Sunday February 9: Another Test Overnighter

Finally - another nice weather day and a chance to check out how all of the boat systems were working. Plus a chance to play of course!

Off we went Thursday morning as we first traveled west from Banana Bay, under the 7 mile bridge and then back east to Curry Hammock State Park.

We were headed there to meet up with couple of other boats from the marina (they went over Wednesday) plus Werner and Kathy on It's About Time.

Total distance to the park? Just over 23 miles so a nice 3 hour cruise even though the waves were broadside a good part of the way once we were under the bridge and traveling east.

Sure enough - we arrived and Jenna Star and I Think I Can were there!



We tied up next to Kathy and Werner. A third boat from Banana Bay tied next to us and we were good to go!



It didn't take long to lower dinghys and kayaks. Looked like some serious play time going on!

It was a great place to kayak as there was a path through the managroves so you could just go in a circle. The part between the blue lines in the picture below was an area that was totally covered with just a sometimes quite narrow passageway to go through.



Really a fun ride with lots of fish easily seen in the 2 foot deep water.








It was a quiet night with a great sunrise (again - not that I saw it but Steve was up :-)  )

The entrance to this park is quite shallow - even for us with our 3'8" draft so we needed to wait until the tide was at least half way up. That would give us plenty of depth to make our escape!

Meantime, we explored one of the canals near the park. George and Nancy said they had seen quite a few iguanas which we didn't want to miss so off we went with Kathy and Werner. George and Nancy followed us in with their dinghy.

We were NOT disappointed!! These things were HUGE - sitting in the mangrove trees along the canal sunning themselves. I think the biggest we've ever seen down here for sure. Definitely fun to look at.




It was a nice ride back to Banana Bay although once again broadside waves. We made a detour through Boot Key Harbor to check out all of the boats on the mooring balls (all 250 mooring balls are taken and there is a waiting list of folks wanting to take one). Back under the bridge and we were good to go.

All systems working great! Perhaps one of these days we'll actually have everything done we want to do before heading to the Bahamas at the end of March :-)

Saturday February 8: Gold at the End of the Rainbow

Yesterday morning a neighbor caught a picture of a rainbow over our boat at anchor.

She asked if we found a pot of gold.

Yes, I do believe we DID find that pot of gold - many years ago and it continues to find it's way to us over and over again.

Just a reminder of how fortunate we are to be doing what we're doing .....


More on the overnight to Curry Hammock State Park coming later!

Thanks for the picture, Cindy :-)

Monday February 3: What Did the Groundhog Say?

Sad to say but I don't know what the prediction was yesterday for Puxatony, PA and Phil the Groundhog. All I know is that sunshine has returned to Marathon!

Weather the past few days has really been nice. And we haven't worked on the engine - but that's another story.

Steve did take some time to work on completing the aft hatch project he began back at Matt and Wendy's in October. Soon it will be finished :-)

But for now it's fine for some fun!! This is a picture of Boot Key Harbor and half of the mooring field. It's still crazy full (with a waiting list) until folks start heading for the Bahamas and points east.

We left Yesterday's Dream behind as we headed out as guests of our neighbors George and Nancy on their American Tug - such a cute boat! And it even has a 'smoke stack' with a skylight in it!

Nancy, Cindy and I rode on top as the guys piloted from down below. What a wonderful day! After a cruise through Boot Harbor we headed west to Bahia Honda State Park.

We've been here a number of times by car and by boat but it's always a great place to come. First there was a walk up the "old bridge" for the view of the beach and then a stop at the visitor center.


The followup was ice cream at the refreshment stand. I mean we need to support the park, right? You can see Jenna Star at anchor outside the marina so it was a short dinghy ride in. Thanks George and Nancy!!




Funniest thing we've seen lately:  the neighbor's parrot (the smallest breed of parrot as I recall - can't remember the name of it though) that rides on the back of the his dog. Too funny :-)

Best thing we've seen lately? Our engine running as smooth as ever. Since Friday we've swung from "good to go" on one hand to "need to find someone to rebuild this engine" on the other.

