2026 March: Disco Night at Marlin Bay

 

28 March 2026 - Saturday

Today, the "No Kings" protest took place across the USA and the world. Members of the church we attend planned to be at the rally as well as some boaters from our marina. I decided that I would attend as well. The permit given by the town provided a very precise time slot and location -- 11:00 to 1:00 in front of Winn Dixie.

I had made plans to meet up with church folks at 11:00 at Winn Dixie. Some boaters said they would join me at 10:30 for the bike ride there. I was on my bike in the Marlin Bay parking lot waiting for them when I got a text to say they would be driving instead of biking. Given that, I took off on my own to go to the event.

I got to the spot of the planned protest with 20 minutes to spare, so I decided to go shop at Walgreens. Then, with more time remaining before 11:00, I bought some food at Publix. At 10:58 I contacted my church friend to find out where she was parked. I biked over to her and put my bike in her trunk for safe keeping. She had several protest signs, and I arbitrarily selected one that was anti-ICE violence. 

Some folks strayed over to the median with their signs including one of the boaters shown below.

The man with the poster shown below said he could thank his wife for the Trump doll. She bought it 10 years ago as a dog toy.

The sun beat down on us so it was very hot and the wind was gusty, so our signs wanted to fly away. I had a hard time handling the heat at the rally. The protest started at 11:00, and by 11:20, I was wondering if I would be able to manage a full two hours of standing in the direct sun. I did not manage it. After an hour I had drunk all the water I had with me and decided that McDonald's looked real inviting for a Iced Tea!

I have not been in the McDonald's here (maybe ever). If I was inside, it was long ago. Placing an order today was self service via a selection screen including payment via credit card. All I wanted was a drink, but the way the place the orders on a board as they come out of the printer seems entirely random. I finally had to beg the person filling orders to pick my order and give me my drink as that was all I wanted!

At 12:45, near the end of the protest, folks congregated around a woman with a bullhorn who had some final words to say before we departed. She, I was told, is 80-something years old and a real firebrand!

The woman with the bullhorn said some words and then passed the bullhorn to others for their comments. Afterwards, we said the pledge of allegiance to the US Constitution. 

A man holding the USA flag had his work cut out for him as it was awkward and heavy and the wind was gusty.

Estimated from folks who were counting said we had about 200 people there, which is not bad for Marathon. Numbers vary for the number of protestors across the country but are in the range of 8 to 9 million participants. 

I mostly hung out with the church group though I did walk the line and found my boater friends. After the rally, my friend drove me to the Dollar Tree to buy supplies for the painting event scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. It would be bad to show up to paint with no canvases!

This evening the marina had "Disco Night". However, when I added it to our joint calendar, auto-correct changed it to "Discount Night". (sigh) Of course, Clark had to make a comment about "Discount Night?" Anyway, we had fun.

We had a DJ for 3 hours.

DJ Dan Spinning Favs

Some people dressed for the occasion (it never occurred to me to do so) and were not shy about dancing to the music. 

Donna and Lou

A dance routine for "YMCA" seemed well known to some ...

Captain Brian brought his percussion instruments, and folks took turns playing the bongo drum.

They had a contest for the best dressed dancer where each of the contenders danced out to the center stage to show off their style! Chris in her disco outfit won the contest.

Winner Chris on the far right

Tina, shown in the picture above on the far left, was decked out in clothes she bought at the Nearly New Store earlier today. My friend, Connie, from St. Columba was working there and helped her complete her outfit. It consisted of a 70s style dress, a purple scarf, sandals, and more for bargain basement prices. 

Below is a video of Tina "rocking out" to the music while sitting at the bar.

I quite literally had to drag Clark away at the end of the evening! We managed to dance the Hustle to a couple of the tunes. 

29 March 2026 - Sunday

We made our last trip to church today for the Contemporary Service held at 11:00 a.m. Clark checked the weather and saw a small rain shower coming our way, so we jumped on our bikes and sped down Route 1 to get to the church before the rain arrived. We had been there no more than 5 minutes when it poured. had we waited any longer before leaving the boat, we would have been drenched. It's a good thing I have my own personal weatherman!

Today, being Palm Sunday, we were given palms as we entered the church. Instead of a sermon, the pastor and members of the band read lines that told the story of Jesus being crucified. It was very poignant. 

