Today we officially left Florida behind us and are now at a marina in Jekyll Island GA. We arrived in Melbourne on the 11th for a one night stay at a small marina just off the ICW. We got there in time to get lunch at a restaurant right at the marina and decided it must be a good place because the place was packed with locals. It didn’t disappoint!

That night we walked to the Melbourne Seafood Station and got a seafood dinner for two, which was enough food for 2 nights. We didn’t realize until we got there that the only seating was outside at picnic tables under the canopy where gas pumps used to be – hence “Station” in the name. It took almost 45 minutes to get our food because it was packed with locals and people who had called in orders. We took the food back to the boat and were so tired and hungry I didn’t take time to get any pictures. You’ll have to take my word that it was delicious!

We headed to Titusville the next day and got tied up just before it started raining. We stayed two nights there because of constant rain. I got off the boat to check in and didn’t get off again until we got to our next destination.

It was a quick run last Tuesday to Daytona Beach. Again, we got there in time for lunch at an Irish pub. There is a trail along the ICW with lots of restaurants and shops along it.

From Daytona Beach we headed to St. Augustine for a 2 night stay at a large marina. Unfortunately, transient slips are often the furthest away from the marina office, bathrooms, laundry, etc. and this was no exception. It was an 8-9 minute walk to get from our boat to all of those things. There was a courtesy car available (Toyota Highlander with 120,000 miles on it ) so we got it at 5:00 so we could keep it all evening. Publix was a 2 minute drive away so we were able to do some major provisioning, park in a lot close to our slip to unload, and then take the car to a restaurant on the far side of the marina.

My internet connection is getting very slow, so I’ll continue this later.

This week has been spent slowly traveling up the ICW. We spent two nights in Ft. Lauderdale, then traveled to Palm Beach on Wednesday, Stuart on Thursday, and today to Vero Beach. Tomorrow we will head to Melbourne, and then Titusville, St. Augustine, and finally last stop in Florida in Jacksonville. We had hoped to be able to travel outside and get further each day, but the waters have not been good for traveling outside so it will be the ICW all the way up.

The number of huge mansions and yachts along the ICW has been amazing. The marina in Palm Beach was within walking distance of Worth Avenue, where there are lots of exclusive shops and restaurants. We passed by a real estate office as we walked there and of course had to look at all the pictures of houses and condo units for sale. We saw a couple of small condo units just under a million dollars, but most were well over a million, with many of them with multi-million dollar asking prices. Several of the condo units listed the quarterly maintenance fees – they were all $4500-5000 per quarter!

Since we left Miami Beach Monday morning we have passed under 56 bridges, including 14 drawbridges that we had to request openings because they were too low for us to pass under in their closed position. That’s a lot of bridges!

We left Miami Beach this morning, headed for Ft. Lauderdale which we thought was going to be 25 nautical miles away. Unfortunately we had to backtrack to the channel where we came into Biscayne Bay on Friday and then continue west to pick up the ICW and then head north. We started up a channel to get to the ICW and obviously missed the info that we couldn’t go that way because there were more than 2 cruise ships tied up along the channel. The officer in the patrol boat who stopped us was very kind in explaining why we couldn’t go that way and then gave us directions to the channel we needed to use.

The ICW is wide in some places, narrow in others. Speed limits vary from idle no wake speeds to 35 mph ( we should be so lucky to go that fast – our optimal speed is 16-20 mph.) It’s deep around shipping channels and can be very shallow if you get outside the channel markers.

We arrived at the Bahia Mar Marina about 12:30, 4 1/2 hours to go 29 nautical miles (33 statute miles). I forgot to mention we had 5 drawbridges to contend with too! This part of the trip is slow going!

We had originally planned to finally leave Marathon last Friday and go to Key Largo. But there were no slips available there so we decided to go all the way to Miami Beach. It was an 8 hour trip, going on the outside instead of inside on the Intracoastal Waterway, with choppy water at the beginning, then fairly flat waters for many miles, and finally choppy, rolling waters for the last 10-12 miles. The last part was really uncomfortable, with several doors and drawers popping open down below. At least nothing spilled or was broken.

