Sailing to the Dry Tortugas

We've got a good weather window for the next five days, winds out of the north/northeast (we'll be sailing south/southwest) at 10-15 knots.  Perfect sailing, hopefully the in-laws will fair well this trip.  Since we are casting off tomorrow, we had lots of projects to do today...

We opened up the aft berth, to fill the additional water
tanks.  We are now carrying 100 gallons.  That should
do us for 4-5 days.  Willis has to "help" any time we
open up a hatch...such a big help.

Donnie used Dave's workshop here at Banana Bay to build a screen
panel for the companionway.  It works great; to help keep the
critters out, and to keep a Willis in!  It fit perfectly and is made of teak.

I spent the day cleaning, grocery shopping, meal planning, provisioning,
paying bills, mailing letters, cleaning 'house', stowing stuff for travelling
and so on...got the bed all made up for Mamaw and Paps.  They are
staying on the boat tonight, as we have a 5:30am cast off.

We had a special evening planned for our farewell dinner.  I bought
some Tbone steaks, and we had six lobster tails, that the boys
threw on the grill.  It was surf and turf tonight!

Danny was in charge of the grill- look out!

While Danny cooked, Donnie charted our course.

Isn't Danny's bride, Biddi, looking lovely?

The occasion was to also celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary :)

What a feast!

Not much of a sunset this evening, looks like weather in Key West.
Hope it all passes through before we head that way tomorrow! 

So, Mamaw and Paps have just arrived to get all moved in and settled.  We're casting off at 5:30am. Just so y'all know, we will be out of communication for the next several days.  I will have no internet, and will lose my cell once we are more than five miles offshore.  I'll be taking lots of pictures and will fill y'all in when we
get back to Banana Bay.  Here's to fair winds and following seas for both us, and Dan and Biddi, as we go our separate ways...for now.  Happy 44th Anniversay, you two!

Thar she blows!

The day began with Donnie tearing into Bessie again.  Nothing major,
just tightening up the fan belt and tending to the small leak on one
of the fuel injectors.  He also lined the engine compartment with the
disposable oil pads to catch any leaks. He doesn't think there is any,
and hopefully, this will just confirm it.  I left to do laundry.



Willis thought he was being helpful while I put laundry up..such a sassafras.



With chores out of the way, we invited Mac & Jean over for a swim and a
game of dominoes.  They were frolicking in the pool...Donnie was
calling them "Jughead and Peahead."



Not too far into our game, a storm blew up from the west...had to go
batten down the hatches and throw out another stern line.



Thar she blows!  The wind was a steady 35 knots.



In all the commotion, Willis assumed the storm position-
he covered his eyes.

After the storm blew through, which mostly brought wind and very
little rain, we opted to go to the Hurricane for dinner.  Willis was
invited, but he declined; he claimed he was so very, very tired.

Dan especially loves Taco Tuesday at the Hurricane, afterall, it's
only his eighteenth Tuesday in a row :)  Dan and Biddi will be
celebrating 44 years of marriage on 4/8, isn't that awesome?!

yep, we love taco Tuesday, too!

So yesterday was a no news kind of day, and today I got two good "news-es".  The first one is that we have a weather window, so Thursday we are casting off for the Dry Tortugas.  We plan to go diving and hiking at Fort Jefferson.  Hopefully, we can troll for some fish along the way.  More good news- Mac and Jean are going with us- we talked 'em into it!  That should be a riot, having the in-laws on an extended ocean sail!  I can just see Paps now, he'll have a life jacket wrapped around every limb on his body!  Either that, or he and Willis will be hanging their heads in the head together getting seasick...I surely hope not.

And there's even MORE good news!  Emily is flying down in fifteen days to come stay on the boat with us over the Easter holiday.  She'll get to experience boat living and beach life up close and personal.  I've been trying to tell her that we don't live like hobos!  I can't wait to show her all around the island. 

