Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Prepping Passage

Our day started early on Saturday, March 19th, when we caught the 9:33 a.m. bus to the Big Pine Key Flea Market.


One never knows what treasures one will discover in such a place.  We scored a number of items including four original Sham-Wows for soaking up water, mirrors to see overtaking boats on the ICW, and other goodies too numerous to mention.



When we left the flea market, we discovered that a Radio Shack was hidden on a side street within walking distance.  This good fortune enabled us to replace our recently departed 350 watt inverter. The bus ride back to Marathon was uneventful.

After showering in the marina, we headed over to Dockside for one last happy hour with Tom and Doris and John and Marcia.


Dockside was much more organized; and we had great service, good food and good entertainment.




I thought the ladies looked especially fetching on this warm Florida Keys evening.


Of course, we men were, well, we were looking good too!


As you can see, even Lee the cook was sad to see us leaving the harbor soon and stopped to say goodbye.  After much beer and scotch, we said farewell to our friends, who we hope to see on the trip north.

Sunday morning Tom and Doris on "Our Time" left pretty early.



After a pretty heavy social week, we decided to take it easy and spent most of Sunday on the boat.  We did discover that Lucy has a strong desire to sample cherry turnovers.



Sue valiantly defended her pastry, and Lucy ultimately resigned herself to feeding from her cat food bowl.

Monday the 21st was filled with errands and shopping as we supplied our catamaran for her voyage north.  We walked about three miles in the morning, the last one heavily laden with groceries.  After lunch we snagged a marina shopping cart.  Tossing a twenty pound propane tank into it, we hiked to Home Depot, exchanged the tank and hiked back.  Projects and installations were then completed, leaving only the boat bottom on our to do list.

Tuesday morning after we said goodbye on the morning web on VHF Channel 68, Mike the diver stopped to clean the bottom.



The job took him almost two hours, but we have no slime or barnacles.  Passage will now sail at her designed speed unhindered by the forest she once sported.  As I write this, Sue is finishing up the laundry; and we will eat out one last time in Marathon.  Tomorrow we will leave at the crack of dawn and work up the keys towards our next destination, Fort Lauderdale. 

1 comment:

  1. Safe Travels!! Hope that we see you as we are heading north.
    Lorraine and Phil

    ReplyDelete