finally, on the water!

Donnie left early this morning to help Kenny tend to some boat
business.  I was in the boat, nursing a headache.  I finally
caved and took some migraine medicine and started surfing
through facebook.  I saw this little gem, my youngest daughter,
Ellen, holding her 10 day old nephew, Donovan.  She got
him to take a binky for the first time last night :)  I must
admit, it's a bit surreal seeing my baby holding a baby.

Our good friends, Bob and Marcia, who are pastors at Islamorada were
coming down to Marathon today and we all met at the Hurricane for lunch.
When Donnie got back from Kenny's he had about an hour to tear into
the carburetor on the dinghy motor.  It looks as if a whole new carb kit is needed.

We had a wonderful time at lunch- we always do with the Pavey's. They're "good people." We followed our lunch with some ice cream at the local shop, and then sent them on their way to Office Depot.  They were in town looking for a wireless printer and to purchase a ceiling fan for their Florida room.  The next rainy day, Mr. Fix It will make a trip up their way to install it.  It gives us a good excuse to get together again, too. For now, he needed to get back to fixing the dinghy motor....

We struck out at the first couple of places we stopped. It was
looking like we were going to have to get on the internet to
order a whole new kit, when he had the idea to stop at this
place that sells and services dinghies.  They didn't have a
carb kit for our wee little motor, BUT, he happened to
have the needle we needed to replace- it was laying on
his workbench in and amongst other washers, springs,
screws and such.  He gave it to us, no charge.  It's like
that in the boating community more often than not.  It's
just understood that we help each other out if we can, and
you simply "pay it forward."  If only the rest of the
world operated on that same principle.

Finally, four days later, we got out on the water- in the dinghy!

We only had about an hour before sunset, so
 we dinked over to Faro Blanco to have a look see.

If you are new to following the blog, Faro Blanco is a resort
and marina that was taken out by Hurricane Wilma.  It
was never rebuilt.  It has laid in ruin ever since.

We call it "Jurassic Park" for the iguanas have taken over the place.

It's kind of creepy with them slinking about on the busted up docks.

The good news is the place was finally purchased, and now
the resort area is under construction.  It is going to be a
Marriott Courtyard which is very much needed in the
middle Keys.  The bad news is these iguanas will have
to relocate when they begin construction on the new marina.

We cruised along the coastline on our way back to Banana Bay.  As we
passed Tranquility Bay Resort, we saw this guy trying to break into the beach area.
We caught him just as he went over the fence.  Lucky for him, the guard in the
watchtower was taking a smoke break.  It was kind of like watching
 a Keys version of Shawshank Redemption; only different.

Many of the lobster and crab fishermen were coming in for the day, so we
decided to pop in to Key Fisheries on the dink to see if we could see any
of the boats off-loading their daily catch.

I was shooting into the setting sun with my IPhone, and didn't have the
camera adjusted right, but if you look closely, the guy in the red shirt
is holding up two BIG "bugs"!  They were huge! Nothing like what we
 see residing under our boat.  I didn't realize they got that big in the Gulf.

In the end, I didn't get up the mast today, and we didn't track down the leak, but we did manage to have a beautiful day in paradise, with good friends, and a trip out on the water.  That, right there, is a good day, in my book.  We'll see what tomorrow brings!  G'nite, y'all!