The title sounds like we might have done something really exciting, but we didn’t, unless Rich figuring out what’s wrong with our dinghy motor and me working on a quilt sounds exciting to you. Unfortunately the dinghy motor problem is going to require a professional to get it fixed, but at least Rich can tell them what’s wrong. He looked at YouTube videos to see how hard it would be and decided he didn’t have the tools to replace the part that’s causing the problem. It still runs, but it’s only a matter of time before the problem part breaks completely. Hopefully it will be a quick, cheap (that’s a relative term when talking about boat repairs) fix.
We had dinner last night at a very popular restaurant near us. (You know it’s popular when the parking lot is completely full and you circle around looking for someone to leave.) We had entrees that came with two sides, so we each had a Caesar salad as one of our sides. Besides being quite good, it came in these fantastic bowls that had been chilled.
These salads were huge! And we ate every last bite of them.
When we decided to do the loop, we also decided it was time to get rid of property. We didn’t want to be landlords any longer with the Chicago condo and fortunately a real estate development company had decided a few years ago that they wanted to buy all the condos in the building. After 3 long years of negotiations to get at least 75% of the owners to agree to sell, that sale finally closed just before Christmas – one down. We also decided it was pointless to keep the Michigan condo since we wouldn’t be there for at least a year. We sold it on a land contract that was paid off today – two down. Now we just have our house in Lafayette – and it’s going back on the market within the next month. We don’t know when we will finish this adventure or where we will go once it ends, but we know Lafayette won’t be a permanent residence. So if anyone wants a very nice house in Lafayette we know where you can find one!
They did a second day of photos yesterday. They had the boat out in the Gulf when I looked out at 9,brought it back in a couple of hours later, and continued working until almost 4.
When I got up this morning I saw that a sailboat was on the dock next to ours and there were lots of people, dock carts, and other stuff all on the boat and dock. Rich noticed that it looked like someone was doing makeup on a woman in the cockpit, so we decided it was a photo shoot of some sort. A friend stopped by a little later and said he had wandered over and found out it was a Ralph Lauren photo shoot. How cool was that!
They eventually left the dock, motored around in front of our boat, came back to the dock, took more photos, them went out a short way into Gulf waters. They finally finished after 5. We wonder how many of the photos will ever be used.
We had dinner with friends Friday night and decided to start the evening with a vodka taste-testing. A conversation with a friend as well as an article in the Wall Street Journal had us wondering if you could really taste differences in different vodkas. According to US regulations, vodka is supposed to be colorless, odorless, and flavorless. So off to the liquor store to buy airplane sized bottles of as many kinds of vodka as we could find – someone has to test this! Surprisingly, we found that there were slightly different tastes among them! Who knew?
Gail’s penguin friend turned the Skyy bottle so we couldn’t see the label, then fell on his side while sipping some Pinnacle. And since we couldn’t find a small Gray Goose, Keith brought out his own bottle so we could add it to the tasting. By the way, it’s probably better to do tastings of straight booze AFTER dinner.
Saturday I got to see my first manatee up close! Rich was outside on the dock when he spotted one in the water by the boat next to us. By the time I got out there with my phone, it was working its way toward our boat. It slowly ate its way under the dock, ate around and under our swim platform, around our dinghy, and finally headed off to the fuel dock. Rich said they can eat as much as 200 lbs. of seagrass and other stuff in a day! All I could think was how big must their poops be😂
Another wedding! There were almost as many attendants as there were seated guests.I wonder if they realized how many non guests would be watching.
Saturday afternoon there was a small cigarette-type boat going in and out of the marina several times taking people for short rides. It was incredibly noisy and very annoying. I hate this type of boat because they are so obnoxiously loud and have no purpose except to go fast. So I had to chuckle when, as it got ready to leave with a couple more people, it wouldn’t start. They tried for a long time to get it started again to no avail and finally pulled it up further on the fuel dock to get it out of the way. Yesterday it was towed away and I cheered.
I know it’s just a pigeon and I hate what they leave all over the docks, but I love the iridescent feathers on their necks. They like to stand on the dock by our boat and look in at us -creepy!
We’re not really sleeping in a washing machine, but the wind has been northerly for the last couple of nights, which has created wave motion against our hull that sounds like we’re in a washing machine. And the boat really rocks and rolls so it feels like we’re getting tossed around like a load of clothes in the washer. It doesn’t make for a comfortable night of sleep.☹️
We’ve been relaxing the last couple of days inside the boat – too windy and cool to do a lot outside. ( I guess cool is a relative word – if it were upper 60s, low 70s in Indiana right now it would seem like a heat wave.) It finally warmed up enough this afternoon that I was able to sit up on the bow and enjoy the sun and view.