After being able to call Brian at American Diesel this morning (first thing of course) we are now good to go. Seems the exhaust we could see coming out from under the valve cover gasket was due to a gasket leak. 

Learned two things: a small bit of oil vapor under the valve cover is normal and second: you can run an engine with the valve cover OFF and not have oil squirting all over the place (Brian said to just take the cover off, run the engine and look to see where the 'smoke' was coming from - who knew?)

Our nicely running engine: just click on the arrow in the center of the picture below (you may want to adjust your volume level).

Thursday January 30: Accidents For a Reason

I think sometimes accidents happen for a reason. Steve went to the grocery store yesterday and by accident purchased a can of diced potatoes - normally he buys the sliced kind - someone put a can in the wrong row.

A great breakfast food and it turns out that the diced ones are actually better than the sliced which are better than the whole canned potatoes!

These canned potatoes have a long history in our boating past. Many was the dinner in the 80's that we fried these canned potatoes in oil and butter on the Coleman stove on shore as we traveled through the Trent Canal in Ontario - traveling with my parents on two 26' Sea Rays. What memories!! Now the potatoes are totally non-fat but just (well, almost) as good :-)

Yesterday was a great day to go fishing so Steve headed out to the 7 mile bridge with Werner (from "It's About Time"). The day was perfect! Fishing was ok with one keeper grunt (but I don't clean grunts - even though I did - sorry Dave) and one keeper yellow tail (a first for fishing under the bridge!). (You may not notice that Werner held his fish out at arms length trying to convince me it was worth cleaning :-)  )

I will, however, claim most of the credit for the fish as I received a phone call about 15 minutes after they left in the dinghy. Steve says "How ambitious do you feel?"

Well, this is my alone time. A short 3 hours if I'm lucky...

Seems they left behind the live shrimp (in the bait bucket tied to the dock). Could I borrow a car and meet them at the bridge with the shrimp?

Why not .... so I borrowed a neighbor's car and headed down the 3 miles to the bridge and took the shrimp. Luckily I got the last parking space otherwise I could see a ticket in my future as I was parking there - space or no space.

That was yesterday. Overnight the weather turned again. These darn north winds bringing that nasty stuff from Ohio. Just quit already!

Thunderstorms and rain at night, sprinkles and cloudy skies all day today.

So what a better time to do work, right!


It's time the generator had a paint job so today was the day to start cleaning it up so we could paint it tomorrow or the next day. It's really a smaller place that Steve CAN get into .... but sometimes I am concerned that he won't be able to get out of so I volunteered.

Cleaned up and ready to go on the first decent day to paint and have the boat opened up to allow it to dry.

In the meantime, two great things! First Steve made me a pair of slip on shoes by cutting off the heel of a pair of my shoes.

Orthotics still fit and I can easily slip these on and off my feet. Perfect for trips to the hot tub and pool or for just schlepping around the boat in the morning :-)

I am one happy camper!




The other thing? Steve found these Cocoa Roast Almonds at Publix the other day.

What a find! And a handful of nuts a day is on the list of ok things to eat.

If you like chocolate, you'll LOVE these!!!

Tuesday January 28: Engine Work Today

After a nice night at Horseshoe Key and a lazy, very pleasant morning, it was time to head back to Banana Bay.

The new battery bank worked great and we now have good intel about how long we can run things on the inverter without the need to run the generator.

Of course we still have some issues to iron out but at least we can see progress being made!

The water was very very clear as we made our way back. I saw one turtle swim out from under the boat and then Steve saw another one sitting on the bottom with a remora cleaning the turtle's shell. As good as boating in an aquarium as we'll get!

We made a side trip under the 7-mile bridge to the ocean side as we wanted to check out Molasses Key. It's not very far away from the bridge and as we've driven past it many times it looked like a nice place to spend the day. Quite shallow though but what appears to be an easy passage to some deep water along one side.

Maybe next time .... for now it was definitely time for lunch! Toss out the anchor and dig in: leftover salmon sandwich with a kale salad and rice. Perfect .....

Back in and tied up in time for docktails at 5:00. The sunset (although not over the water until March on this side of the island) was spectacular.

