Sombrero Reef Day 2-19-09

Tom and Debbie aboard “Catrina” invited us, Ted and Pat from “South Shore” and veteran Loopers, Pat and Colin from “Lady Margaret” for a fabulous day of fun aboard their PDQ sailing catamaran. On the menu was snorkeling, sailing, fishing and good company. “Catrina” is on the mooring ball in Marathon and all of us dinghed over to start the day—don’t the dinghies look like the friends that we became today.

Here’s Captain Debbie sailing us over to Sombrero Reef where we snorkeled. It’s been quite a while since I have snorkeled, and I forgot to put in contact lenses so I was” blind” but I did kind of see yellow tail fish. Here’s a picture of the group on the trampoline part of the cat—our favorite part, and a close-up picture of the 2 Pats enjoying a great day.

We capped off the evening with dinner at Key Fisheries. Ted and Pat accompanied us on their bikes and when it was time to go back to the marina in the dark, Bob took the lead position with his high intensity headlamp and Ted took the caboose position with the red light on—our 4 bikes looked like a stretch limo bike.

Marathon 2-18-09

There are a number of Looper friends now in Marathon—welcome to Rose and Gary on “Rose’s Pick” and Ted and Pat on “South Shore” who joined Jim and Sandy on “Footloose”, Charlie and Jeanette on “Highlander” and Bob and I at Sombrero Dockside.

Meet the Men in the Mangroves 2-15-09

My sister Maureen and I were touring the Anne Kolb Nature Center in Fort Lauderdale when these 2 hunky men emerged from the mangrove forest. How could we resist them?

Maureen and Kevin are hibernating here for a week to get a reprieve from the cold NY winter. As we walked around the park, they marveled that they were actually sweating and seeing color again. The park is on the ICW waterway which we will pass through when we come up here by boat so we had a chance to check it out and take a picture from land this time. We also checked out marinas in the area as we will probably have to wait here for awhile to get a weather window to go to the Bahamas in the next few weeks.

Fort Lauderdale is a great location with a fantastic beach, shops and restaurants. We strolled through galleries and had a great dinner at Café del Mer. Our time passed much too quickly but we will catch up with each other again soon.

Work and Play, Part II 2-12-09

Bob and I are doing a 2 day work week of 2 days working on the boat and 6 days off. This week, we have disconnected the macerator pump and attached the new one. For non-boaters, the macerator is like a boat Cuissinart for sewage that then gets discharged into the ocean, at least 3 miles off shore. We have never used one as they are illegal on the Great Lakes but the Bahamas do not have many pump-out facililities so this is necessary. Notice the photo of Bob complete with Kleenex nose plugs—it worked and got a dirty job done.

Thursday was not all work and no play as we met Tom and Debbie from “Catrina” for dinner at Key Fisheries. They are staying on a mooring ball in Boot Key and we had a great time catching up with them. Key Fisheries has a great menu, is reasonably priced and has great outside seating. We biked there from our marina—check out our really cool “headlamp” gear for night time travel. Are we really cool or what? It completes the whole ensemble of zip-off plastic pants and fanny packs. Our mission now is to embarass our kids--did we succeed Katie and Brian?

Everglades 2-14-09

Bob and I could not leave FL without finding an alligator, so for Valentine’s Day, we headed off to the Shark Valley entrance to Everglades National Park. I admit that valentines and gators are not your usual pairing but it is memorable and no shopping is required. I did wonder though when Bob increased my life insurance policy and asked me to move closer to one gator to get a “really incredible picture.”

We thought that we would see gators along the Tenn-Tom Rivers but they were hiding in the mud, and at our anchorage in the Shark River, they were probably watching us with their beady little eyes but we could not see them. Today, we brought our camera and were not going to leave without a picture. We were not disappointed.

The Everglades are 60 miles wide and 100 miles long and is actually a shallow river that moves ¼ mile a day and is not a swamp. It is an intricate ecological system that supplies the water collection for the Miami area as the base is limestone and it is filled with aquifers. It provides fresh water habitat for hundreds of migratory birds as well as hardwoods, grasses, small and large animals and fish. It has 2 seasons—wet and dry; hot and hotter; or mosquito and non-mosquito. We were there luckily during the non-mosquito.

We recommend taking the 2 hour tram ride through the park on a 15 mile loop. We had considered walking but look at the alligator that was lying across our path. That was too close and personal for us! Our tram ride narrator assured us that Everglades gators are not Hollywood ones that thrash around and want to eat people but he did note that bikers have been described as “Meals on Wheels” for gators.

