Bahamas: Bimini - Shark!

Day 264
No Travel

Blue Water Marina in Bimini / Alice Town
Home of the Hemingway Tournament

Once again we woke early (for us) ready to start the day. I can't help but wonder what it is about the Bahamas that has me getting out of bed before 7:30 a.m. every day. Actually I think it is the humidity that makes sleeping difficult. I am finding it hard to get a good night's sleep while being "sticky". Once the sun is up it seems pointless to remain in bed awake.

We had personal business to take care of this morning while we are still in port here with WiFi. That took up the majority of the morning. The sailboat guests at the marina all planned to leave today. Since almost no one seemed to be moving in the morning, I thought they might have changed their minds. I did see one sailboat leaving early on. At first I could not tell what they were doing (coming or going), all I could see was that they were in trouble.

Clark ran over to the end of the finger dock across the way to lend a hand. Three men (Clark, Bob, and the man from Dances with Fish III) were all pushing hard on the bow of the sailboat trying to get it off the docks / pilings. While they were focused on the bow, the stern also got too close to the pilings. When the captain attempted to go forward in that position, I thought his dinghy would be ripped off the back of his boat as it protruded from the side of his boat and got caught on a piling.

Someone started yelling, "Watch your stern! Watch your stern!" and then "Stop! Stop!" The captain did stop, which helped, but then he immediately tried to go again, which only served to let the dinghy fall back into place briefly before he made a second attempt at ripping it off. The first mate (I assume his wife) ran to the back of the boat with her boat pole and managed to push the boat away from the piling so the dinghy could slip past. She saluted with her pole and yelled, "Thank you gentlemen!" as they finally sailed away.

I stayed away, back on our boat, as I did not want to get in the way or get hurt. I worried about Clark as I saw he put some muscle into pushing off that sailboat, and it is dangerous especially with an unknown captain in less-than-favorable conditions. The last thing either of us needs is a broken arm or leg due to an out-of-control sailboat we don't even own. I was relieved when the sailboat got under control and underway. As Bob walked back to his boat he checked his heart rate on his FitBit and found it way up "... and it wasn't even my boat", he said.

After all the excitement, when I walked up to use the head, I found Maryann from Aftermath who told me they were definitely leaving today as soon as she got her computer business taken care of. She also said she would not leave without a shower since it is the last one she will have until July. They plan to spend the next four months on anchor - no marinas!

Bob spends 3 to 4 hours every day swimming in the Bahama waters fishing for lobster. His son is on a sailboat down here in the Bahamas now as well, and they plan to connect on one of the islands and spend time lobster fishing together. I gather that they eat a lot of lobster dinners during the four months they are here each year.

While I was talking to Maryann, a Bahamian woman came up to me and said, "You have very pretty hair." Then she said that Clark had sent her to talk to me because she wanted to sell us a home-cooked fish dinner for supper tonight. She offered Grouper or Mahi-mahi with rice or potatoes, vegetables, and cole slaw. I asked the price which she said was $15 per meal. When I told her I wanted to discuss it with Clark, she told me that he said it was up to me, but it sounded good to him.

With Clark's supposed blessing, I decided "what the heck" and ordered two dinners. When I got back to the boat, Clark agreed he sent her over to talk to me, but he never gave an opinion on whether it was a good idea or not. Ah, well, she got her sale. I did make sure I was not getting fried food before I accepted. She said the fish would be broiled or I never would have placed the order.

We eventually had lunch and afterwards we made our way over to see Lila Blue (Linda and Larry) to compare notes on expected wind and wave action over the next few days. We hope to leave tomorrow. Linda had a much less favorable view on the travel conditions and expects to stay here in Bimini until perhaps Sunday. She pointed out to me that all the sailboats could leave even in strong winds because of the way their boats handle the wind, i.e. they are built for it.

As we talked with Linda, Larry left the boat for a while. When he came back, he said we had missed all the action. All the sailboats had departed and instead of an almost full marina, suddenly it was almost empty. Apparently the wind and current made departing a challenge though. Several boats had difficulty getting away.

Larry said that the sailboat that had been docked in the slip next to ours, Cleopatra, had a particularly bad time of it. They got pushed up against the end of the fairway and couldn't get off. Finally someone came out and towed their boat off so they could get underway. Darn! I wish I had been able to watch the show!

Shortly after that Larry kicked us off his boat saying he needed Linda to make him lunch and didn't we have somewhere else we needed to be. From someone else I might be offended, but for some reason I just found it an amusing, not-so-subtle hint. Since it was approaching 3:00, we left right after that so he could eat lunch. Given the time we had assumed they had already eaten.

