very peaceful one.

What a great week of fun! We were very happy that Will and Christi chose to come to the Keys for spring break. The last time we saw them was about a year and a half ago - kids grow so fast :-)

For a complete picture view of their time here, click on this link: The Toracks in Marathon!

Whew - no wonder I was tired!!