Wednesday January 8: Old and New Friends

 Things are settling into a routine now that the outside clean up of the boat is done.

Plus all of the craziness of vacationers flooding the Keys has died down. It seems the weeks when schools are out is when this area is REALLY busy.

Having a large part of the highway system still being 2 lane roadways complicates the matter.

We rode down to the old 7-mile bridge yesterday. The water was very murky but Steve still managed to see 2 very large eagle rays. Sadly I missed them :-(

There was still a nice breakfast out (still our favorite - and almost only - time to eat out). We were headed to the 7-Mile Grill but noticed on the way past Porky's that they started serving breakfast.

We had never eaten there before but we made a quick turn around and tried it. Just our kind of place - right on the water, good service (which means coffee and water in hand before having to order!) and the food was really good.

I'm beginning to really like red and yellow peppers - after all these years of not eating them. You can still have the green ones though - too strong for me.

The manatees are still frequenting the harbor. This one was just kind of swimming around checking out the water coming out of the boats (air conditioners have been running so the water pumping overboard from the circulation pumps attract the manatee).

They are looking for fresh water - so no interest in the salt water coming from the boats.


A trip to the natural food store the other day was great - lots of things that are low in saturated fat (my goal is to stay under 10 g a day). I even found some decent macaroni and cheese (of course it's not real cheese - too much saturated fat in that - but overall, not bad. Oh for the days of Velvetta cheese on my broccolli and cauliflower and REAL mac and cheese .... I should have enjoyed that kind of thing way more .....

Dave and Joyce (from Joysea - longtime Looper friends) came to Marathon for a few days. Dave loves to fish. Steve loves to fish. Off they went - to try their hand under the bridge (about 3 miles west of here).

Other than the loss of the shrimp bucket and numerous cut lines, the day was "fun" - but the north winds coming in made for a wicked current under the bridge and a slow trip back.


 Better luck next time ....

At least they weren't skunked as Dave caught a nice porgy and Steve caught a big grunt. As they know, I don't clean grunts so back it went :-)

Dave and Joyce were able to join us for dinner last night. It was nice to catch up with them - last time we saw them was a year ago.

I have to say though no one really seems any older - I think we've all aged very well :-)

They head back to their winter place near Lake Okeechobee on Friday. Maybe we'll figure out some way to see them up there. We're told there is an extra bedroom and Dave has a boat and motor. Have fishing rods will travel :-)

Steve made a new friend at the social gathering the other day: Margarite the parrot! Very social young lady - and she loves the men but not so much the ladies. Pretty funny.


Next project: remove the old stove and oven. To be replaced with 2 built in induction burners!