Perhaps it is my inability to sleep well the past few nights, but I had the "groggies" something fierce today. Listening to Linda and Clark talk about wind speed and direction nearly knocked me out cold. Only the fear of appearing extremely rude stopped me from falling over sideways in the salon. When Larry said we should go, I was more than happy to comply.

I decided that I wanted / needed a strong dose of caffeine, which is something I never indulge in. Hot tea sounded atrocious on such a muggy day; iced tea sounded wonderful. However, I had no ice. I pulled out my ice maker and started it cranking. After about an hour of working, the ice maker had produced enough ice for me to make myself an iced drink. I kept the ice maker going all afternoon and had two tall glasses of iced tea.  The rest of the ice I bagged up and stuffed in the boat freezer for next time.

Since Clark hopes to leave here tomorrow, he suggested that we enter our route into the chart plotter so that we would be ready to go come morning. We sat on the fly bridge using his iPad that talks to his chart plotter to enter the waypoints and connect the dots to create the route to our next planned destination - the Berry Islands.

Promptly at 6:30, just as she said she would, the Bahamian woman came to our boat with our fish dinner. As she handed me the food, she said, "Oh, look at that shark!" I yelled, "Clark, Shark!" and he came running with the camera. He ran all over the docks this way and that so I thought he was unable to capture a picture. In fact he took a few, and three of them turned out reasonably well. Here's the best one:

Shark and two Pups

Unfortunately, I only saw the shark as she swam by our dock. I did not see her two pups with her until I looked through Clark's pictures for the blog. I think it is a beautiful picture.

When Clark finally came back to the boat from his photo opp, we ate our fish dinners. I ordered the grouper with mashed potatoes. She promised enough food for two days, so I considered only ordering one meal. We had plenty of potatoes and mixed vegetables for leftovers, but the fish serving was sparse - barely enough for one meal let alone two. We finished the fish portion of the meal off in no time. The food was good, but I am not convinced that I got my $30 worth. Each plate needed twice the serving size of fish to give value to the meal. No regrets however as I had a very tasty meal that I did not have to cook.

Having sat on our boat or Lila Blue for the majority of the day, I jumped up ready to go when Clark suggested we take a walk after dinner. Linda showed us all the shells she has collected and told us where we could go here in Bimini to find shells. With that in mind Clark thought we should walk the beach and do some shelling. We headed for the public beach access by CJ's Deli.

Looking down the street to the beach
back towards Queen's Highway and the marinas

CJ's Deli on right (yellow building)
CJ's Sports Bar on left (also a yellow building)
on street running parallel to the beach

Linda told me to wear shoes on the beach to avoid stepping on broken glass and garbage. The bulk of the garbage embedded in the sand appeared to be concentrated on the beach area behind CJ's Deli. The appearance of the beach changed as we walked along. Sadly the beach looks much better at a distance than it does close up.

View one of beach as seen from beach

View two of beach as seen from beach
what a difference a few steps make!

We did find some shells but mostly nothing noteworthy with one exception.

Conch Shell we found on the beach

Now if I only knew how to do Conch Shell sculptures,
I'd be all set with this beauty!

I found two small shells and a piece of green sea glass that I decided to bring back to the boat with me. Nothing else appeared to be worth the effort.

Since it was after seven when we set out on our beach walk, Clark managed to get some beautiful sunset pictures from the beach. Here are a couple of samples:

Sailboat in background, beach in foreground
Taken from Beach at Bimini / Alice Town

View of beach from CJ's Deli
in Bimini / Alice Town

Earlier in the day Clark saw a woman walking back to her boat from the pool and asked her how it was. She gave a good review of the pool and planted a seed of interest in Clark's mind. When we got back to the marina after our beach walk, we were both hot and sticky.  Clark asked me if I wanted to go for a swim before taking my shower. I thought about it briefly, laughed, and said, "Sure, why not!?"

The water felt cooler than I expected. I guess I got used to Faro Blanco's heated pool. Still it felt very refreshing (something I could not say for FB's pool). We swam for a few minutes, got our body temperatures down, and then hit the showers.

Weather permitting we hope to be in an anchorage tomorrow night. That does not bode well for a blog entry, but we shall see what happens. If we need to stay here due to winds or wave action, we will once again have WiFi.

Bahamas: Bimini - Site Seeing

Day 263
No Travel

For some reason Clark could not sleep this morning and was awake to see the sunrise. I missed it.

