2021: Winter in Marathon

1 February 2021
No boat travel.

Winter arrived in Marathon today. We did miscellaneous chores around the boat and eventually took a walk around the marina. We had wind gusting to 30 mph and temperatures dropping throughout the day. The overnight temperatures promised to be in the low 60s. Brrr!

2 February 2021 - Groundhog Day

Today was a lazy day as are most days unless something breaks on the boat which happens all too often. Since I have not seen the "Groundhog Day" movie in years, I had my heart set on watching it today. I checked Netflix - nope. I checked Amazon Videos - yes for $2.99 rental. Then I figured one of the television stations must be showing it so I searched the listings and found amc showing it continuously throughout the day. I just had to pick my time! Success!

5 February 2021

Winter appears to be over here in Marathon. The wind shifted to be coming from a southerly direction and brought warmer, more humid weather with it. We ditched the long pants and jackets and went back to shorts and t-shirts. 

We have been trying unsuccessfully to get appointments for covid vaccines at Publix. Wednesday, we were up once again at 5:45 and watching our screens diligently as the available slots in our county dropped from 230 to 0 without any success grabbing one of them. After our county ran out of slots, then I got a screen that told me I could make an appointment. Rather than let it go, I called over to our neighbor who has a car and is willing to travel. She came over and grabbed a slot for herself "off island". 

After the excitement of helping her get a slot was over, Clark and I crawled back into bed. We are not morning people and getting up before 6:00 is a real hardship for us. Luckily, Publix decided to give us old folks a break and start today's lottery at 7:00. That is much more civilized though it still screws up my sleep. I did not go back to bed, but I did stretch out on the couch and laid there like a slug for a good long time. 

Clark on the other hand grabbed  a pole from the cockpit and went out to "rake" the sea grass. We have to take advantage of the southerly winds when they appear. The grass was so thick from the strong northerlies over the past days that we had dead fish lying on top of it. I could just imagine the smell from that if left to rot any longer. I was thankful that Clark had the energy to go out and "rake".

During the day, I got an invite from long-time boating friends to come to Blackfin Marina for docktails tonight. Clark decided that we should take the dinghy. He got it down and setup much earlier than I would have expected, but then he said he planned to take it for a run and asked if I wanted to come along. I got my stuff and climbed in. After we got away from the marina, he said I should drive to become more comfortable with the controls. Surprise! (I hate surprises!)

We managed to trade places (not easy), and I took the helm. I took the boat forward, reverse, and in a circle. I even brought it back into the marina and pulled it up next to Sunset Delight so we could disembark. I told Clark that I should probably do this more often. The last time I tried to drive the dinghy we had high wind and current with the dinghy facing the wrong way at the dock for departure and another dock nearby. It was a situation where I needed to be aggressive, but I was afraid to be aggressive because I would run into a dock if I tried. My little exercise today hardly helped prepare me for another such encounter.

Since Clark moved some of the grass out of the way early this morning, it created room for some of the sea grass stuck under the dock to work its way out. So, after our dinghy ride, I climbed back into the dinghy with a pole and dragged more of the sea grass away from the boats and the dock and pushed it on its way south!

Around 4:30 we climbed back into the dinghy and went to visit our friends at Blackfin.

When we arrived, we found a pelican guarding the entrance to the marina although he did look to be sleeping on the job! 

We ignored the sign that said registered guests only and motored on in.

Our friend said we could tie up in the slip next to  his, but then we got shooed away from that spot because just as we arrived, a boat was coming in for the night and that was their assigned slip. We pulled over to one side to watch them dock and then tied up to the dock next to them.

After we got tied up, we walked down to the "Sandy Point" where the marina has tables and chairs. Slowly more and more people joined the group. Clark and I sat to one side and upwind from the crowd where we felt safer. We did not know most of the other folks, who were also loopers, so we exchanged boat cards. We had met the folks on "Adagio" on our trip north last year, but only over the VHF radio. We had never talked face-to-face before.

Blackfin's Sandy Point is a great place to get good sunset pictures, so we added a couple to our collection! Clark said we needed to leave before the sun went down then he disappeared. When I looked around, I could not find him because he had climbed up on something to get his sunset picture.

We made it back to Faro Blanco at twilight. Unbeknownst to us, Wendy saw us returning and took several pictures of us as we made our way back into the marina.

6 February 2021

Maintenance Run on Boat - 1:05 to 2:15; ~ 7nm

Clark likes to get the big boat out for a maintenance run every week, so today was the day. I thought I heard him getting things ready for departure and was surprised to find him sitting on his pilot house sofa. Turns out he planned to wait until after 2:00 due to expected rain. Since we only take an hour to go out and back, I suggested we "do it now".

