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| Egret on Patrol! |
6 March 2026
As Clark prepared to take a bike ride to refill our propane tank, we had a surprise greeting us when we stepped off the boat. A man was rowing a plastic dock past the end of our boat on the far side of the rocks along the outside edge of the dock.
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| Row, row, row your dock!? |
As he came to shallow rocks, he stood and dragged the dock over to the inside of the rock wall.
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| Time to stand up and move to other side of the rocks |
Once past the rocks, he continued (hand propelled) north towards the far end of the dock.
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| Walking the floating dock towards the end of the dock |
I thought as I watched, "Hey! I know that guy!" It was Tony, who works at Marlin Bay. He shows up in all sorts of interesting situations. The water pipe at the end of the dock was in need of repair, and he was doing setup before the repair crew arrived.
A while later the truck showed up with the folks needed to fix the pipe! Water was shut off to our dock for less than an hour starting at 11:00.
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| "Gary's Plumbing and Fire" Here to fix the leak |
The manatee that has been coming here regularly for a free drink of fresh water will be very sad now that the pipe is fixed. The other day, when I was at Keys Fisheries taking pictures, I grabbed a couple of pictures of a momma Manatee and her baby. (I neglected to post these pictures when I posted that blog update.)
So, after the excitement of Tony "rowing" by, Clark set up the bike and wagon to take the propane tank for a refill. Fortunately, the tank ran out of propane just as I completed cooking dinner the other night as opposed to in the middle of cooking, which is what more normally occurs.
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| Fold up bike and collapsible wagon |
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| Propane tank to be refilled |
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| Some assembly required |
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| ...and there he goes! |
He said the fill up went very quickly. A man at the shop said, "I bet I know why you're here!", grabbed the tank, and went to work filling it immediately. Clark was back at the boat very quickly as the place is not too far from the marina.
Later, as I walked up to the marina Club House, I found an egret patrolling the inner basin. He appeared to be checking each boat as he strutted by. Clark says he was looking for his next loop boat.
Besides the egret, I noticed another noteworthy bird. I am always impressed by how graceful the pelicans are given their awkward-looking size.
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| Pelican soaring overhead |
Today's big event at Marlin Bay was the renaming ceremony for Salty Paw. Many people believe that it is bad luck to rename a boat without paying homage to Poseidon / King Neptune and the wind gods. Boaters in the marina were invited to participate in this ritual. Food adorned a table
and champagne or beer was made available for toasting at the big event. Since I get congested if I drink any form of wine, I opted for a Mexican beer that I actually liked very much.
The big show started at 3:00, and many boaters pulled themselves out of the pool or off their boats to come observe / participate!
The "Salty Paw" himself greeted the guests. His name is Duke, and he was very happy to have so many visitors. His tail was wagging wildly as he greeted me to his affair. Unfortunately, he looked everywhere but at my camera lens!
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| Duke! |
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| "I'm not looking!" |
As the moderator announced the steps of the ritual, the owner of the boat, Larry, gave offerings of wine / champagne to the king of the ocean.
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| Loudly proclaiming the required procedures |
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| Larry with Champagne in hand |
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| Larry offering champagne to the gods from the bow |
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| from the stern |
The tribute had to be offered to the north, south, east and west wind gods -- first to purge the old name from the boat and then to bless the new name.
Wind gods ...
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| South wind god |
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| north wind god |
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| east wind god |
Per Google: Eurus is one of the four main directional wind gods, along with his brothers Boreas (north), Notus (south), and Zephyrus (west).
When the tributes were completed, the new name was revealed.
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| Owners Melanie & Larry on the newly named "Salty Paw" |
Even the dinghy has a new name!
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| "Pup Cup" |
7 March 2026
Maintenance Run to Test and Calibrate the Autopilot
Depart: Marlin Bay Marina 1:15
Arrive: Marlin Bay Marina 3:30
Distance: 11 nm
We started today with a quick run to the St. Columba farmers' market and Publix to grab some tomatoes and Killer Dave bagels to keep Clark well fed. Then it was back to the boat to get to work.
Yesterday morning, in between all the other activities at the marina, Clark and I worked on final installation of the new autopilot hydraulic pump hoses securing them to the lazarette beams with clips and wire ties. A fellow boater had offered to assist Clark, but I knew from experience that I would make a better "go for" than anyone else, so I told Clark to decline the offer. Five minutes into the operation, I knew I made the right decision. Items Clark needed were scattered in a variety of places on the boat. Fortunately, I knew where to look; someone else would have no idea.