Sunrise in Alice Town, Bimini, Bahamas

I managed to drag myself out of bed about an hour later and headed straight for the showers. On my way back to the boat the rain storm that had been threatening to come in finally arrived. Fortunately I made it back to the boat before the heavy deluge started.

I ate my breakfast and sat reading a novel while I watched it rain, and then it suddenly hit me that we should be collecting the rain water as we had been advised and read about in preparation for our visit here. I gave Clark my small cooler to put out to collect water, and I ran to find more empty containers to use to collect the rain. Clark decided to pull out our 'rain collection' tarp that we had bought special for the Bahamas.

He tied the tarp to the railings on the fly bridge and ran tubing down to the cockpit where we had our collection buckets positioned. Once he got the system going, i.e. the water flowing, I was amazed at how well it collected the water. We kept filling up containers, and I had to get creative to find more.

Rain water being collected into our water jug

Whereas the one container we put out to collect water without using the tarp only collected one inch of water, the ones using the tarp filled to the brim rapidly. Today's water collection project served as an experiment in preparation for when we might really need to add to our water supply via rain. Here we can buy the water if we need to. In the remote anchorages of the Bahamas we may not be so lucky.

We learned that next time we need to be ready with our system as soon as we know it is going to rain. Clark got soaked through setting up the tarp in the pouring rain, and we had laundry hanging across the salon the entire day as a result. In addition, I figured out which containers work well, so I'll know what to grab next time we need them.

After the rain stopped pelting down, Clark poured most of the collected water into our water tank. We kept one to replenish our drinking water supply. When reading about the Bahamas before coming here, I saw an article about collecting water that said the water sold here often comes out of cisterns filled with rain water. Whether I drink the water I buy by the gallon or I collect rain water, it is one and the same.

As we sat on the sofa intently watching our water-collection system in operation, Clark suddenly realized that the sofa behind him had become very wet. We had a leak on the boat. It is one that we have been haunted by for years. Since he could investigate the leak as it was leaking, Clark went on the prowl to find the source of our drips.

First he took down the wooden framework holding our air conditioner vent since the water dripped from a corner of that area. After inspecting that area, he decided that the source of the leak was elsewhere, and we put that section back together. Next he took down the radio speaker mounted in the ceiling on the starboard side of the boat to look around in there. Voila!  After years of frustration he finally found the source of the leak. After rummaging around in his bins of parts and such, he came up with some putty-type substance that he used to patch the source of the leak.

When the bulk of the rain storm had passed over, Clark went off to talk to Larry and Linda on Lila Blue. Since it was already noon, I told him not to be gone too long because it was time for lunch. Two hours later he finally came back to the boat. I had given up on seeing him about five minutes after he left, so by the time he came back I had eaten long ago. I wondered how long it would take him to figure out he missed lunch. Around 2:30 he finally said, "Did you eat?" My answer, "Of course."

I fed him and by the time he finished eating it was already after 3:00. We left the boat to walk to the Bahamas Telephone Company to ask for help on our Bahamas phone setup. We did not get very far. Almost as soon as we stepped off the boat, Bob came by and started chatting. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I am in the Bahamas and things move slowly here - no sense rushing or trying to rush anyone else. Finally I had to drag Clark away saying I did not know what time the store closed.

Once again we took our lives in our hands walking the "main" street in town called interestingly enough "Queen's Highway". With traffic coming from the opposite direction than in the U.S. and with barely existent or non-existent sidewalks, walking from one location to another is challenging. I saw bicyclists, motorcyclists, and folks driving golf carts, cars and trucks plus a few (very few) pedestrians.

In fact I saw many of the same people going back and forth on the road. They were easily identified by what they were driving or what they were carrying. For example, one bicyclist went by carrying a propane tank on his handlebars. I had no trouble recognizing him when we went past me a second time.

We used the opportunity of walking to and from the phone store as a site-seeing tour.

Bahamas Telephone Co. and Store

 Of course Clark took a picture of the cell tower.

Cell tower

On the way to the phone store, we passed three stores that claimed to be food stores or groceries. We didn't need anything but thought it would be interesting to poke our heads in to see what they sold. Only the first one we came to on our way back to the boat was worth even a look. It was well stocked with a reasonable selection of goods. One store looked so disgusting we did not go in and the other seemed to sell mostly non-food products so we did not go in there either.

If we are here long enough to need something, we now know where to go for food. We also stopped into a bakery we found along the way, but the selection of sticky buns on display and the white bread on sale did not appeal to me. Perhaps they have a better selection in the morning rather than late afternoon. In our search for food sources we saw and followed signs that lead us to CJ's Deli. Once there, we discovered that they sold pre-made sandwiches only.