Saturday morning we got on a trolley (they’re free!) that we thought would take us to South Beach, but instead it took us closer to the Holocaust Memorial, so we spent an hour there, then walked back to the boat.

Today we worked on cleaning up the boat, paying bills, and relaxing. We had planned to go to a nearby Tequila restaurant and bar to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but it started raining as we were getting ready to leave and poured for the next two hours. So it was Mac and cheese and green beans for dinner on the boat.

Monday morning we got a call that our boat was ready to go back into the water later in the morning. So off to the boatyard we went, to check on the new rudder before it went in. We discovered that a special protective coating that was supposed to have been put on the props had not been done. The prop guy said to go ahead and launch and he would dive the boat the next day, remove the props, get them coated, and put back on Thursday. We had hired a captain to do a sea trial with us, because he had noticed water in the bilge when he brought the boat over to the boatyard. We wanted him to look for water coming in as we motored around for a while – water on the inside of a boat is never a good thing! He arrived and the travel lift moved our boat to the well and lowered it into the water. I must admit, it’s a bit scary to watch your home being moved and lowered into the water.

We were out for about half an hour and no sign of water coming in, so we went back to the marina and got settled into a slip. We discovered after tying up that our generator was not working – if it’s not one thing, it’s another. The guys who installed the new rudder had to work in the compartment where the generator is, so they were contacted. They came out yesterday and decided there’s a broken wire somewhere so they’ll be back Thursday to fix that. Fortunately we have shore power here but we’ll need the generator when we need to anchor out overnight as we head north.

We unloaded all the stuff that had been in the car and finally headed back to the hotel for one last night there. We celebrated finally getting the boat back in by having King of the Jungle rolls at one of our favorite restaurants.

Yesterday we got everything that we had in the hotel onto the boat and then the unpacking began. Where to put all of the “stuff”we brought back??? By this afternoon I had found places for all of it!

Last night we had dinner at Sunset Grill. The weather was perfect, the live entertainment was very good, the sunset was gorgeous.

Tomorrow we’ll get the props put back on, the generator will hopefully be fixed, we’ll do some provisioning and laundry, and return the rental car. And then it will be off to Key Largo on Friday.

After 6 1/2 weeks we made it back to Marathon last Thursday. We drove back from Indiana and knew we were getting close when we started to see more and more Ford Mustang convertibles. By the time we got to our hotel we had lost track of the number of Mustang convertibles that were on the road.

Before we finally got back to Marathon we did a lot of traveling. We had just arrived on St. John when I last posted. So I’ll try to catch up what has happened in the last few weeks.

Our time in the Virgin Islands always goes too quickly. We visited our favorite beaches on St. John, ate at several restaurants that we hadn’t tried before, and all too soon the week was coming to an end. Elizabeth and Joshua joined us the last night on St. John. We all headed to the BVI the next morning for a weeklong sailboat charter. The boat wasn’t going to be ready until 5 p.m., so we took a taxi to Cane Garden Bay on Tortola and spent the day on the beach there – not a bad way to start that week!

When we left the BVI we spent a night on St. Thomas at a small hotel way up on the side of a mountain overlooking Charlotte Amalie. The views were spectacular!

Once back in Lafayette we had a quick visit to our accountant to get our taxes filed and then less than 48 hours after we arrived, it was back to the airport for a flight back to Miami. We picked up the Kia Soul at the airport and off we went to Marathon. Our boat had been pulled out of the water while we were gone to have some work done on props, a new rudder put on, and new bottom paint. The work was still in progress, so we spent a couple of nights in a hotel, then headed back to Lafayette.

After a 3 day drive we arrived back in Lafayette- and the work began. We had 15 days to get our house ready for the movers to come in and pack the kitchen, artwork, TVs, and anything else we couldn’t get packed before then. Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time the movers came on the 15th to start packing.

We headed to Bloomington after the house closing on the 19th and had Passover with Elizabeth and Joshua and all their kids. We stayed at Dan’s so we got to see all the grandkids that weekend.