So, what started out as a ho-hum sort of day certainly ended on several positive notes!!!  Tomorrow I get to plan and provision the boat for a five day trip...my favorite OCD thing to do...plan and organize :)))

Just a do nothing day

No big news of any sort to report...not that we have much in the way of news anyhow :)  We are definitely on "island time" down here.  Donnie did spend the better part of the day chasing down an electrical issue.  The house fans were no longer working.  They kept tripping the breaker.  This started after he cleaned the bilges yesterday, which he was spraying them down with a garden hose...a loose wire or wet wires somewhere?  Paps took us to run some errands, then stayed to help Donnie with the electrical issue.  This left me sequestered on the Vberth again, as the whole 'house' was torn up, floor boards and all.  It was my job to say if the fans in our berth came on our not...I failed.  I fell asleep for about two hours.  I guess I am on island time, too.  The good news is the fans are all working properly. Score one for Mr. Fix It yet again. :)After his project, Donnie and Danny escaped to the pool.  In reality, this meant they were sneaking away for some hotwings during happy hour.  Boys! 
    The rest of the evening was spent with our good friends, Dan & Biddi, eating snacks and watching the final game of the NCAA.  It was a HUGE disappointment, as neither team played very well.  I have never seen so many missed shots in all of my life; and UConn wasn't giving up anything in the paint for the Bulldogs.  It was a terrible final game...frustrating, for certain. Ugh....time to just cash it in and call it a day.

Clearly, Willis is on "island time" too; all day, every day.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

After breakfast, Steve and Suzie were on their way back to catch the bus to take them to Key West, to take the ferry back to Ft. Myers.  There was fuel on top of the water in our side of the marina, and we were prpaying it wasn't coming from us.  Donnie fired up Bessie, and she squirting a drop of fuel from one of her injectors, but not enough to make that kind of mess.  Since Dan's boat was recently filled, he was afraid it was coming from him.  Both guys checked their bilges, then cleaned and hosed them out good...it didn't appear to be coming from either of us.  Another boat, maybe?  You don't want to be leaking fuel.  Not only is it bad for the environment, but its far too costly these days to be dumping out the bottom of your boat!

I was stuck up on the Vberth during this project, as
Donnie had all the cushions and floorboards up to
get to the bilge.  There was some nasty sludge
coming out of there- yuck.

Paps took Biddi and I to get groceries...that's three times I've been in the last week.  After all the company, I think all the holds are finely restocked- at least for the time being.  I cleaned up the boat this afternoon, because with any boat project you tear into, it creates about 10 more projects and messes in the process.  After everything got put back together, the fans aren't working.  Screw it, that's for tomorrow's list.

Dan and Biddi invited us to take a dinghy ride in their boat over to Porky's for some BBQ.  We took their dinghy as it's a bit larger and has a 15 horse motor, unlike our 2 horse slightly-faster-than-the-speed-of-smell
dink.  It was a beautiful evening for a boat ride.  The BBQ and sweet potato fries were to die for :)

Can you decipher the sign on the men's restroom?

This was taken as we were leaving...note that we are all dry and full of smiles.

What I don't have are the "after" pictures.  While we were eating, the wind had picked up and the waves had kicked up, and we were beating straight into it.  Biddi and I started out by hiding under a beach towel, but that was soon abandoned.  The waves were like a wall of water coming over the boat.  Remember the opening scene of Gilligan's Island, where the Skipper and Gilligan were getting smacked in the face by waves?  "The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed..."  Yep, that was the four of us. There wasn't a dry spot to be found on us anywhere, nor did Dan have a bailing bucket on board!  Donnie stuck his finger in the hole of a coolie cup, and bailed for all it was worth.  The gas can was even floating, we were carrying so much water.  He'd bail a cup or two, then throw a cup or two on Danny as he drove.  At least the water was warm :) We all had a good laugh over it, but we looked like drowned rats by the time we got back to Banana Bay.

After we enjoyed a beautiful sunset, we all headed to the hot tub
to get the salt off of us.  Just another day in paradise.

FOUND IT!!!

We started out this morning after breakfast with a ride to Sombrero Beach.  We pedal, pedal, pedaled our clown bikes, and Steve and Suzie pedal, pedal, pedaled on Dan & Biddi's bikes.  They are such great, and gracious, neighbors. We're sure going to miss them when they take off for parts unknown this next week.