As we walked around town we saw a sign with an arrow pointing up a lane that read "Dolphin House Museum and Gift Shop". We decided to walk up the lane and see what they had to offer.

Lane to the Dolphin House Museum

Dolphin House Museum with
Mosaic Tile on walls and steps

Cannon at entrance to Dolphin House Museum
Made in Scotland in the mid-1700s and in use until early 1800s

For such a small museum, a room of perhaps 20' x 15' in size, the collection on display impressed me. As we walked up to the entrance a man immediately stepped out of the gift shop to lead us into the museum and tell us all about it. He introduced himself as the museum curator, the Bimini historian, and the author of two books on the history of Bimini.

He explained that the museum contained items on display and not for sale as well as a library but not a lending library. Several times he pointed out quotes on display from Ernest Hemingway. The quotes mostly appeared written on the ceiling, but some also appeared as signs hanging on the walls within the museum. One picture of Hemingway getting a haircut in town in 1937 on display at the museum seems to be quite a popular piece of Bimini history.

Besides Ernest Hemingway, the curator told us, Bimini is famous for pirates / swashbucklers / buccaneers. He showed us an old leather pirate's hat, a prized bottle that was covered in coral that he said clearly came from a pirate's shipwreck since it contained both the bottle and a piece of wood with it, and miscellaneous items like spoons and knives that came from old ships as well.

Pirate's hat and "Jolly Roger" in the background

The museum also held unusual works of art including conch shell sculptures that were gorgeous as well as coconut and shell artwork.

Four Conch Shell Sculptures

Carved-Coconut Football in Front

Curator holding a fishing rod made completely from coconuts
he demonstrated the coconut-carved reel -it worked!

Sailboat made from Coconut
Made by Curator's brother - the last of the coconut carving artists

Museum non-lending library with
Hemingway Quotes on Display

Museum with Shell Sailboat in foreground

Once again we had managed to find a "free" museum. As we left, the curator asked us to please put a dollar in the donation collection box. In response, Clark said, "I've already done better than that!" The curator appeared pleased with that answer.

As we toured the area near the museum we also saw views of the beach. Fabulous!

Having walked back to Queen's Highway as we continued our stroll, we found a building filled with vendor boutiques. Each one of these 15 or so boutiques appeared to be no bigger than a small-sized walk-in closet, but they were packed with items for sale. Mostly we saw t-shirts advertising the Bahamas, but we found key chains, souvenirs and handbags as well. I had no interest in buying any of it, however, so we left them disappointed with no sales.

As we toured around we saw evidence of Ernest Hemingway's influence on Bimini. His interest in the island and his love of big-game fishing brought others to the area to pursue fishing and helped Bimini's economy as a result. Sadly the hotel where Hemingway stayed when he visited Bimini in the thirties burned to the ground in recent years. The hotel manager died saving the life of one of the hotel's guests.

Compeat Angler Hotel where
Hemingway stayed when he visited Bimini

Famous Hemingway Haircut Picture from 1937

Having seen the sights and read the historical posters scattered around town, we decided it was time to head back to the boat. We chatted with Jamie and Christina on the sailboat Cleopatra docked next to us before boarding our boat. Shortly afterwards, Bob from Aftermath stopped by to review Bahamas charts with Clark.

Bob's tour of the Bahamas one island at a time took over two hours as he went island-by-island and anchorage-by-anchorage. Clark took copious notes on where to go, what to see, and how to get there. I am particularly interested in seeing "Gilligan's Island" which is the island shown at the beginning of the TV series. Another point of interest is one island where filming for the movie Thunderball took place.

A late dinner, dishes cleanup and working on the blog closed out a day filled with an assortment of activities.

Food for thought, a quote from Ernest Hemingway displayed in the Dolphin House Museum:

                   Every man's life ends the same way.
                   It is only the details of how he lived
                   and how he died that distinguish
                   one man from another.

Bahamas: Bimini - We arrived today

Day 262

March 29, 2016

NM Today: 62

NM Total: 3957

Well today we got to see the sunrise for a change. Our alarm went off at 7:00 at precisely the same time we got a phone call from Lila Blue saying they were pulling up anchor and heading on their way to Bimini. Clark told them we would be leaving in about a half hour, and we got busy preparing for our day of travel. At 7:30, as predicted, we had our anchor up and were on our way as well.