We spent 4 days driving back to Marathon, and took a route different from the route we took when we headed north. This time we were just a few miles from Woodford Reserve Distillery, which happens to be my favorite bourbon. It was lunch time so we stopped there for lunch.

We stopped in Knoxville the first night and walked to Market Square for dinner. It’s a really cool area with both sides of the street lined with restaurants, bars, and shops. And of course there were plaques and statues everywhere.

So much has happened in the last 10 days – where to begin??

We spent the first three days of March getting the boat ready to be left for 3 weeks while we went back to Indiana for a couple of days and then on to our annual spring break trip to St. John and the BVI. We were able to have dinner with friends who would be taking off before we got back as well as finish up all the perishable food in the fridge.

We drove to Miami on Monday, March 4, for a nonstop flight back to Indianapolis. The drive wasn’t bad, but getting from the rental car drop off and through the Miami airport required a LOT of walking. Once we got to the gate we thought we could sit and relax until time to board, but the airport/airline had other plans for us. They changed our gate twice in about 45 minutes! Fortunately the plane took off on time and landed on time and our checked bag didn’t get lost.

Unfortunately the next day this is what we woke up to in Lafayette.

Our time in Lafayette was brief – we made it back to our house about 6:30 Monday evening and were headed back to Indianapolis on Thursday! We were able to work in dr. appointments and dinner with good friends, as well as not only put our house back on the market, but had 4 showings in 2 days!

We spent last Thursday night at a Holiday Inn near the airport and had our usual dinner at Zydeco in Mooresville IN that night. We’ve developed a routine over the years that works for us and this year was no different. We were up at 4:30 a.m. Friday morning so we could drop the car off at Fast Park, which is conveniently located directly across from the hotel. The shuttle picks you up at your car, which we parked under covered parking(nice in the winter so you don’t come back to a snow-covered car). We were flying first class so there was only one person ahead of us for checking in with our bags – the lines for everyone else were rather long. This was the first time in a long time that our boarding passes weren’t marked TSA pre ck, and the line looked very long for regular TSA. However, it moved very quickly since no one had to take off shoes, or place quart bags with liquids, etc. in bins, and light jackets/sweaters could be left on. It was basically like pre ck for everyone. I’m not sure if the rules have changed, or if this was being done to expedite the lines because of all the IU and Purdue students on spring break. Whatever, it was nice to have it go so quickly.

The flight from Indy to Miami (yes, I know, we had just come from Miami a few days prior) was the typical plane, but the flight from Miami to St. Thomas was on a new 757 and oolalah! Several years ago we decided to apply the dollar rewards we got back from credit cards to upgrade to first class for our spring break trips – and what a treat it was for this flight! The seats adjusted in a variety of ways and could be extended so you could lay flat and it didn’t interfere with the seat behind you. There were little shelves and cup holders and brackets to hold your iPad – my only complaint was that the flight was too short.😀

The real craziness is that after just 4 showings we had an offer on our house. After counters back and forth, we were able to come to an acceptable offer and a contract was signed this morning. The closing is scheduled for April 19, so now we have to figure out a mover, storage, where to keep the boat while we go back to Lafayette to get moved, and all the other things involved in moving and selling a house. Our plan now is to finish the loop late September/early October and put the boat in winter storage in Holland MI, where we’ve kept it in the past. In the spring 2020 we’ll head clockwise back down to The Florida Keys to spend the winter down there. We’ll use Elizabeth’s address as our “dirt” address until we decide where to settle more permanently.

Yesterday we had breakfast at a little place that has been here since 1964. It was opened by a couple who had run a cafe for 14 years in Sigourney, Iowa, before coming to Marathon. Since opening, it has changed owners twice, but very little has changed in what it offers. The most amazing thing was that I was asked what I wanted for my toast – grape, strawberry, orange marmalade, or apple butter. I asked for orange marmalade and this is how it was served –

After breakfast we checked out Sunset Park. Apparently a group of people bring a boom box every night and play the 1812 Overture so it coincides with the sun’s disappearance.

Later in the day, back at our marina, Rich noticed a nurse shark in the water by one of the fishing boats. I grabbed my phone and was able to get a picture.