I will never tire of this view!
This yacht was docked near us and moved across from us today. It’s 83 feet long and can be chartered for $35-38,000/week. It has a 27 ft powerboat with it so you can go fishing or waterskiing. Guess I better win a big lottery if I want to charter this, because the price doesn’t include fuel, food, booze, or other incidentals.
A couple of years ago we found a jar of seasoning at a shop in Saugatuck that we had to buy just because of its name. It turned out to be a really good seasoning so we went back to buy more this past summer. We discovered that there are now several more seasonings from this company so we bought a 6 pack of the various kinds. Tonight we used two of them on chicken and vegetables and they were superb!
In case you’re wondering, the first one we bought was Bull Shit, and the others in our 6 pack are no shit, aw shit, and good shit. The story behind the spices are some guys created the original, bull shit, but decided they needed a catchy name to market it successfully – thus the name Bull Shit. And the rest is history. If you’re in Saugatuck you can buy them at Pink Patio.
We woke up this morning to calm waters and a sea of sea grass around our boat.
Because the water was so calm we decided it would be a good day to go exploring in the dinghy. We went around the western end of Marathon, under the 7 mile bridge and part way around the Atlantic side of Marathon. I’m really paranoid about using my phone for photos when we’re in the dinghy – I have visions of it flying out of my hands and into the deep blue waters, so no visual proof of what we did and saw. Any ideas of how to keep my phone safe and accessible for photos would be deeply appreciated!
I had intended to post every other day, but warm weather and sunshine has turned me into a very lazy writer!
The past several days have been consumed with Rich trying to figure out two nagging boat issues. One involved a non functioning bilge bump for the guest shower and sink. He thought it was a faulty float switch, but replacing it didn’t solve the problem. Next, he replaced the pump. Still non functioning. It was a simple matter to unhook each of those and replace, but when that didn’t work, he was stumped. After many swear words and lots of time wasted, he started unhooking all the wires connecting everything, only to discover there were wires not connected to anything! Eventually he figured out how to wire everything back together correctly and we now have a functioning bilge pump!
So on to the next problem – a dinghy lift that didn’t work. Again, he had checked everything, saw no apparent loose connections, etc., changed the batteries in the remote, and it still didn’t work. After several calls, emails, and texts with several people, he finally got a YouTube video from the installer about how to jumpstart the motor that operated the hydraulics. When he opened up the cover to jumpstart he discovered a hidden connection that was loose. He tightened it and voila! our dinghy lift works perfectly!
We celebrated Rich’s achievements (without having to pay $$$) with a very nice bubbly!
On our lazy days this is what we see from our boat
Looked like a picnic one day!This boat came in after dark and missed the channel. Fortunately the rocks didn’t puncture the hull and TowBoat US was able to pull it off later that day.
We went exploring one day, found the only beach ( where I neglected to take any photos), and stopped by a local fish place for a late lunch. You order at a counter and find a spot at a picnic table over the water while you wait for your name to be called – or you go upstairs to the bar, grab a drink while you wait, and have this view.
We ordered lobster reubens and as strange as it sounds, they were actually quite delicious!We’ve seen historical markers in lots of places, but this one on the wall at the fish market was one of the most unusual.Taken from the stern of our boat, I love how the palm tree is lit up!
Yesterday we drove to Key West. It’s about an hour drive from our marina, over lots of bridges, including the 7 mile bridge. It’s mind boggling to think of what it took to build all the bridges connecting the keys from mainland Florida all the way to Key West. Many of the bridges have parking areas just before the start of the bridge, with a pedestrian bridge alongside the main bridge so people can fish. Fishing is such a popular thing down here that Publix has a freezer section at the end of one freezer aisle that’s filled with frozen chum and other baits.