So we get to the beach, (dead into the wind most of the way, I must add), and Steve and Suzie proceed to explain to us this whole geo-caching thing.  She has a handheld one, that looks much like a cell phone.  It really is a walking GPS, that you can punch in the city you are in.  From there, it will show the nearest hidden geo-caches.  As you get closer, you can request "hints" which can provide clues as to their whereabouts.  It seems this has been going on for over ten years, and there are over a million geo-caches hidden worldwide.  Wouldn't this be great fun to take with you wherever you travel?!  Cheap entertainment, I say!  It adds a whole new meaning to "taking a hike" :)  This might be exercise I could really enjoy.

Any individual can hide a geo-cache, but you must personally maintain it.  If it is on public property, then you must get permission, of course.  When you find one, it will be a hidden container of some sort, as small as a 35mm film canister, to a tupperware container, to a military metal box and such.  At the very least, inside you will find a log, where you record your name and the date you found it.  If it is a larger container, it will likely contain trinkets, or even money, going to the first person who can locate it.  But the "rule" is, if you take something from the box, you are to leave something else in its place.  You can go to geocaching.com to register for free.  On your "account" you can then record the geo-caches you have found, or you can register a new one, if you decide to place one somewhere yourself.  As a side note, if you do not own one of these geo-cache gadgets (which are sold at Target, Amazon, Radio Shack, etc.), you can get the coordinates for locations from the website, and plug them into your own GPS, if you have one in your car, then just set it to pedestrian mode.  If you have an IPhone or a Droid, you can download a geo-caching app and simply use your phone to go hunting.

Like facebooking, or any other technical gadgetry, it also comes with it's own 'language'.  Which brings me to this morning's trek to Sombrero Beach.  Steve and Suzie were explaining, that if you find one, you must be on the 'down low' about it...acting very sly, if you will.  It seems that "mugglers" are people who may notice what you are up to, who see you find one, and then they get curious themselves.  They may steal trinkets, or perhaps just let you do all the looking for them, and 'take credit' in the logbook as if they found it all on their own.  There also is the risk of someone mistakenly throwing it away, thinking the container was nothing more than trash....NO!  It's a TREASURE!!!  One man's trash, really IS another man's treasure...and here I thought this had to do with rummage sales and auctions :)  The world is ever changing; it's hard to keep up!

So, as good students, we listen raptly to this lesson of mugglers, and set out for the hunt.. Soon Suzie's geo-cache thingy is beeping at us, which means we are within 20 feet of its location.  We are walking near the playground, looking around bushes, light poles, streetsigns and planters.  Not 30 seconds after our lesson of the mugglers,  Donnie yells, "I FOUND IT!!!"  So much for subltety...so much for being sly... is it any wonder that he got in so much trouble in school as a child?!  And I thought he just doesn't listen to ME...it was hysterical, though.  Bless his heart...

Suzie is putting back the container to it's "secret" location.

Since Donnie FOUND IT!  We let him open up the container, which was like a small round Rubbermaid container in a ziplock baggie.  It really did have a treasure!  Inside was a Swiss Army knife keychain.  Donnie decided to take it, and in exhange, he left a pirate coin good for a free beer at Shipwrecks restaurant.  There was another geo-cache hidden about 500 feet away, so we set off on the next adventure.  I found the next one, hidden up under a guardrail.  It had trinkets and such, but we just signed the logbook.  That's four of them now, that we have discovered here in Marathon.  There are supposedly three more hidden along/around the seven mile bridge, too.  I know what I want for my birthday this year, hint-hint, wink-wink! Honey, are you listening this time?!  Did you catch that?!

We took a walk on the beach afterwards.  Donnie and Suzie found
treasures of the ocean variety, hermit crabs hiding in seashells!