Today we went to Pigeon Key, a small island (just under 5 acres) which is just a couple of miles west of here. It was used as a work camp from 1908-1912 when Henry Flagler built the Overseas Railroad which connected mainland Florida to Key West. Several of the original buildings are still standing and are now used for housing school groups that come for several days. The ferry to the island docks at the fuel dock by our boat so we’ve been able to watch several groups of elementary age kids headed out and back.

The workers who stayed on Pigeon Key were involved in building the original 7 mile bridge, which was a railroad bridge.

Tonight we had dinner at a place on the water (amazing how easy it is to find a place to eat on the water when you’re on a narrow island!). The sunset was once again beautiful.

We finally got all the mechanical work finished on Saturday! Unfortunately when Crystal dove the boat on Friday she saw that our rudder is bent and we need to have our bottom painted. So now we’re trying to figure out when and where we can get that work done. It’s always something!

We tried to go to Sunset Grille Saturday night for dinner, but after being seated and waiting for 15 minutes with no one even acknowledging our presence, we left. They had a “band” playing, but I’ve heard better high school bands. They could barely play their instruments and they were constantly singing off key – add that to the fact that we seemed to be invisible and there was no way we were going to stick around.

We ended up at Castaway, which has become one of our favorite restaurants. I had seen a picture on their website of a sushi roll called the King of the Jungle roll and had tried to order it twice before, but they were out of it. Luckily for me it was available that night!

We were seated at an outside table right on a canal. Guess what was in the canal? A very large manatee!

Sunday afternoon there was a large gathering of Loopers at a nearby resort (almost 200 people, some of whom drove several hours to get there). We got to visit with several people we had traveled with earlier in the trip, had some great appetizers and drinks, and saw a great sunset. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Yesterday was laundry day. I sat by the pool while the clothes were in the washer and had a friend sit by my chair and watch me for a few minutes.

When we were in Fulton MS in October we spent several hours in the boaters lounge because of a tornado warning and a tornado touchdown less than 20 miles away. Our next marina stop after that was in Columbus MS, about 60 miles south of Fulton, where a tornado touched down this past weekend, killing one person and doing major damage to many buildings. I had never thought of that area having tornadoes. Part of doing the loop is learning about different parts of the US and realizing how little I know about some places.

Rich started noticing how many convertibles there are down here, and Mustang convertibles in particular. When we went to Key West last week he counted 31 Mustang convertibles from the 7 mile bridge to the outskirts of Key West, approximately 40 miles. We saw about the same number on the way back, and that didn’t include all the Chevy, miniCooper, etc. others that we saw!

Yesterday we had friends from another boat join us for dinner on our boat. Gail asked if she could bring something so I asked her to bring dessert. She’s a great baker (and she has an oven on her boat, something I don’t have), so I thought that would be great. She texted and asked if we liked bananas because she was thinking of making banana chocolate chip cupcakes. I said who doesn’t like bananas and chocolate – sounded delicious! Later, as we were enjoying her yummy cupcakes she mentioned that there is a superstition about having bananas on a boat. So of course we had to google it. Sure enough, especially among fishermen, it’s considered bad luck to have bananas on a boat. There are lots of theories about where this superstition originated, but apparently some fishermen won’t even allow someone on their boat if that person is using banana boat sunscreen or wearing Banana Republic clothing!

Wednesday night was a bad night for cooking, so we ordered pizza from a place that has dough flown in each day from New Jersey. The Hurricane Bar and Grille has been in Marathon longer than any other bar here and the inside looks like what you would expect from an old bar that’s been family owned and operated for decades. One side was primarily a bar, complete with pool tables and stale cigarette smoke, the family side was pretty plain, and the back patio was quite large. And the pizza and garlic knots were outstanding!

This afternoon we had our bottom cleaned – the bottom of the boat, that is.😄. A young woman in a wet suit dived the boat and scraped off all the slime and barnacles that had accumulated on the hull. She uses a hookah diving system to be able to stay under water while she does it. Her tank sat on the dock and she was connected to it with this long hose.