The skies are filled with cormorants, egrets, ibis and herons but the star of the show is the gator. There are 50,000 in the park and 2,000,000 in FL although we haven’t seen any and maybe they are shy. Alligators have an extended courtship period of 2 weeks in the spring when the air is filled with full-throated bellows to locate each other which leads to an extended nesting period leading to the depositing of 20-40 eggs. However, although most hatch, only 1 in 20 survive to age 5 when they are 5 feet long and are then the “king of the glades” for their 40 year life span.

This is such a special place.

Another Day in Key West 2-11-09

We are still planning on going to the Bahamas and needed to get a Local Boaters Option clearance card which will expedite our return back to the US. Key West is the closest Customs office so we were “forced” to go back there. After a few hours of complying with government rigmarole, we passed so we were free for a day of fun.

We met Wayne and Jill at Margaritaville for lunch. They have moved their RV down here to Boyd’s in Key West. They are eagerly awaiting the return of warmer weather as their pool aqua aerobics class was cancelled for the past week as the morning temps were below 60. We all had the “Cheeseburger in Paradise” which was good and very filling.

We whiled away the afternoon touring the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum. “The Old Man and the Sea” is one of my favorite books and it was a thrill to visit his home and breathe that rarified air and see pictures of his boat “Pilar” and his friend and captain, Gregorio Fuentes, who is said to be the model for his Old Man character, Santiago. Fuentes lived until 104 and started the day with rum and a cigar, a practice that Hemingway adopted also.

Our tour guide, Loren, is to the left of Bob in the house picture—he looks like a statue there, but on tour, he channels Hemingway himself complete with a flask and stories…so many stories. Hemingway the man was larger than life and more complicated than any of his characters largely due to his bipolar disorder. He had 4 wives and had a very tempestuous relationship in this home with wife #2, Pauline. She got wind that he was having another affair, and while he was away on an extended assignment, she had a $20,000 pool installed. Ernest was enraged at this as his finances were depleted and threw his “last penny” at her. Pauline, never one to miss a chance for drama, had the penny encased in a stone walkway by the pool and told everyone, “Of the 4 Hemingway wives, I was the only one to get his last red cent.” Hemingway retaliated by bringing home the urinal from his favorite bar, Sloppy Joe’s, and installing it in the garden area adjoining the pool hoping to embarrass her with her friends. Not to be outdone, Pauline added a beautiful stone urn fountain that emptied into the urinal so it became art.

Did I mention that this is a cat house? Hemingway loved cats especially the six-toed variety. There are 44 cats now on the property, and if I get to be reincarnated, I want to come back here as a cat. Notice in the master bedroom, the bed is cordoned off for humans but the cat gets to lie down. What a life!

We finished up the day with another sunset at Mallory Square and on our way back to Marathon, stopped at Mangrove Mama’s (Milepost 20) for key lime pie. Jill and friends have tasted their way through many versions but this is their #1 taste pick and I have to agree. Yum…..

Another Side of the Miami Area 2-8-09

Since my wardrobe consists mostly of REI zip-off pants and breathable shirts and I did not pack any “bling,” sightseeing in the glitz and glam part of Miami is definitely not for us. We did find some interesting things to do in the Miami area thanks to suggestions from my good friend, Isabel.

Bob and I enjoy opera and we were able to see an HD Live Metropolitan Opera presentation of "Lucia Di Lammermoor" on Saturday at a movie theatre in Miami. The opera is 4 hours long, packed with intrigue and great arias, and the only thing that I would change is barring popcorn chomping during the duets.

On Sunday, we toured the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden which is an incredibly lush 83 acre site with 11 lakes, 32,000 plants and trees from all over the world, a butterfly garden, rainforest, great lunch café, sculpture and glass works by artists Mark di Suvero and Dale Chihuly and a tram ride to orientate you. The colors and artful landscaping make this a tropical paradise. It is tucked into a beautiful neighborhood in Coral Gables and is worth a visit.

We went over to Key Biscayne and toured Bill Baggs State Park with the restored Cape Florida lighthouse. The park has a great beach, picnic pavilions filled with families enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon, and fishing piers. We topped off this great day with dinner overlooking Miami from Biscayne Bay at the Rusty Pelican restaurant.

My camera battery died and we tried to do these pictures with our cell phone with mixed results. Technology can be a complicated thing.......

Work and Play 2-7-09

We were hoping to catch a bigger case of Keys Disease or laid-back island attitude but we are still pretty much engaged. Like a house, boat projects are never done, but unlike a house, our boat home gets rocked by waves and is doused daily with corrosive salt by air and water so a lot of maintenance is required. And, when you have a classic teak trawler, this increases geometrically to get “Baby Grand” looking grand again after almost 6 continuous months of wear. We don’t get paid and instead keep paying as “ a boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money.” We don’t have a boss although Bob does refer to me as the Admiral.