The tree looked like it was on fire. Finally a few nights when sitting on the point was enjoyable. Nice temps and little wind (sorry about the cold in the north :-(  )


Monday was time for defrosting the freezer and getting everything ready for the next project: tightening the head bolts on the engine, adjusting the valve clearances and changing the engine oil/filter.

None of which are difficult of course, just time consuming. (Of course I wasn't the one that had to first loosen the head bolt and then torque them back down to 105 foot/pounds - good thing Steve got weights for Christmas!!)


This 6 cylinder engine has 25 head bolts and 12 valves to adjust. I may see a visit to the hot tub in Steve's future tonight!

Anyway, by end of day: jobs completed!!!

Also completed: resolving the generator and battery charger conflict that has had us stymied for about a month. Steve had been in touch with a fellow MTOA (the trawler group to which we belong) member that is very knowledgeable about DC electric circuits and he has helped us tremendously.

Other boaters here at Banana Bay have also been so generous with their time as Steve has been picking brains since we have arrived! I threatened to ban him from leaving our boat!

Also amazing is the generosity of loaning a car to us. Usually it's not a big deal to bike where we need to go but when we're in the middle of a project and we need just one small thing ... a car is the way to go. What a wonderful group of people ......

Saturday January 25: Checking Out the Battery Installation

Since the kids have come and gone, it's been mostly working to get boat systems online.

We picked up 4 golf cart batteries at Sam's Club in Miami on our way to drop Becky off at the airport so the project has been to get these installed.

There's been a lot of under the floor work for sure and as always when work is going on the cabin is a wreck. With 20 feet of new 2/0 wire (about the thickness of your finger), it was measure, measure again, then cut and attach a terminal lug on the end of it.

Amazingly enough, no major errors and the resulting new battery bank of four 6 volt golf cart batteries hooked up in series and then paralleled into a 2 battery bank should serve us well.

Wow - isn't that such a nice regal red engine? And nicely organized battery system?

Now if we only knew how it would work at anchor. Best way to find out was to go anchor, right?

So we left today about 10:30 or so as the weather is predicted to be pretty settled. We headed to Horseshoe Key - about 16 miles west of Marathon.

The day was pleasant but cool in the shade so the flybridge canvas was the first thing to go!

Once anchored Steve headed off for a kayak around the key - while I settled in on the flybridge with a book in hand and a nap in mind :-)

The mangroves grow right to the water's edge around most of the island. There were a few fish but plenty of birds - although Steve said they were quite skittish.

The underpass did not have enough water with the tide being too low so there was no attempt to cross under. I think even a kayak can get stuck in this small opening!

More fishing but again no catching ....

Good thing the salmon was on sale at Winn-Dixie last week :-)

 The sun was setting quickly as I looked out the port door.

A close up showed the sliver of cloud the sun was passing behind.

Wonderful night - clear sky so I look for lots of stars to be visible tonight!

Batteries are living up to our expectations so far ....

Wednesday January 22: Don't Blink ...

The time went so fast! Franko Family Christmas came and went in the blink of an eye - of course it was only a day and a half so not really so surprising.

The weather was still a bit windy but with the sun out who cared? After a late arrival Saturday night, first on the agenda Sunday was opening presents!!

Which is not the normal "opening presents". Steve and Matt cut the envelopes down. These contained mere pictures of the real presents - which had already shipped and arrived at their respective homes.

So Becky opened a picture of her Nespresso Pixie espresso maker and coffee pods - knowing the real things were in her condo waiting to be open and used.

There were a few exceptions: Matt with his cool "my feet light up" Star Wars guy. And of course Steve and I scored because our stuff was really actually able to be opened.

Later in the day the view from the bridge at Bahia Honda State Park was as always great. Nice beach, weather, water, sun and company.

I think a perfect day - and time for some flying of the flash copter. Pay no attention to the scared and bleeding knuckles ......

If only we had read the directions :-)

It seemed everyone had just arrived when it was time for them to leave.

This was a first though: Christmas in the Keys - perhaps the best yet :-)

The day after the kids left, the weather turned yet again. Cold north winds with rain -

and a rainbow.

I love rainbows but I think I like the sunny skies and sunshine thank you.