With the autopilot installation completed, we ate lunch and went out afterwards to do the autopilot check and calibration. We have experienced the windiest winter in Marathon that we have ever seen in the 10 years we have been coming here. Given that we ended up taking the boat out in 15 knot winds for our trial run. This looked to be about as good as we could expect.
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| Leaving Marlin Bay behind us |
First, we needed to make sure the new unit could keep us going in a straight line and then make adjustments to headings as called upon and follow a track. Once we knew that it could accomplish these tasks, we walked through the calibration steps, so the unit could learn the compass and GPS data.
Clark said we needed a place away from shoals and fish traps to do our work. We found a spot between John Sawyer Shoal and Faro Blanco Marina to do our testing.
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| Faro Blanco Lighthouse on horizon |
We had to drive the boat in a straight line for a set period of time, and for one step, we had to drive the boat in a circle for at least two minutes at no more than 2 knots speed. When we were all done with our operations, the track on the chart looked like the mess shown below!
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| The black line is our travels for the afternoon |
The results probably would have been more accurate if we had calm seas and less wind. However, we had both strong wind and strong current both in the same direction. Given those conditions, Clark was satisfied with our efforts and results, and we headed back into the marina. He's hopeful that he won't have to hand steer all the way back home for hours, especially in 4 and 5 foot following seas as he had to do on the way down.
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| Back towards Marlin Bay |
Our friendly dockhand, Steve, greeted us at our dock to assist with lines and the power cable. Once we get ourselves secured to the dock, we fidget with the lines to get them setup as best we can to fight the winds while allowing me to get on / off the boat safely.
As we checked our lines, we noticed that the stern lines were woven into a crisscrossed pattern. Given the push and pull on the stern of the boat, this arrangement had to be redone to avoid the lines chafing each other. Two lines had to be disconnected, unwoven, and then retied. Clark was on the dock, and I was on the boat.
For the long white line going across the stern, we could not agree on how to unthread the line. Clark told me I was, "Topologically challenged!" He could see clearly what needed to be done, but to me, it looked like the lines would become tangled if I did what he said.
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| Ta da! |
He became so frustrated with me during this exercise that all I could do was laugh hysterically. He was absolutely correct in his directions of how the line had to be unwoven. Usually I am the frustrated one when I can't get him to listen to me. I enjoyed his frustration immensely! I told him he should be happy I wasn't screaming at him (my norm), and he agreed laughing was better.
We were done with our autopilot chore early enough to relax before tonight's big Full (Blood) Moon celebration held every month on the Saturday closest to the full moon. This month we celebrated the "Blood Moon".
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| Sangia?? no Sangria! |
Clark knew tonight's band was a good one, and we were not disappointed!
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| Clark and Dan |
We had a great turn out of folks. The bar was crowded.
As I understand it, one of the guys here decided that a bunch of them needed matching "Banana Shirts". The guys who had them were told to wear them tonight. There is a story behind the banana shirts, but I am not privy to it. Clark is not part of the banana shirt gang. Although Jonathan has a banana shirt, he did not attend tonight's festivities and is not in the picture.
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| Lou, Jim, Ed, Del, Brian |
Clark noticed that the dance floor was empty. Looking around he noticed a lot of toes tapping and hands moving in the air, but no one was jumping up to dance. He decided to rectify that situation and came to find me (at the bar) to pull me onto the dance floor to get the action going. It worked!
The dance floor went from empty to packed in rather short order. It started with Clark and me. Then another boater, Marcella, found a female partner to join her to dance since her husband refused to budge. Pretty soon we had the dance floor packed full of folks.
After showing off our hustle expertise (or lack thereof as we are way out of practice), we sat down to rest for a bit. Shortly after, my friend Jean pulled me back onto the dance floor. Melissa, noticing Clark by himself, beckoned him to follow her to the dance floor. As we danced, Brian handed out handheld percussion instruments (miniature-sized tambourines, maracas, etc. ) to dancers to play along with the band. The marina handed out light sticks that the dancers and kids liked to swing around.
It was a fun night. The band played until 9:00. Even after the band finished playing, folks hung around chatting which was amazing considering we were going to lose an hour of sleep from the change to DST.
The marina looks very nice at night so I grabbed a couple of night pictures.
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| Club House at night |
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| Pool and Pool Bar |
8 March 2026
Today, once again being Sunday, it was time for church. As we rode our bicycles away from our dock, I caught sight of "Keezy" watching us go.