Until  next season, this was the last chance for Clark to play in the band. 

Vicki, Clark, Tom, and Nancy (shown)
Drummer Jacob, Keyboard John, and
Banjo Steve not visible in picture

On certain songs, Vicki and Clark put their heads together to sing harmonies. They really enjoy being in the band together. 

At the very end of the service, Pastor Deb called out a big thank you to Clark and me for our support of the church as she knew we plan to leave on Wednesday and would not be back until next season. Her recognition brought tears to my eyes. I love the folks here, and it is hard to leave. 

I spent the afternoon working on this blog update. Clark had guests over to the boat to talk about travel to the Bahamas. We have been twice, and this will be their first trip over. He gave them a boat tour first and then got down to the business of answering travel questions. 

The plan is for us to pull out of our slip on Wednesday morning even if we have strong gusting winds. In preparation of departure, I have laundry and food shopping on the schedule for Monday. Clark has pump out and filling the water tank on his plan for Tuesday. 

Tuesday afternoon I plan on having the painting session, so tonight was supposed to be preparing for that activity.  Instead I got a nasty surprise when I thought I was done writing the blog entry -- a full half of the entry vanished, and I had to spend tonight rewriting the entry. I decided to post two separate entries instead of one large one as the size may have overwhelmed BlogSpot - that is my only guess as to what happened.

Disgusted with losing about three hours of work on the blog, I shut down the computer and started work on dinner. After dinner, we went for a sunset stroll through the marina. The place seemed deserted. A musician played at the pool bar, unfortunately, the bar had no customers. The bartender was the musician's only listener. 

We walked past Sunset Corner and saw no one. We walked out to the west side of the inner basin, and only saw people we did not know. From there, however, we could see some folks on their boats on the west side of the outer basin so we headed there. 

As we walked the east side of the inner basin, we saw some boaters flying a kite from their boat.  We had a strong, gusty wind making the kite bounce around.

I walked to the end of a finger pier and grabbed a picture of the sun low in the sky.

We did fine one person we knew at Sunset Corner as we passed by there for the second time. We stood there to watch the sunset, and when it had dropped below the horizon, Thom from Crazy Horn blew the conch. As the sun set, a fishing boat, with a multitude of fishing poles on board, came into the inner harbor.

Fishing boat coming in for the night

Thom with his conch (on the table)

The man sitting next to Thom said he had the poor man's conch and blew across the top of his open beer bottle to produce a brief whistle.

With the sun down, we left there and strolled down the west side of the outer basin where we found Roxanne to chat with briefly and later found Tina and Dave on Our Turn where we talked for quite some time before returning to our boat for the night. Before we left Tina and Dave, however, we agreed that we should get together for dinner tomorrow night. Dave made a reservation at a nearby restaurant.

I did manage to get some pictures from the west side of the outer basin tonight when we were out there on our sunset walk. It is interesting how significantly the view changes depending on where one stands at the marina.

View of Keys Fisheries at night

Tower from a different-from-usual angle

When he is not busy with other activities, Clark is reading "The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?" He says it is really about the Higgs particle discovered in 2012 that gives mass to matter. It was a birthday gift from our son and his family. I, on the other hand, will stick with reading historical novels with a love interest as my genre of choice. My current novel, "Beloved Enemy", by Jane Feather is set in southern England and on the Isle of Wight. I have traveled both of these areas and find it fun to read about history that occurred in places I have visited.

2026 March: Hurricane & Sparky's

 

25 March 2026

Today, being Wednesday, was once again laundry day. I managed to get back to the boat in time to see some excitement in the outer basin.  We have had sailboats coming into and going out of the marina the past couple of days carrying scouts from the sea base. One was leaving and causing a commotion in the basin as boaters came out to fend off the sailboat as it came towards their boats too close for comfort. 

The boat came out of a slip on the east side of the basin and immediately started heading for boats on the west side. Instead of turning towards the exit of the basin, the boat veered towards the south.

Coming out of slip

Folks stood on the bows of boats in case of need.

Jean on "Jean Marie"

Ed on "Someday Came"
dockhand Andrew and
Ed on "Destiny"

As I watched, the sailboat moved away from the west side of the basin back towards the east side. One of the dockhands took off running at full speed to get to the east side of the basin before the sailboat came too close to a boat there. Fortunately, he was not needed to fend off the sailboat from other boats. 