We have been busy the past 2 weeks swabbing the decks, washing the fiberglass, windows and canvas, polishing the chrome, and cleaning the cabin and bilge as well as laundering all bedding, rugs and pillows. We changed the oil and filter as well as the transmission fluid. Big on our list is replacing the macerator pump which has now “crapped out.” You will notice that we are not posting pictures of all of these activities as our hands are usually too grimy and wet to hold a camera.

We rented a car for the weekend of 2/6 to 2/8 and went all over. We started locally in the Marathon area and took an excursion boat out to Pigeon Key which is perched under the Seven Mile Bridge. It was used as a dormitory area for the workers who built the Flagler East Coast Railroad from 1908 to 1912 and then for the bridge tenders and painters who kept it maintained until the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 destroyed the RR bridge. Interestingly, all the housing structures have endured through countless storms with its Conch architecture unlike the multi-million dollar coastal homes which are regularly decimated. Pigeon Key is now run as a non-profit organization with educational opportunities for all.

We also toured Crane Point Nature Center, a 63 acre site with nature trails, a butterfly meadow, wild bird hospital with Dr. Quack presiding, the George Adderley Bahamian house built of “tabby” in the early 1900’s when this area was jungle ,and a history museum. In the midst of the Keys development, it is special to find a piece of the real FL Keys. We ended Friday with a great dinner at Key Colony Inn with Charlie and Jeannette from “Highlander.”

We will be journeying to Miami on Saturday for an opera and will be touring the Bill Baggs State Park, the Fairchild Tropical Gardens and Vizcaya on Sunday.

Loopers, Loopers Everywhere 2-3-09

We want to thank Joe and Mary Beth Amelia on Pot o’Gold for organizing the Looper get-together at the Marathon City Marina last night. The weather was not very promising but 66 people from 34 boats showed up by dinghy, on foot, by bike and car for the chance to meet each other.

Everyone has a different story but all share a love of the cruising lifestyle. Veteran Loopers from the 1990’s like the crew from Lady Margaret, and Jim originally from Grand Haven MI, have not returned yet to a land-based home. We met 2 couples from Germany and Holland who have boats here in FL and are planning on doing the Loop soon. Bob and I are still relatively new on the Loop which we started in 9/08 and it was fun to meet Jamie and Frank from TX who just started their Loop in 11/08 aboard a Marine Trader 34. It was fun to meet up again with loopers we’ve cruised with like Jeannette and Charlie aboard Highlander and to meet veteran loopers who have helped us out through emails and Channel 16.

So much of looping is sharing with others—information, help, parts, recommendations, food, beverages and camaraderie. The party was in full swing from 5-6:15pm and could have gone for hours, but the clouds darkened, thunder boomed and all raced to get back to batten down their boats. We look forward to seeing everybody again soon.

Sunset in Key West 2-1-09

We had a great day down in Key West today, and although it was too cloudy to see the green flash at sunset, it was memorable. We took the 8:20 am bus down from Marathon-- 50 miles at a cost of $6.00 round trip for 2 senior adults—we cannot beat that price doing it by boat.

This is our very first time here and getting orientated via the Conch Tour Train is definitely the way to go. What a colorful history this island has had—a 1622 Spanish galleon sinking off shore with a multi-million dollar treasure that was discovered in l985; a relaxed President Truman in a Hawaiian shirt, smoking a cigar and playing poker vacationing here in the “Little White House”; 3 Civil War forts; a colorful former Mayor Sunny waterskiing 90 miles to Cuba before the Castro Rebellion to illustrate the need for a continued Navy station presence; Ernest Hemmingway writing his great novels here from 1931-1941 and holding forth at Smokey Joe’s watering hole; the town’s history of salvaging the booty, and secondly the crew, from shipwrecked vessels off the treacherous coral reefs which helped establish it as the wealthiest city in America in 1850; and its boom to bust cycle in sponging, cigar-making and fishing which reduced it to 80% unemployment in 1935 only to resurface again with tourism helped greatly by its media-grabbing declaration of Key West as the Conch Republic after the border patrol shut down Highway 1 in 1982. The real treasure of Key West is these free-spirited people who will push the limits on just about everything.

Key West is packaged beautifully with blue green water surrounding land with 12 colors of bougainvillea, over 30 varieties of palm trees and unique architectural homes crafted by ship carpenters who built houses like furniture and boats with wooden pegs and tongue and groove boards. It is a place where chickens and roosters run freely, where graves are above ground due to the hard coral ground and the whole town prays annually at the St. Mary’s Grotto so that hurricanes will continue to avoid a direct hit here. It is said that the termites hold hands during hurricanes so that the island does not blow away.

We loved Duvall Street and had lunch at Fogerty’s while listening to “Elvis” across the street at Whistle Bar, but sought a quieter place at Fort Taylor State Park with its great views and it is the most southerly point of our travels. Key West has 133 bars which were all full for Super Bowl Sunday. Go Steelers.