2026 January: Florida Keys Celtic Festival Day 1

Found an old friend at the Celtic Festival
We met last year!

10 January 2026

The Celtic Festival opened today at 10:00 a.m. Ev had volunteered to be backup if needed at the Pub Tent and was told to arrive around 11:00 when help may be needed. When we arrived, however, Ev was told that the booth was fully staffed and operational without additional help needed, so we took a stroll around the grounds to check out the vendors and activities.

Although the weather was questionable, a reasonable crowd had already gathered for the festivities.

Tent of spectators ready for the music to begin

Police Pipe and Drum getting ready to perform

We walked by the Pub Tent and saw it was up and running!

Pub Tent

Since we now had  plenty of time to explore the grounds, we walked over to see the "kiddy" area and strolled the aisles of the vendors booths.

Bouncy Houses galore

Petting Zoo / Pony Rides

Several booths had heritage data dependent on the various clans represented. The woman shown below is part of the Johnstone clan. The map she is standing beside shows Scotland partitioned by clan.

Proud Scottish Heritage

The Tea Tent was  busy. I waved to my church friend Connie as I walked by, she was busy selling tickets at the door.

Entrance to Iona Tea Garden
offering Tea, Scones, & Sandwiches

Throughout the day, competitive games and demonstrations took place.  The athletes are all women.

Getting ready to compete

How high can she throw the lead weight

Swinging to gain momentum

Up it goes!

Masters World Champion
multiple years!

Sheep dogs were present as well as their sheep though we did not watch them do their duty.

Just hanging around waiting to be
chased around the field

Besides the Pub Tent that we helped with, a number of food vendors participated in the event. Ev bought some Kettle Corn and checked out the ice cream maker at the same booth.

Besides the ponies and the sheep, we encountered some other animals today either as part of the event or just visiting.

From last year, I believe that the owl is unable to fly. S/he has no issues whatsoever with folks coming in close to say hello.

Coming into the park we met a young lady with a ferret. She graciously posed to show off her pet.

Pet Ferret

While listening to one of the musical performances, the fellow below poked his nose out from the seats in front of us to check out the audience. The person next to me was eating popcorn, and I think the dog's nose was twitching as he watched her eat.

Beautiful Pup

An amateur art contest "Art in the Park" was held as part of the event, and Clark and I voted. The one I voted for did not win, but the one Clark chose did! Clark referred to it as the "one of the swamp".

Mangroves picture took 1st place

Pineapple came in 2nd

Baby turtles heading out to sea
3rd place

At noon they held the opening ceremonies (even though the doors opened at 10:00). Musical groups and athletes walked / played instruments in the parade. It was led by our very own Pastor Deb as this festival is her "baby".

Pastor Deb and driver Kathy

Pastor Deb's husband, Kirk, 
with Clark
(Clark was not in the parade)

Bagpipers

Pole toss athletes

The big draw for this event is the musical groups playing lively tunes and the Irish Dancers kicking up their heels (quite literally).

Drake Irish Dancers

It was good they had a covered stage as it started to rain as the dancers took the stage.

We both like "The Screaming Orphans". We even bought one of their CDs today.

The Sean Heely Band, that came here from Virginia to perform, played lively music and had a dancer with them.

Sean Heely Band

The "Police Pipe and Drum" group performed several times.

The woman of the "Police Pipe and Drum" group that played a drum was fascinating to watch as she spun the "drumsticks" in the air. The "drumsticks" were padded balls that she waved over her head in between beats. 

 Amazing Woman drummer

Around 1:00 we walked back across the street to our marina to get some lunch. Generally speaking, festival food is not to our taste. It was nice to take a bit of a break to regroup. When the clouds and rain moved out of the way, the sun was hot. We found a non-rainy patch of time where we could walk back to the boat and not get wet. 

The marina was deserted. Perhaps most of the people including the staff were at the festival. Instead of boaters, we found an egret enjoying the peace and quiet of the marina.

A kite surfer was taking advantage of the nice water conditions.

We stopped into the Club House to use the facilities on the way back to the boat. I snuck a peak at the difficult puzzle to see what progress had been made since New Year's Day. Surprise! Done! Hopefully the next one we work on won't be quite so obnoxious.

Sadly we found a big patch of old sea grass had come to rest behind our boat, so we grabbed boat poles and gave it the old heave ho out of our backyard! Friends that walked by joked about us having to "cut the grass" in the Keys.

As we sat down on the boat to eat lunch, I got a call from Nancy to ask if I could come work at the Pub. She thought we were  still somewhere in the park. When she found out we were on the boat, she said she would hunt someone else down to help as her need was immediate.

Later, she asked if we would both work the Pub at 5:00 as she had no one working that last shift of the day until 7:00 p.m. All her workers were leaving at 5. So, just before 5:00, we showed up to find out our duties. I got hot dog and pretzel duty and Clark got to be cashier.