The woman driving the boat shouted orders to her crew of teenage boys as she maneuvered the boat. She straightened the boat and decided to go astern all the way out of the marina -- a good decision based on what happened last time when the sailboat tried to turn around in the basin and damaged another boat in a slip. This sailboat left with no harm done.

Scout boat backing out of the marina basin

Several boaters "missed the show" as they had decided to go on an overnight trip to anchor near Bahia Honda state park.

In the evening we decided to bike down the road to the restaurant "Hurricane" where our friend, Johnny Live, would be playing the music from 5:00 until 8:00. The Hurricane, located at the Blackfin Resort and Marina, is a short bike ride from our marina, and we had time to look around before the show began.

Ev in a decorated chair at Blackfin Marina

Clark at Blackfin

We biked around the grounds at Blackfin and out past the docks. In past years a friend of ours on a boat called Koastal Karma has docked here. We did not see him this year. If he was here earlier, we missed him because we could not find his boat in a slip.

Hurricane lantern

We found some pretty flowers (I took pictures for my friend Cathy to see in the blog).

Clark pointed out a mural on the marina office.

I see the sign below every time I come to this marina and still enjoy reading it.

Having seen all we wanted to see at the marina, we biked back to go to the Hurricane restaurant. Our friend John was in the process of setting up his equipment as we got there. 

We have not been to the Hurricane since it reopened earlier this season. We wandered through and took some photos.

Bar to the left of entrance

"Any Fresher and We'd Be Flirting"

Bar to the right of entrance

Several objet d'art could be seen on the walls of the restaurant.

Left half of mural

Right half of mural

Finally at 5:00 we were ready to sit down, order some food, and listen to Johnny sing. 

"Johnny Live" live!

Before heading out from the boat, Clark contacted John to make sure we had the right start time. I told him 5:00, but he thought it was 6:00. I was correct. Immediately after Clark confirmed the time, I saw a post from John on Facebook asking folks to come out for 5:00. I noticed that our church friend, Vicki, had already hit the "like" button, so I mentioned it to Clark. He texted Vicki to see if she would attend and got a maybe. We were quite pleased when she joined us at our table.

Vicki and Clark at Hurricane outdoors eating

The restaurant had an early bird menu and a regular menu. We ordered off of both menus to sample the food. I tried the beef tacos and Clark had the fish basket from the "Before 6:00 menu". That should have been enough food for both of us, but Clark wanted to try their pizza to see how it measured up against Coast-to-Coast Pizza. C-to-C won that contest, so we'll have to bike a bit further when we decided pizza is our eat-out option. Clark thought a 14" pizza would be too small. Vicki and I tried to tell him it would be plenty big enough especially since he had already eaten fish and a salad.  

John has followers who stayed for half of his show. By the time we got the pizza, only Vicki, Clark, and I remained in the audience. John sat down to join us, and Clark offered up pizza to all of us to share. We each had a slice and still had 3 slices to take home with us. 

Being on bikes, Clark and I wanted to leave by 7:15 to get back to the marina before dark. We invited Vicki to come with us to the marina to see our boat. Since she would be driving a car, she volunteered to bring our pizza back for us. We got back before the sun set, and Vicki got a chance to see the marina before it got too dark to see.

26 March 2026

Thursday is pump-out day, but the guys were running late and nowhere to be seen as the morning hours ticked by. No one with a Mah Jongg set was available to play this morning as Roni left a few days ago to head off to the Bahamas. Given that, I had no plans until I saw a post from Grace offering up a chance to paint rocks. With nothing else on the agenda for me specifically, I headed up to paint. 

When I got there around 11:10, I found Francine from Crazy Horse there ahead of me painting a small stone she found outside. Grace and rocks were nowhere to be seen. When she did appear (from the loo), she said she thought no one would come and was excited to have participants! I painted three this time.

Turtle rock and Whale rock

Duck in the rain

As we painted, a man came in with his 6-year old daughter and sat down for her to paint rocks. He really liked my duck. I'm pretty happy with it too.

Our friends from Michigan who stayed in Key Colony Beach for the month of March will be leaving very soon to drive home. We decided to have one more night of fun together before they headed north. Jo Ann wanted to come for a swim in the pool, but they had a conflict with afternoon activities. Michigan and UConn were in playoffs and the game was this afternoon. Adding to the conflict the game had a delayed start. 

