Red sky

A couple of firsts for me this week. I have seen the red sky at morning, but never in the evening. The old  adage: "red sky at night sailors delight; red sky in the morning sailors take warning."  was true at least that evening.

The next first for me was getting a picture of dolphins. I have seen lots of them, and even a few wild ones doing tricks for free. I have tried a couple times to get a picture but dolphins have their fun quickly and move on. This pod of 4 alerted us with heavy breathing right on our stern. They went to the end of the bay and I was ready for their return.

 

Lost at sea

OK, the title is a bit misleading. A more appropriate title could be "Adrift in the moorings". Some child's teddy bear jumped ship or maybe was forced to walk the plank. In any event our dinghy was stowed for the night and I declined relenqushing my slothful ways to rescue the remains of an inanimate object.

Not to be confused with last week's Marathon Christmas boat parade - last night was the mooring field dinghy Christmas parade.

A few boat bucks

Tuesday we made the 10 minute trip to the Marathon Boatyard. Five hours and 18 boat bucks later (for you landlubbers a boat buck is the smallest denomination for sailors and is equivilant to $100 in US currency) we pulled out with 2 new house batteries, a new generator battery, and both diesels gone over and maintained as needed.

 Leaving the boat yard required 200 yards down a very narrow canal. Just as we were about to enter the canal a big 55-60 foot cabin cruiser entered from the oppisite side. With a few choice oaths I got as far over as possible and told De Anne to tell the other captain to hurry up. The boatyard workers gathered in a hurry and yelled to me that he was coming in under one engine. I held back on noting that I always had one engine and concentrated on not hitting any boats on my right as he passed inches away on my left. One boat had a sailing dinghy side tied and our fenders tangled with it. De Anne leter told me that the condition of the sailing dinghy was rough and it would be hard to prove anything aganist us. We went out into the Atlantic (Ok, only about one mile) opened it up and checked everything was working fine. 

 The mooring folks have been collecting money for bikes for under-privileged kids. Some of the results:

Christmas boat parade

Saturday night fun without leaving the boat. The annual Christmas boat parade.

Even after all the excitement De Anne still had energy for a Sunday morning kayak ride. Note the neighboring boat and the "creative" way it has been enclosed for extra living space. Third world plywood and tarpaper construction right here in the USA.

Turn on the heat

 This morning was cold - 58 degrees. I got up at 6:30, cranked up the diesel generator, and turned on the heater for the first time ever. It started out blowing cold air, but in a couple minutes it was warm air and within 5 minutes the boat was warming up enough for De Anne to peek out from under the heavy blanket.

Larry asked me in an email if his boat sign (Enchantress) was still up by the Tiki hut. 

Island Sunday

Sunday in Boot Key harbor. Plans must be made for the day during breakfast. Discussion and refinements ended with a plan satisfactory to all crew. I took the dinghy ashore with the water can and trash, plus shower bags. De Anne kayaked to Sombrero Beach while I rode the bike around to meet up with her.

 Sombrero Beach meets Sister Creek:

We reunited at the marina after showers and went to The Fisheries for lunch of Conch Po boy and coconut shrimp:

Thanks to Donna on a boat of the same name for this picture:

Settling in for winter

The weather has turned cold with a strong north wind. In the Florida keys that is not so bad. Sixty at night and seventy during the day. 

 There are 200 boats in the mooring field with lots of dinghies going by. It seems like once a day someone slows down too comment on how beautiful our boat is. 

 Sunset over Boot Key harbor:

The cruiser's lounge decorated for Christmas: