Party #3, Lucky, then the bad news...

Woke up today to another gorgeous day in paradise...however the wind is still crankin'.  No beach today.  That's okay, time for some serious deep cleaning and stowing to make room for guests :)  Our dive buddy, Dean, is flying in from Wyoming tomorrow morning.  We met on a Blackbeard's sailing/scuba trip to Bimini twelve years ago, and we've been friends ever since.  It'll be great to see him again, and Donnie will have a dive buddy to go huntin' and spearin' out in the deep blue.  Did a grocery run, did a Walgreen's run, too, and stocked up on hooch.  After all the boat projects, cleaning, and polishing, we were ready for a party at Bryan and Polly's.  He was making 'green' margaritas, with his solar powered blender, and Polly made her world famous pizzas.  They were every bit as good as Edie's world famous burgers on the beach yesterday.
There's no point in trying to diet around here...


Tah-dah!  Tika Da Hut is officially open for business :)



Here's Kenny and Fran, only Kenny says you can't see him 'cause he's
  hidden in his camo snuggie!  It was a chilly breeze by sundown.

Okay, so these next two pictures deserve the back story.  Last year, when Donnie was down here taking his diesel engine maintenance class for eight weeks, he spent alot of time with Bryan and Polly, and Kenny and Fran and their various visitors from Hatteras and beyond.  Bryan was growing an orange tree, and was babying that thing daily, spraying it for bugs, checking for buds and so on.  Donnie, being the ornery boy that he is that never grew up, thought it would be funny it torment Bryan and his orange tree.  He found a scrawny, pitiful broken beaked, broken legged flamingo that had had seen finer days in someone's yard.  In a word, he found this treasure dumpster diving....(I guess its all the craze here in the Keys.  You know the saying, one man's junk is another man's treasure.)  So, for a joke, he stuck this flamingo, with her broken beak like she was leaning in to Bryan's tree stealing his precious oranges.  You can see where this whole thing is going.  It has taken on a life of its own.  Let me tell you, the girl gets around.  And she does, for a fact, look as if she has been rode hard and put away wet, if you know what I mean.  Well she got passed around last season, and reappeared this year, to welcome us to Banana Bay.  If you remember, she was dressed out in her Mardi Gras beads and shot glass ready for a Welcome Party.


Lucky is so ugly, I guess she's cute, in her own faded pink sort of way.

 So we inherited this bird for the first several weeks of our stay here at Banana Bay.  Her role was to watch over the herb garden and to keep the bugs away.  However, not wanting to get accused of bringing down the value of this fine neighborhood, we thought it only appropriate that she relocate.  So one day, while Kenny and Co. were out on a fishing trip,  she decided to join the pelican's upon his return, to cash in on the catch of the day.  She was waiting patiently by Kenny's fish cleaning station with a sign around her neck that read, "Got Fish?" (unfortunately, the photo evidence of this escapade was destroyed to eliminate any finger pointing and blaming.)  Well, not too very long after that, she reappeard back on our dock, spreading her valentine love (and any other vd's) to us.


Lucky finally cleaned up a bit, she had on eye
liner, valentine's bloomers, a Tshirt professing
her love, red beads, on a trike (not a clown bike)
bearing gifts of chocolate kisses.  What a gal!

 While I was back up north, there was a going away party for Dan and Sheralee who were going home to IL.  It seems Lucky turned up there with a 'spring break or bust' sign around her neck.  It wasn't clear whether she had been taken hostage or not, as she was 'chained' to the side of Dan's van. 

If I am not mistaken, she was donning a fur lined g-string in
her attempts to hitch a ride north.  Crazy woman, she has spent
way too much time with the locals at the Brass Monkey.

Well, it seems that in my absence, she was kidnapped and is now being held for ransom.  The disappearance occurred while I was gone, and Donnie and the boys took Marquesa on a four day sailing trip to the Dry Tortugas.  A ransom note was nailed to our dock when the boys returned from the high seas.

Well, this has all become very serious business, as we now have a bird being held against her will that is desperately in need of her thyroid medication, among other things. (It seems she lost her tutu on a night of carousing in Key West, too.  Either that, or Dan took it from her in a fit of jealous rage).  So,  this brings me to tonight's pizza party.  Polly announces that early in the morning, just after dawn, she hears a big thud downstairs and sends Bryan down to investigate.  A rock had been thrown onto their property by the kidnappers this a ransom note wrapped around it.


Fran had our rapt attention as she read us the details of the ransom note.



The 'photo' bore a strinking resemblance to Lucky, busted beak, broken legs and all...

Well, not to be outsmarted, I attempted to put my sleuthing skills to work.  After all, I didn't get a BA (not BS, for all you wisecrackers out there) degree in Criminal Justice nearly 30 years ago for nothing!!!  Upon closer inspection of the said note, there most certainly were some clues as to her whereabouts.  I carefully read the two conditions that must be met to insure her safe return. Now, I'm not quite sure who the 'little people' are (as there are no small children or midgets in the neighborhood), but there was a reference made to 'shruburbia'.  If you also will note at the bottom of the page, where the date and location of the 'pick up' is to take place, the 'pa' to pagoda is in capital letters.  The Sherlock Holmes in me deduced that the bird, at one point, had been hidden in some shrubbery at Pap's place.  I made a quick jog across the street to Mamaw's and Papaw's, and discovered a bit of the red garland that had been used to tie her up to Dan's van.  It was at the base of a bush (shrub) along the canal in Pap's backyard.  Unfortunately, there the trail went cold.  So, it seems that Cap'n Donnie must secure a green derby hat, and hop on his clown bike to pedal, pedal, pedal to Key Colony Beach on March the 17th, which coincidentally is St. Patrick's Day.  I feel a celebration party in the making, once Lucky is safely returned to Cap'n.  So, now it seems we must pedal all over the Keys (perhaps to Daffy Doug's, my favorite dollar store!) in search of a green derby hat so that the transaction is completed in accordance to the demands of the kidnappers :)   THAT, my friends, is the saga of Lucky, in all her glory.  Just another day in paradise!!!

Now for the bad news....remember early on in this adventure I shared with you a common phrase amongst the boating community?  B-O-A-T stands for Break Out Another Thousand.  Well, after our maragarita and pizza party, we had to make a run up to Islamorada to pick up our sails.  I failed to mention earlier that on the trip home from the Dry Tortugas, in an effort to point a little higher to get the most of the wind, our mainsail blew out- torn in half.  The jib sail suffered a small tear as well.  The choice was either a $500 repair job (the sailmaker's estimate) or $2500 for a new mainsail.  Seeings how we have yet been able to slow the bleeding artery of our checkbook since this adventure began, we opted for the repair.  We had to have our sails back before company comes, afterall!  I nearly had to slip Donnie a nitroglycerin tablet...$893.00, to repair both sails.  So much for that $500 estimate. And there's no guarantee they'll last two days, two months, or two years.  Cap'n has been given strict orders by the First Mate to baby these puppies as they must last us closer to the two year mark!  For those of you who are a bit math impaired like myself, that is not nearly $1000.00, so we actually came out money ahead, right?  Wrong.  By the time we stopped at the dive shop to purchase replacement hoses and mouthpieces for our dive regs, and Cap'n had to purchace a new pole spear, we now have spent our $1000 bucks for the day.  It's only money. It's part of the joy of boat ownership, I'm really not complaining...**it happens.  I'm still living in paradise, watching the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico, from the bow of Marquesa, nearly every night.  Who am I to complain, seriously?!