Sunrise at Pumpkin Key Anchorage

Once I verified that Clark had all the paraphernalia that he needed to navigate and be self-sufficient up top, I set to making breakfast for both of us to eat while underway. Last night before closing up the upper helm for the night we worked together to enter our waypoints and route for today’s travel. That certainly saved time this morning. When Clark activated the route, the navigation system calculated the travel time to be about 8 hours.

We watched the depth as we journeyed further and further out into the Atlantic Ocean. In Florida we saw max depths of 8 feet or so. That number rapidly and continuously increased. Shortly after the depth got to just over 1000 feet our depth finder gave up reporting. It was just too deep for our system to get a reading of the depth. 

Several freighters passed by us as we made way to Bimini. At one point I asked Clark what it was that I could see off in the distance. We both decided it looked like trees, so it must be an island. Not too long later Clark said, “Your island is heading straight for you.” I looked over and there was a big, old freighter passing by. I thought it was too early to find an island, but it looked nothing like a freighter in the distance, I swear!

Even though they started out before us, we passed Lila Blue rather early on because we traveled at a higher speed than they did. After we passed them, we could see them getting smaller and smaller on the horizon. With the hazy horizon, it eventually became too difficult to see them with the naked eye, yet Clark could still find them with the binoculars.

Lila Blue on hazy horizon
(see the little white dot?)

 To pass the time I did a lot of reading on my Kindle, piloted the boat while Clark took pit-stop breaks, made meals, did some crossword puzzles … Several times over the course of planning this excursion I heard Clark explaining to other boaters about his planned route to head due east to hit Bimini as if he was leaving from Miami instead of a considerable number of miles south of there at Key Largo. While we aimed due east, the Gulf Stream carried us north thus depositing us at our desired endpoint. I found Clark’s explanation of how he calculated the exact heading for our boat so that we landed in Biminii and not out at sea rather interesting and that also helped to pass some time along our cruise.

The next thing I knew Clark was telling me that we only had one hour to go to get to the marina. As we got closer and closer, the water became bluer and bluer.  Eventually Clark said, “Laaaand Hoooo!” and this time it was for real.

"Land Ho!" ... first site of Bimini

Oh my .. such blue water

At the entrance to Alice Town,  a 75-to-100 foot or so boat passed us entering the harbor. Clark pulled in behind him and followed him in knowing that our water draft is certainly less than his. 

In fact Clark did such a good job following him that he took us right past the marina we planned to stay at for the night and kept on going. Actually I think he was too busy admiring the water. At one point he exclaimed, “The water is so clear blue it is like boating in a swimming pool.” We could see the bottom very clearly.

I noticed by looking on the chart that we had passed a marina that was east of the one we needed and pointed it out to Clark. He spun the boat in 180 degrees and headed back the short distance we had overshot. He said, “Now you have had the grand tour.” I thanked him as when we leave here we will travel in the opposite direction, so I got to see some parts of Bimini from the water I would not have seen otherwise.

Having changed his mind twice about where to stay, Clark finally ended up with a reservation at Blue Water Marina in Bimini. Coming into the Bahamas, as with any country, we had to pass through Customs and Immigration. We put up our yellow quarantine flag that says the boat has not yet checked in. We must fly that flag upon entering any non-U.S. country including Canada. Once we have cleared customs, we take down the quarantine flag, continue to fly our U.S. flag, but add a small “courtesy” flag of the country we are visiting.

Only the captain can leave the boat to visit customs and immigration, so Clark took all the paperwork, e.g. passports, and headed off to walk to first one then the other of these two offices to get us all squared away for our stay here. He did not even take the time to check in at the marina before running off to take care of government business. Meanwhile I sat on the boat awaiting his return.

I planned on reading while he was gone, but when I looked over the side of the boat, it was like I was floating in an aquarium. At first I only saw some little yellow and black striped fish swimming under the docks. They were pretty, but what really surprised me was when a stingray swam on by like no one’s business. Too cool for words!

When Clark got back to the boat from customs and immigration, he immediately went up top to the VHF radio to try to contact Lila Blue. I was sitting on the ‘grand staircase’ on our boat when a man came up to me and asked, “Did you just buy this boat?” What an odd question I thought! “No”, I said, “we’ve owned it for sixteen years.” “Oh, well”, he says, “I know this boat. I kept my boat on Rumson Creek for years.” It turned out that he has known Clark for the past 20-something years, and they have talked frequently being “almost” neighbors.  He kept his boat on the dock almost directly across the creek from us! Small world!