...and the boys had to play at the playground :)

We all then pedal, pedal, pedalled to Dave and Diane's house.  I stopped to check on the furry beast who is presently staying at Mamaw and Pap's house, since Suzie is allergic to Willises.  He wouldn't even come out from under their guest bed to say hello.  I guess he must still be mad at me for the grounding.  Boy, can teenagers ever hold a grudge.  We also stopped to check on the progress at Bryan and Polly's house painting project.  It's going to be a robin's egg blue. The 'front' of the house facing the canal is already done, and I love the color- it's very Keys-ey.  We then invited Dave & Diane, Mac & Jean, and Dan & Biddi to join us at the Hurricane for a five dollar lunch.  There were 10 of us all telling tall tales and it was alot of fun.  You can't beat a five dollar lunch; it was delicious.  Especially since I wasn't cooking :)


After lunch, Steve and Suzie took the dink out to go fishing.

I pedal, pedal, pedalled back to Publix for more groceries.  I had a crash
landing when I returned.  The case of water toppled me over.

It was a hot one today, so we had Mamaw and Paps come over for
a swim and a game of dominoes.  I finally won...poor Paps tried to go
out backwards. He had over 500 points :(

At 5:00pm, it was on to more serious business.  We had planned a cookout the night before.  Biddi and I pitched in chicken breasts that were marinated in italian dressing.  Max and Mandi brought some delicious potatoes, I brought a dozen ears of corn, and Steve and Suzie brought a chocolate cream cake.  It was the best meal ever!  And it was a perfect start to watching the NCAA tonight.

We didn't get to see the sun set on the horizon, but it was beautiful just the same.

Here the gang was cheering the Butler Bulldogs to a decided victory
over VCU!  Final game two years in a row...maybe this year?!!!

In spite of Biddi having everything crossed, the
Kentucky Wildcats lost by one point.  We felt so
bad for them...we wanted a Midwest final game.
They're such good sports, they're still planning
a party for Monday's final game :)

 

Sailing!

Despite the weather report of a 60% chance of rain, we
decided to throw off the docklines and go for a sail.  It
was a poppin' good sail in 20 kts. of wind. We had to
put one reef in the main, and roll out about two thirds
of the jib sail.  Three waterspouts were seen within 10
miles of us while we were out. Thankfully, we missed them.

It was Steve and Suzie's first time on a sailboat. The clouds were looking
suspect on the Gulfside.  As we were getting ready to cross under the seven
mile bridge though, two pairs of dolphins with babies swam up close to us.  The
one juvenile jumped completely out of the water! Too bad I didn't get
a picture of it though, I wasn't quick enough on the trigger!

Marquesa was hummin' right along, at nearly 8 knots!
Wait a minute, Cap'n, who's driving this boat?!
(It was Agnes.)

As we were sailing, I happened to look down.  Do you see what I see?!
One of Willis' quarters!  He must have stuffed his pockets before Paps
came and picked him up for the weekend.  He probably thought he
could pull a fast one on the old folks and sneak out of their condo to
head back to the KittyKaty GoGo Lounge, or worse yet, the Brass Monkey!

The waves were really kicked up on the Atlantic side today, so a trip to
the reef was out of the question.  Instead, we turned into Sister's Creek,
past Burdine's through Boot Key Harbor (which is now half-empty)
and we anchored up in the creek.  After lunch aboard, we hopped in
the dinghy to take them through the mangroves, and to do a
little geo-cacheing, to see if we could find any treasures.

We picked up a signal here, but couldn't find anything anywhere.  I wasn't
about to get out of the dinghy...too many spiders and crabs!

Stevie, did you find it?  Wait a minute, what are
you really doing???

We didn't find any geo-caches, but we did find some of nature's
treasures...this was a pretty good sized blue crab scrambling by.

...and the purple coral that attached itself to a mangrove root was really pretty.

...and the sunset was beautiful as always.

After dinner at Burdine's, Steve & Suzie were 'properly' introduced to
Dan and Biddi.  We came dragging our tails home at nearly midnite...
so you can well imagine how our evening was.  Before anyone got to
into their cups we managed to plan a pre-game cookout tomorrow
afternoon before the ball games begin at 6pm.  Go KY!!! Go Butler!!!
Heading to the beach tomorrow...G'night all.  Another gorgeous day in paradise :)

another cowboy in a speedo!