Every time I see this dog, it brings a big smile to my face. He always appears to be smiling at the world around him with his fur hanging crazily over his eyes!
Our friends from Michigan, Jim and JoAnn, joined us for the church service today. JoAnn has not been in Marathon for a couple of years. She said she was impressed with the size of the band and how much they had improved.
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| John - keyboard Vicki - harmonies Clark - Guitar Steve - Banjo (not shown) Tom - lead & guitar Nancy - fiddle / mandolin (not shown) Jacob - drums (not shown) |
Words to songs are displayed to the congregation. I have been working with Nancy to give feedback for improvements as required. I suggested it would be good to know when the band would play but no words would be sung. Given that, she added a new slide today (shown below).
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| I love the banjo on the chart! |
After church, Jim and JoAnn came back to the marina with us for lunch as we had a play to go to later in the afternoon.
Clark was the instigator to make this outing happen. Clark made arrangements with our friend Nancy from the church to pick a date, and we invited Jim and JoAnn to attend with us since we knew they would be in town.
We first saw this play years ago at our son Jeff's high school. Clark liked a song from the play called "Somewhere That's Green" that he first heard in Jeff's elementary school student varieties show where he was the sound guy. All the references in the song reminded him of growing up in the 60s. A talented student named Ellen Munn performed the song from the show and her act is preserved in the link above along with several other acts.
At the last minute, Steve got called into work, so we had a spare seat, and so Pastor Deb from St. Columba joined us for the show. As we entered the theatre, we found little plants scattered around.
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| at the entrance / ticket area |
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| table settings in the lounge area |
The play was very well done. The set design was amazing. Several versions of the talking plant occupied the stage as the plant grew in size. It progressed from a hand puppet to a human-sized structure with a person inside operating it.
Clark took a few additional pictures during the performance.
Mary, whom we know from the church, played more rolls than we could count. Her major role was that of the mean boyfriend / dentist.
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| Mary revealing her identity as a dentist who loved to inflict pain on his patients |
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| Audrey and Seymour |
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| Backup singers (very talented) Mary (again) as a salesman with Seymour |
Curtain call pictures ...
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| Mary (again) redhead in background |
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| The puppeteers smallest talking plant and next size up |
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| The whole crew! |
After the play ended, Steve joined the rest of us (without Pastor Deb who had a long drive home) for dinner at the Marathon Ale House. The waitress was rushed off her feet, so Clark took a group photo without him in it!
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| Nancy, Steve, Ev, Jim, & JoAnn |
9 March 2026
This morning I decided that I needed to color my hair. While I did that, Clark disappeared for a few hours to go work on batteries with Dan on DanCyn. After lunch we got picked up by Jim and JoAnn to go out for music and drinks at Dockside to listen to "Johnny Live" sing there.
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| Johnny Live at Dockside |
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| Jim and JoAnn |
Shortly after we were seated, I heard John say, "Evelyn's here!" I looked up to see why my name was being called and saw Vicki from church over near John, so I waved to her and she joined us. She sings with Clark in the church band, and they had a lot of fun talking a language of music together that (of those of us at the table) only they could understand.
Since they both are in the band with John at church, they decided to give him requests. Clark gave him a request (written on a napkin) that said it was from Vicki - Beatles' "Yellow Submarine". Then later, Vicki wrote a request on a napkin that said it was from Clark - Carpenters' "Close to You". Johnny announced that they were "Playing with him" and wanted him to sing "Close to you on a Yellow Submarine". He did not perform either song! Vicki said, "I feel like I'm in 7th grade with this nonsense!" Clark, of course, loved it!
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| Clark and Vicki |
Dockside is right on the water, and we had a good view as we sat at a table closest to the water's edge.
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| Floating (and sunken) boats |
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| Island Girls party boat passing by |
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| Pelican swimming nearby |
Besides the pelican swimming around, we saw lots of fish in the crystal clear water including a needlefish that I did not capture a picture of.
John's show ran from 3:00 until 6:00. Afterwards, Jim dropped us off back at the marina where Clark could take care of sorting music for church and I could work on an overdue Blog update.
We walked past the sunset folks as we made our way back to our boat. With sunset an hour later today than it was on Saturday, I did not feel like standing around waiting for it to set. It was 7:20 and I had yet to make dinner, so we walked straight back to the boat.
However, I am pretty sure it would look something like the one below had I stuck around to watch.