I yelled up to Clark that he had a visitor and as soon as he leaned over the railing to see who it was, he recognized Bob from the sailboat Aftermath. After that it was hard to keep Clark focused on the business of settling in. He plugged in the power cord for the boat but forgot to flip the circuit breaker, so I had no power. I asked about WiFi and he didn’t have the information. I asked where I could find a restroom, and he didn’t know that either.

What I found truly annoying was that instead of taking care of business, even checking in at the marina, all Clark seemed to want to do was converse with Bob. Bob has been coming to the Bahamas for years and is an expert on boating here, so they did discuss important things like the weather and places to visit in the Bahamas, etc. I would just have liked to be settled in first.

I found the lack of electricity surprising and annoying since I had pulled out my cook pot to make dinner but found I had no electric to start it cooking. Looking over onto the dock, I could see the boat cord plugged into the power source, so now what. I had to go find Clark – he was on Bob’s boat talking about the weather. I dragged him back so I could get power.

Aftermath at dock in Bimini: Blue Water Marina

Perhaps it was fortuitous that I had no power with which to cook because when Clark came on board he told me that Bob and his wife, Mary Ann, were going to a local marina to get hamburgers for dinner. “Good”, I said, “Let’s join them.” That took Clark a little by surprise since he said they had not invited us to join them. Still I figured it would be fine, and of course it was.

We had dinner at the Big Game Marina. The 8 ounce burgers cost $15 each with 18% gratuity automatically added to the bill and a 7.5% Value Added Tax thrown on top. At $37 for two burgers I was glad that my burger came prepared the way I asked and was very tasty to boot. Since the menu did not mention them, it came as an unexpected bonus that the burgers came with fries.

Walking to and back from the restaurant I felt like I was taking my life in my hands. We stepped off marina property right onto the road. We had to wait for traffic to pass and then we walked practically in the street to get there. The road was barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Thank goodness the cars are small here and many folks seem to drive golf carts instead of cars. There were no sidewalks. "Is this Main Street in Alice Town?" I asked myself.

Golf Cart driving on the Main Street.
Note the side of the road being used ... like Britain!

Getting and keeping an internet connection has been painful and time-consuming tonight. As mentioned in last night's post, blogging will be sporadic based on what I can manage to find in connectivity and bandwidth.

Florida: Pumpkin Key anchorage

Day: 261

Monday 3/28/2016

NM Today: 31

NM Traveled Total: 3895

After tonight’s anchorage at Pumpkin Key near Key Largo, Florida, we are heading to the Bahamas where the fuel costs are higher, provisions will be harder to find, water use is charged by the gallon, and disposing of boat garbage can be challenging, While there we expect to be spending a lot of time at anchor. So, before leaving the marina this morning, we had a checklist of items we needed to complete:

-          Fill all water tanks to the max

-          Fill both fuel tanks to the max

-          Empty holding tank

Before leaving, Clark took the camera for a walk around the marina. He found lots of good picture opportunities.

Sea bottom as seen from the T-dock at the marina.

Houseboat on T dock with tons of decorations that Gordon, who we met last night, called "trailer trash".

 The Tiki hut where we got our gratis pot-luck dinner last night.

A stadium 

A pool (I didn't even know was at the marina)

and open-air exercise equipment (I also did not know existed).

We left the marina just after 9:00, and after several hours of travel, today’s trip east on the ICW towards Key Largo started feeling a little tedious until two dolphins decided to check us out. Both dolphins ran alongside our boat for a short distance. One disappeared and the other moved to be in front of our bow and lead us for several miles. I pictured one saying to the other, "I'll take this one, you grab the next boat that comes by."

First I drove while Clark took pictures and videos of our new dolphin friend and then we changed places. I could not believe how close he swam to the bow of the boat. I constantly wondered how we didn’t run right over the top of him. Every time he came up for air and cleared his spout, he lost a little ground and fell back towards the side of the boat. He rapidly recovered his position and lead on.

Dolphin in the lead

Me watching the dolphin off our bow

As we approached a more populated area with a restaurant / motel and a slow speed minimum wake zone, the dolphin dropped off not to be seen again.

As we fueled up at the marina this morning, we heard a boat blowing its horn repeatedly. At first I thought the captain meant to indicate his intent to leave the harbor, but when I looked closer, I saw that the boat’s name was Lila Blue. We met them a few months back. The last time we saw Larry was in December in Dunedin, Florida. I waved like crazy and yelled back to Clark to let him know who I had just seen.

Once we were underway from the marina Clark contacted Larry on the VHF radio and learned that they are also headed to Bimini in the Bahamas. After learning their jumping off destination for tonight, Clark and I did some research on the Active Captain boater’s app and decided to join them at their selected anchorage. Shortly after getting situated in the anchorage we heard thunder rumbling in the distance.