Nancy foreground
Clark at front taking orders and money
Woman in the middle mixing Vodka drinks

Watching my pretzels be heated

Hot dogs on the left; chili on the right
Hot dog anyone?

Vodka being added to the Pub menu was new this year. Next to the pub, the vodka company, Mutiny, offered samples to taste and then sent anyone wanting a mixed drink to the pub. Folks were lined up all day for the mixed drinks including, for example, Bloody Mary and Celtic Lemonade. Mutiny did not have a liquor license to sell the product themselves. They gave the vodka to the festival as a donation to raise money (and it worked)!

The last performance of the day was by "Albannach". They give a lively performance that most folks find mesmerizing. Ev enjoys their upbeat music and Clark wants to be as far away from the percussion as he can get. Sadly for him and good for her, the pub is very near the stage!

"Albannach" with a
Didgeridoo

Clark did not believe me when I said the group sounded Australian, but Google says "the didgeridoo is an ancient Aboriginal Australian wind instrument". 

In between fishing hot dogs out of the pot and burning my fingers on the pretzel oven, I looked up to notice the amazingly beautiful sunset over the park and ran out to capture the scene before it was gone forever!

Sunset at the Celtic Festival

We are to report back for duty tomorrow. Church services in the park at 9:30 (Clark has to be there at 8:45 to prepare with the band), perhaps pub duty during the day (tdb), and tear down of everything, tents etc., Sunday after the event closes at 5:00. Rain or shine it all has to be cleared out by end of day tomorrow.

2026 January: MTOA

 6 January 2026

Today started out as a typical Tuesday. Clark went to guitar practice. Unlike most Tuesdays, no art classes were held at the library as the instructor went to Canada to visit her mother for the holiday season. After spending the morning on the boat, I went up to float in the pool for a couple of hours before getting ready to go out this evening to our first "southern-most" MTOA (Marine Trawlers Owners Assoc) meeting of the year.

Clark and I headed over to the City Park for 5:00 via bicycle. Due to heavy and dangerous traffic on Route 1, we have to go west a couple of blocks to get to a traffic light to cross over and come back east. The park is directly across Route 1 from Marlin Bay, but trying to cross the street at the park takes longer than going out of our way. 

When we arrived, we found a reasonable crowd of folks already present. One other couple came to the gathering from Marlin Bay. The majority came from the Skip Jack and Sombrero marinas on the south side of Marathon. Folks brought a variety of food from croissant sandwiches to hors d'oeuvres to dessert.

MTOA at City Park in Marathon

We noticed a new addition to the covered pavilion at the park. Someone decided to put in a mini library. The crates are standard crates and have the typical open, honeycomb style design. Nice idea, but we wondered how well the books at the top level stay dry in the rain as they appear to be somewhat open to the elements. 

The sandwiches offered for dinner at the event were made with ham. As Clark is allergic to pork, we decided not to partake of that menu item. As we left the park, I suggested we go get pizza so I could avoid cooking. We went west to the traffic light, crossed over Route 1, and pedaled to the Upper Crust Pizza place. 

When we got there, Clark said he did not want to eat there and we should go to Coast to Coast pizza instead. That's near Publix and about a mile further along. Given the choice of biking a mile to pizza or going back to the boat to cook, I opted for the bike ride!

Had we thought about it beforehand, we could have avoided taking the long way and crossing Route 1 twice. Coast to Coast is on the same side of Route 1 as the park where we attended the MTOA meeting. It would have been considerably shorter to go north from the park to the restaurant instead of the route we did take. The pizza, however, was worth the extra distance.

St Columba church's big event of the year is coming up this weekend and the next few days will be spent preparing the grounds for the Celtic Festival and then working at the festival. As a reward for the hard work done, volunteers like us get to go to the festival for free. Every year the event seems to get bigger and, hopefully, better. More vendors are participating this year than before. 

7 January 2026

Today Ev did boat chore including laundry and grocery shopping. My friend from church, Nancy, picked me up in her car so I could stock up! Clark on the other hand went to the city park to start work on the festival. His assigned job this year, as he did last year, was to build the castle entryways. An example result of his efforts is shown below. There are two entrances with castle entryways.

8 January 2026

Clark and I headed over to the park after breakfast to help setup the fairgrounds. We helped unload the truck and then put up a couple of tents. The majority of our day, however, was spent working with Nancy to construct the Pub Tent. 

Volunteers taking a water / food break

Banners started to appear on the fences

Tents slowly started going up

Beginning of the Pub Tent

Starting to come together

Looking much better

After putting up the tent, we tied it down with lines connected to buckets filled with water (It was a tad windy and the buckets did their job quite well.) Then, we built / assembled the bar made of PVC pipe with a plywood table top and front panel and decorated it with "The Nessy Pub" sign. Next we constructed a framework for advertising the offerings at this booth. It was a full day's work to get everything assembled and arranged. 

After all the hard work, we biked "home" and collapsed on the sofa. Thankfully I had leftovers in the fridge to avoid more work!