We have arrived!We had a very delicious lunch at this place.There were chickens and roosters everywhere – this one was wandering around our table at lunch.And this one was perched on the wall by the post officeThis was a huge kapok tree in front of the county courthouse – sometimes it feels like you’re in a land of giants.At the start of the trip, I had two places I wanted to see – the quilt museum in Paducah KY and this marker in Key West – mission accomplished! This is such a populat tourist attraction that there is a line to get up to it for a photo op – it took us at least 15 minutes to get up to it. Amazingly, there’s no one trying to take your picture by it for a fee. It seems to be one of the few free things on Key West.Kilwin’s is one of our favorite ice cream places in Saugatuck, so when I saw that there’s a Kilwin’s in Key West, we had to stop for some Key Lime ice cream – quite tasty!Mallory Square is supposed to be the place to be at sunset, with all kinds of street musicians, jugglers, etc. but it was so cool and windy that we decided we will have to come back on a warmer day to witness that.I never thought of Key West as a cruise ship destination until we saw this next to Mallory Square.On our way out of town – don’t know the guy in the lower right hand corner – didn’t realize he was in it until I looked at the photos last night.Want to go fishing? This looks like a good spot to find a boat for that.Today we went grocery shopping – it’s a good thing I didn’t buy any more that needed refrigeration!
We decided we needed a car to really explore the area – too hot and definitely too dangerous to do much bike riding. We got a taxi to Enterprise yesterday – apparently there’s no pickup from airport locations and the only location is at the airport. Oh well – they upgraded us from a compact to a VW Jetta so we can’t complain.
First stop was Publix, the big grocery chain you find in the south. It was packed, but apparently it’s always that way because it’s the only big grocery in Marathon. It’s always interesting to see what different items you see as you travel around the country, and how much the same the grocery stores seem to be laid out. I was on a mission to get in and out quickly so I didn’t pay much attention to different items this time, but I’m sure I’ll see some unusual items the next time I go – I wonder what all the old folks who winter down here eat (and believe me, there are lots of old folks!)
Our next stop was West Marine. We discovered Tuesday that we had no water from the marina water supply to the boat because the connector for the hose to our boat had broken. We were able to fill our water tank, so we could use water from that, but it’s a pain to have to fill every couple of days. Fortunately they had the part we needed and Rich and a friend were able to get the broken part off. Rich got the new part on and now we have continuous water! Rich has become a different kind of plumber!
On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons there were weddings on the end of a jetty across from our boat. Fun entertainment!
We’re quickly becoming spoiled by this marina. Both USA Today and the Wall Street Journal are delivered to our boat each day for free. We get complimentary pumpout once a week dockside (anyone who owns a boat knows how fantastic this is) and we don’t even have to be on the boat when they do it. There’s free coffee every morning in the marina office, which is about 150’ from our boat. We have free access to the computers and printer at the Hyatt Place, which is just in front of the marina. What’s not to like???
I will probably be posting every other day now. It’s not too exciting to write about spending 2 hours (and $25) in the laundromat, doing dishes, or any of the other things that happen when you stay in one place for an extended period of time. And I don’t want to rub it in too much about how great the weather is 😊
We spent Sunday relaxing and getting settled in. We decided to explore a little bit on foot and quickly discovered it was not easy to cross over to the other side of the road that runs in front of the hotel that’s connected to the marina. Turns out it’s the only major road on the island – US 1 that runs all the way from the mainland to Key West. We managed to get across to West Marine, a nationwide chain that caters to boaters, and get a chart book that I wanted, but we won’t be crossing that road on foot again!
We bought three strands of tiny white lights to string along the rails for the holidays but had not gotten it done yet, so we managed to get them strung in the afternoon and set on a timer. We figured they would be festive for the new year. We were happy to see that the timer worked and they lit like they were supposed to – we would have been very upset if we spent all that time fastening them to the rail and then they didn’t work.
There are docktails every day at 5 on the deck by the lighthouse. On Sunday it was an ice cream social, with one of the boaters making ice cream in a big electric ice cream maker. Everyone brought toppings to share and amazingly there were no duplicates in toppings. We had eaten a late lunch and then had a lot of ice cream, so it was another night with no dinner. Eating fewer meals seems like a good way to lose some weight, but not when the meals you eat include massive amounts of ice cream with crushed Oreo cookies on top.
Monday was spent enjoying the sun and warm weather. There were a lot of people wandering around looking at all the boats and getting ready to celebrate the New Year. We went to the restaurant here during happy hour, which started at 3:00 (what’s not to like about a happy hour that goes from 3-6!), had a late lunch, and met several other Loopers. We ordered extra food so we would have some leftovers that we could eat later. If we were going to stay up until midnight, we would need some nourishment later in the evening!
They put a big wooden anchor at the top of the lighthouse to drop at midnight. We watched them for a while in the daytime jas they worked at getting it to the top – the wind seemed to create some problems, but eventually they got it to the top.
This is what it looked like just before it started to descend.
There was music blasting at the restaurant and tons of people around as midnight approached. Midnight arrived and the anchor didn’t come down right away – not sure what clock they were using, but it wasn’t very accurate!