We got off to a late start today....boat life as caused us to become rather lazy!  By the time we really got moving, it was after 9:30am, and I didn't feel like fixing breakfast.  We invited Dan & Biddi to join us, since they are leaving soon, and we went to the Conch Cafe.  It was tasty...but breakfast is my favorite meal of the day anyhow :)  Afterwards, I pedal, pedal, pedaled my clown bike to the post office.  I mailed a second box of winter clothes home.  Since it is in the upper 80's in the day, nearly 80% humidity, and still nearly 80 overnight, it is safe to say that we no longer need our long underwear and jeans!  There is weather moving in tonight and tomorrow, maybe it will cool down a bit?!  One can only hope. 

After I pedal, pedal, pedaled my clown bike to the post office, I then pedal, pedal, pedaled my clown bike to the grocery store.  Donnie stayed behind to tend to some boat projects.  There's always a boat project or two, or five, or ten, that needs attention.  I could have used his basket to help carry groceries, because once again, I had $80 worth in about 10 sacks that I had to pedal, pedal, pedal my clown bike back to the boat...in a driving headwind no less.  I couldn't even coast as I would nearly stop and topple over!  Since we had a late breakfast, we snacked around a bit, and read our books under the shade of our palm tree this afternoon while we waited for our company to arrive.  Steve and Suzie, friends of ours that worked with Donnie at GM, were taking the ferry from Ft. Myers to Key West, then the bus from Key West to here today.

And this is how Steve walked up to our boat slip!
You are not mistaken, that would be a tshirt tucked in
his speedo, with his cowboy boots on, oh my Lord!!!
(I'm calling him Cousin Eddie from now on)

We had cocktails, showed them around Banana Bay, swam in the pool and had half price chicken wings during happy hour.  They then decided to go return to the scene of the crime yesterday, to do some snorkeling, while I stayed back and made up kebobs to throw on the grill for dinner tonight.  



I watched a beautiful sunset with Dan & Biddi, such that it was.  There
were low laying clouds again tonight, so we didn't see it sink on
the horizon- no green flash.  It looked like a watercolor painting.
We definitely have weather moving in tonight or tomorrow.



Yep, they came in on the dinghy at nearly hard dark... no lights on,
of course.  My husband just likes living on the edge.  I'm starting to
think he takes more after Mamaw who views most rules as just mere suggestions!

 After our late dinner, Suzie had a hankerin' for a key lime pie dipped in chocolate and frozen on a stick, so we set out for a walk. The place had already closed, so we ended up with frosties from Wendy's...then the fun began.  She introduced me to geo-cacheing.  OMG, it's so much fun!  I have to get one of these!  If you remember, we stumbled upon one by accident when we went in the dinghy to the mangroves with Marc and Wendy back in February.  I didn't quite understand the concept at the time.  Steve bought Suzie one of these geo-caching GPS's for her birthday, which looks about the size of a cell phone. 

We found the first one hidden in some rocks right outside of Banana
 Bay, near the dive shop next door...I was instantly hooked!

The next one was a half mile away hidden in some shrubs under a
coconut!  The coconut was screwed to a lid that had been covered
by coconut husks, and under that was this military box full of
trinkets and goodies.   I got a Tshirt for Donnie!!!

I can't wait to go tomorrow...we looked up some more in the area.  There are several hidden down near Sombrero Beach, and a couple out in the mangroves.  Weather permitting, tomorrow we'll sail to the Atlantic side, towing the dinghy.  We'll anchor up in Whiskey River, then take off in the dinghy for the mangroves and the beach looking for more!  I gathered up some goodies from the boat to leave behind in the ones we find.  I'm so excited!

Right now, everyone has turned in for the night (it's 1:15am afterall).  I am watching the lightning through the hatch of our Vberth, the rain is coming down steadily on the deck, and the boat is really rocking in our slip...as in rocking me to sleep..G'night all!

the dinghy