We closed up most of the full enclosure on the upper helm and moved downstairs. Given that we both felt more than ready to eat, I decided to make dinner. The storm kept threatening but held back. As we ate our dinner the rain finally arrived. Having taken a long time to arrive, the storm passed over quickly. I was surprised by how fast it moved on.  Unfortunately, it took a lovely cool breeze away with it.

In between the storm threats, the rain, and the final clearing of the skies, Clark captured some interesting sky pictures for our archives.

The folks on Lila Blue plan to leave here tomorrow morning for Bimini in the Bahamas at first light. We won’t be up that early, but we won’t be too far behind them.

Note: While in the Bahamas, blog updates may be sporadic. 

Dolphin Video for those with a supporting browser and device:

Florida: Marathon to Plantation Key - Easter Pot Luck Dinner

Day 260
March 27, 2016
NM Today: 36
NM Traveled: 3864 (4447 Statute Miles)

So, today was the day! We left Faro Blanco to continue on our Great Loop adventure.

Last look at the Faro Blanco lighthouse

Goodbye Faro Blanco Marina

We did not have too far to go though - just east a short distance to Plantation Key that is part of Islamorada, Florida.

Before leaving the marina, however, Clark wanted to try to clean some of the growth off the bottom of the boat that we have collected sitting at dock for two months without moving. Right after a quick breakfast, he donned his lightweight wet suit, grabbed a rag and a plastic scraper, and jumped in the water. The boat is 37 feet long and 15 feet wide, so that is a lot of territory to clean while holding your breath. Clark has excellent lung power but the exertion of working under the boat forces him up for air more often than he would like.

He started cleaning around 9:30. We wanted to leave the marina around 11:00. By 10:30 he still had major portions of the boat that had not yet been touched with his rag and scraper combo. About that time Brent and Deb stopped over thinking they would be waving goodbye when we pulled out at 11:00. They saw how Clark was operating and offered to provide a full-sized dive tank with a 75 foot hose, so he could breath freely underwater with the tank on the dock. Amazingly Clark accepted the offer.

Right about when they came over Clark decided that he had chosen the wrong wet suit. He was chilled and did not want to get hypothermia. I managed to help him strip off the "shorty", lightweight suit. He dried off as best he could and then attempted to don the heavyweight wet suit. Thankfully Deb helped me get him into his suit, but we were both laughing hysterically by the time we were done.

Clark managed to get his arms down the sleeves just far enough that we could see his fingers wiggle but not far enough to be able to grasp any part of his hand to pull it out. Both hands were firmly wedged down the sleeves rendering Clark completely at our mercy. Deb managed to grab two fingers of Clark's left hand while I worked on pulling up the sleeve. Pull as hard as I might, it just would not budge! I finally managed to fold the sleeve back just enough to get his hand out whereby he could grasp the boat rail. Slowly I managed to inch the material up his arm one small pull at a time.  I wish we had a video but we were too busy fighting with the wet suit to man a camera as well.

Just when all this was happening, our friends on Jammin Jane stopped by with their friend Chuck to say farewell. They were on their way to Easter brunch and wanted to be sure to see us before we left. With how much boat Clark still had to clean, it was not clear if we would still be there after they finished their brunch. We said our farewells and shared hugs just in case.

At noon Clark declared himself done even though there was more boat to clean.  He said that low tide had snuck in while he worked and he kept hitting bottom with his flippers. Between this and his scraping, the water became too murky for him to see what he was doing. Besides those reasons we needed to depart if we wanted to arrive at our next stop before dark. Time to go!

I hoped we would be leaving the dock at 12:30, but as we pulled away from Faro Blanco, I noticed that the time rapidly approaching 1:00. At least we were underway! I entered our waypoints and the chart plotter calculated our arrival time as around 5:20 p.m. The trip to the next marina was pretty uneventful though we did pass through Everglades National Park along the way.

Guard birds protecting the park boundary

Clark was focused on and less than pleased with the boat's performance today. Running at his usual RPM setting he expected to see 8 knots. He was barely managing 7.  We arrived at Plantation Key approaching 5:30 as predicted, but by the time we had the boat secured, it was already 6 o'clock. As the dock hands walked away they told Clark that we were welcome to join a pot-luck Easter dinner at the marina if we wanted, but the dinner started at 6:00. Had I known I would have prepared something. As it was, even though I was hungry, I did not feel like running around like a crazy person to throw something together instantaneously.