When we left the dock, the sun had just appeared and the temps were comfortable. As we motored out into the bay, we could feel a cool breeze - almost cold but not quite. Clark warned that when we turned around we would be into the wind, and it would be colder. I grabbed a heavy shirt for him and a jacket for me to be prepared. Sure enough we turned around and the jackets came on. It threatened to rain. We had whitecaps on the water, and if Clark accelerated, we got salt spray over the bow. The wind gauge showed an apparent wind of 30 kts. I was loving it!

We had to watch carefully for traps on the return trip. With the whitecaps and the wave action, the traps appear and disappear rapidly. My ability to spot traps is much better than Clark's. I call out when I see them. Often times it is hard for Clark to find them even after I have identified one. For example, 

E: "Trap ahead - slightly to starboard"

C: "Where? I don't see it."

E: "Up ahead about 2 boat lengths!"

C: (After spotting trap) That's more than 2 boat lengths!"

E: "I never said what length boat!"

C: "Boo! Hiss!"

We picked the exact right or exact wrong time to go out depending on your point of view. I loved the ride. When we got back to the dock, we immediately stripped off our jackets - the docks were protected from the wind.  Shortly thereafter, the front was entirely gone and we had dead still air.

Pictures of clouds moving on out!

Sunset at Faro Blanco

Yesterday, when I went to close the cabinet doors for the television, a small piece of wood jumped out at me. Clark and I puzzled over where it came from, and after much speculation, we figured out it stopped the doors from closing too far. Once that was determined, we had to figure out how to put it back in place.

TV cabinet with sliding doors

Clark started the repair by unscrewing a piece of wood over the television that is held in place with 3 screws. The small chip of wood that fell out was attached to this board. Clark used some Elmer's-type glue to glue the door stop back on. 

It seems nothing is ever easy on this boat, and when Clark went to reinstall the board, he dropped something and then announced that we would have to take the television out of the cabinet to get the job done. To do that, we had to remove everything from the food cabinet that sits behind the television since that cabinet contains the access panel to the back of the tv. 

Having had the television out somewhat recently, we knew how to go about its removal. It is just awkward and time-consuming. We thought we were done, but when Clark closed the doors. They did not close all the way. He decided that the wood needed to be filed down. Perhaps the gluing made it hang lower than before? 

After he filed for a while with little to no success, I asked if he was sure that the glue was the issue. He thought about it and decided that he needed to try tightening the screws on the long board one more time. With that, the doors closed! Yay!  We managed somewhere around 1:00 a.m. or so to declare the job done, so we could finally retire to bed. 

7 February 2021 - Super bowl Sunday

I did next to nothing today. I found an historic novel about Ireland in the early 1900s and could not put it down. I sat out on the cockpit and read most of the day. At 5:00 Clark said he was going to docktails, so I climbed off the boat and went to talk to folks for a few minutes. Probably from spending all day reading, I found I had a headache and did not stay long at docktails. While there, I watched the folks on "Morning Star II" hang a screen off the side of their boat, so folks could watch the big game together outdoors. 

Clark and I watched the game in the salon in our boat. Tom Brady is the GOAT, but I would sure like to see someone else win the Super Bowl for a change. I hoped the commercials would be more interesting than they were. 

8 February 2021

I realized yesterday, late in the day, that I had no more milk on board. I had just enough for breakfast today and then nada! Given that and a couple of other things I needed, I texted my friend Sandy, and she said she would take me to the grocery store. It is so very hard to ride a bike carrying a pizza.

Before we left, I ran over to the marina office in the lighthouse to inquire about a package that I should have received on the first of the month.  The staff here are good about bringing packages to the boats when they arrive, so I was concerned I had not gotten this one. Actually, I did not expect it until a few days from now, but looking through my Amazon orders, there it was saying delivered Feb 1st. 

When I inquired at the lighthouse, I was told that all packages had been handed out. But when I said, it should have arrived a week ago, he looked in an unclaimed-packages box and came out with two possibilities. One was clearly not the right size. The other was a maybe. He shook it and I said, "It sure sounds like it should be mine. I ordered vitamins, and it sounded like vitamins!" Given that, he agreed to open the package. Sure enough, it was mine. Apparently, the company that fulfilled the order for Amazon stripped off the second line of the address where I listed my name and boat name.  

Later in the day, after lunch, I decided to work on the Blog updates. Before that, I looked outside and saw that more seagrass had snuck out from under the dock to our south. It was starting to clump and hangout by the boat as opposed to moving along out to the bay. I grabbed my boat-hook "rake" and gave it a helping hand on its way north.

Last of the seagrass from our slip