I headed up to the pool at 2:00 to wait for them to arrive. 

Ev sitting by the side of the pool

It was no hardship lying on a chaise in the shade with a cool breeze and a book in hand. Some boater friends were in the pool earlier, but when Jim and Jo Ann arrived, the pool was empty of boaters. They left Key Colony as soon as the game ended and arrived a bit after 4:00. Since this is the month of "March Madness", I thought it was a basketball game they were watching. No, it was hockey! They said that Michigan won 2-1 but it was "not pretty". 

Jo Ann and I enjoyed the pool together while Jim laid back on a chaise for a potential nap. Clark was nowhere to be seen as he was engaged in a very different activity on the boat.  Part of the reason I was up at the pool so much earlier than necessary was to vacate the boat. Clark had invited friends on board.

Bryan and the girls from the boat Still Waters came over to play music together with Clark. They brought a guitar and a keyboard, and Clark had his guitar. After their "gig" Clark did come up to the pool, but he did not wear a bathing suit or plan to go swimming. 

The four of us planned to go out for dinner tonight to hear another entertainer. Before that, however, with a somewhat chilly breeze in the air, Jo Ann and I decided to enjoy the hot tub. It felt heavenly! 

Our plan for dinner was a trip to "Sparky's" in Key Colony. John Bartus would be playing. We always enjoyed his music when we heard him in days past at Faro Blanco. He would be playing tonight starting at 6:00. They do not take reservations, so we hoped we would not have a long wait for a table. We got a table right away, and Clark walked up to see the singer John and ask him to play "Carolina" - a song he (John) wrote. 

We enjoyed his music until 7:30 when he took a break. By the time he came back from break, we were ready to depart. Before leaving the restaurant, Clark went up to say goodbye.

Clark with John Bartus

Before Jim and Jo Ann dropped us off at marina, we had one more mandatory stop to make - Sweet Savannah's for ice cream! Yum! By the time we got back to the marina, the sunset was a distant memory and we did not take a picture! 

We said our farewells to Jim and Jo Ann as they head back to Michigan. We plan / hope to get together again in February 2027 here again in Marathon! 

27 March 2026 - Friday

Yesterday, we painted rocks. Grace kept the rocks we painted and sprayed them with a sealer. When I walked up to the club house to retrieve my rocks today, Clark was with me. He noticed Grace's fingernail art, then she showed us her shamrock rock to go with her shamrock fingernails!

Grace with her shamrock rock and nails

The calendar was clear for today, and since I have not pulled out my acrylic paints this entire boat season, I decided it was time to "give it a go". I scanned through a multitude of sunset pictures until I found one I thought I could work with.

Boaters gather at what has been dubbed "Sunset Corner", and the picture below shows the view from this spot. 

Sunset Picture I chose to copy

My acrylic rendition of the above photo

From start to finish, the picture took me about 5 to 6 ours to complete. I struggled with getting the colors right for the tower. When it was dry, I took it for a walk to show some of the folks here at the marina the results of my efforts. Several people loved the picture, so much so, that I have been asked to hold a painting session where others can join me to paint. We have scheduled a time slot on Tuesday to get together for that activity.

I wanted to show Grace my artwork. While I waited for her to return to her concierge desk, I showed my picture to Tony, who works here on maintenance. Afterwards, I spent almost an hour talking to Bill from Jean Marie on the pool deck. It was already 6:00 when I finally showed my picture to Grace.

Concierge Grace admiring my art

Marlin Bay has live entertainment on a regular basis. Tonight the performer was one Clark finds fascinating as he plays drums with a backup playset. Clark says this is highly unusual. 

As sunset approached, Clark and I wandered over to the west side of the inner basin to see who was around for sunset viewing. Although I have done it several times recently, Clark suggested I take a picture of the folks at Sunset Corner from where we stood near the Marlin Bay Tower.

Smaller crowd than some nights

We stopped and chatted with some folks on the west side and we were all excited when we got to see the elusive "Green Flash" as the sun dropped below the horizon. Don't Blink! It goes fast. Today's was amazing as it was a very pronounced green flash. I did not even try to capture a picture. Someone took a video and checked frame-by-frame and could not see the flash in any of the pictures.

Sunset view from west side of marina
(No tower in picture)