December 24, 2016: Christmas Eve, Hard to Believe we're officially in Winter

The work on our Keys Cruiser has been deemed complete.  There are some brush marks but the body is now all black, no more oxidized paint, and the rust is all covered. The interior received a thorough cleaning and looks pretty good.  The car looks especially good in the shade under the pretty tree.










Linda was looking on the web for a used hub cap to replace the one that was missing and discovered she could order new plastic "knock off" hub caps for $18.00 for four. They'll arrive next week. Even out in the open our little Toyota passes the 10 foot rule, looks okay if you don't get any closer than 10 feet.

One boat maintenance issue was taken care of. There is a doughnut shaped zinc on the stainless steel shaft that protects the shaft from corrosion. The zinc gets eaten away by electrolysis instead of the shaft.

Obviously, the propeller shaft is under the water so it was time to dig out the scuba tank. The old zinc was pretty well gone so it was good to get it replaced, you can see the remnant of it on the swim platform and I am holding the new one.

I was also able to inspect the bottom and was very pleased to find little growth.  I usually need to clean the bottom about once a month but because we have been travelling and left the boat in fresh water when we went north it will be okay for a while. The water was 78 degrees, no wet suit needed!

The marina is slowly filling with the winter boaters. One of our boating couples arrived from New Jersey last night, Pat and George on Reflection.  We happened to see them on the Intracoastal as we were making our way south.  They, like us, went north for the holiday visit and like us welcomed the return to warm and sunny Banana Bay. Several couples have yet to arrive but they are on their way.

Its always fun to get the group back together again. We're especially anxious for Randy and Cindy to arrive with the cutest dogs ever, Gigit and Cricket. Cricket in the picture, only weighs 4 lbs and gets cold easily, even here in Florida, hence the Brown's blanket.

Somehow Christmas decorations are just not the same in the Keys as in the north where the lights reflect off the snow. We have to make do with what we have.  One of our favorite breakfast places, Porky's, did a good job of adapting with their Santa hat clad pigs.  Unfortunately it was very windy when I took the picture so one is a little on tilt but still cute.

I decided we needed a few Christmas pictures for a Christmas blog. I became sucked into looking at a lot of pictures from the archives. It took so long looking at old pictures and trying to choose that I decided to make it a true Christmas blog and post it tomorrow.

Merry Christmas Eve to all, and to all a good night!