Clark, on the other hand, was more concerned with the boat performance than he was with food. Although he had no desire to jump back into the water to go scrubbing again, he decided he better do it just to see what could be done. So, back in the water he went with a rag and a scraper. Primarily he said he was going into the water just to look at the trim tabs to see if they were fully in the up position. They were, but then he saw places he had missed earlier and started scraping away. I was concerned because this time he only had on his Speedo bathing suit with no wet suit and no tank of air.

Surprisingly he said the water felt warmer than it had earlier. I could still see goose bumps on his arms, so he certainly could not have been all that warm. He finally quit scrubbing the boat bottom around 7:00 when he said that he was touching bottom (this time with his bare feet) and the water was becoming too murky from all his activity to continue. Instead of hosing himself off at the boat Clark grabbed his shower bag and dry clothes and took off to find a real shower.

Before leaving he asked me if I could rinse off his mask and scrapers and hose down the cockpit of the boat as it was full of dirty footprints. I told him to run get his shower and I would take care of it. The timing worked out just right as I had just finished rinsing the whole boat when he returned. I had him turn off the water for me at the spigot since he was walking right by it.

The one job I did not do was empty and refill our new 5 gallon water jugs that we bought to have extra water reserves on board the boat. Earlier in the day Clark mentioned how very heavy five gallons of water felt to move about. With that in mind, I decided that he could deal with them in the morning before we leave.

Two 5-gallon potable water jugs for our trip

Sunset is somewhere around 7:30. I decided it would be good for me to get the "lay of the land" before darkness set in, so I could find my way to the restroom, etc. We locked up the boat and walked up the docks. We could just see the sun setting as we took our walk.

Sunset view by a highly-decorated
Houseboat at Plantation Yacht Harbor Marina

When we got to the end of our dock, Clark turned right and walked over to say hello to the folks having the pot luck dinner in a giant Tiki hut. They had eaten their fill and had leftovers, so low and behold, the folks we stopped to say hello to suggested we join them and take our fill of whatever was left.

I said I had nothing to offer to the meal, but they pretty much insisted. One person went off to find us paper plates while another went to get us plastic utensils. Talk about Southern hospitality! We ate chicken legs, lasagna, mixed vegetables, shrimp paella, au gratin potatoes, and chocolate cake for dessert. None of the food had retained any of its heat, so it was a cold meal but a very tasty one. We were both hungry and ready to chow down!

The folks we spent the most time talking too were Gordon and Jane from Lady J. Also with them were Sarah and Chuck from a small sailboat in the marina. Their dog Freddy took an instant liking to Clark which they said was completely out of character for him. Apparently Freddy is normally quite standoffish. Clark and I both thought that perhaps what Freddy really liked was the smell of chicken on Clark's fingers.

Gordon was very talkative. He had a lot to say about loopers as his home is on Kentucky Lake. When I asked if he was "on the loop", he said, "No, I live on the loop". He watches the loopers go buy his house every autumn. He brought his current boat, a 1975 Chris Craft,  to Islamorada two years ago from Cincinnati and so has done a portion of the loop himself with his brother who came with him to help him move the boat.

He did talk quite a bit about a couple he met on that trip that called him and his brother "The boys". They considered him to be young at 70-something years old. The older couple's boat was a 55 foot Selene  which "the boys" rafted with a few times as they traveled the western rivers together. Gordon said, "it was my two million dollar mooring ball at least four times!"

By 9:30 it was full on dark, and I still had not seen the "facilities". I told Clark that we should get going, and he said, "Oh, but I never got dessert" and off he ran to see what he could find. He came back with a piece of chocolate cake which he said was so good, he went back for a second piece. Chocolate? Clark? Really??!! Will wonders never cease! He said it tasted like an iced brownie.

I had two small pieces of chocolate from the broken-up Easter bunny as my dessert.  I did not try the cake. Some folks said it was way too sweet which put me off. I indulged in the Easter chocolate instead.  Mmmmmm! Sadly I expect to pay for my indulgence later.

I finally managed to drag Clark away by standing up and hovering over the table. It still took at least another 15 minutes for him to take the giant hint that I really, really wanted to leave. He walked with me over to the restrooms. When we walked back, he pointed me in the general direction of the boat and left me to join the folks at the table once again. Some very long time later he finally showed up back at the boat, and he says he is not the social one. Hah! Tell me another story!

During the course of the day I received some wonderful pictures of my beautiful granddaughters.

Sierra Rose - age 2
At brunch in her Easter outfit

Lillian Martha - age 1 month