2026 February: Garden Concert in Marathon

 

Drone Photo of Marlin Bay Inner Basin

The above picture was taken by a fellow boater's son who was visiting this past week. The boat was on the west side of the inner basin, thus the focus of the picture.

14 February 2026 - Valentine's Day

Clark and I are not big fans of crowded restaurants. Given today was a Saturday and a notable calendar day, we decided to postpone our day out together until sometime later in the week. Given that, we treated today like a "normal" day and went about our tasks as needed.

Saturday morning appears to be a good day to hit Publix when they are stocked for the folks coming for the next week, but the folks have not arrived yet. Heading there this morning was top of my to-do list. I had a couple of essential items to go after. On the way there I stopped by the St. Columba Farmer's Market. The only produce they had available when I passed by around 10:30 was tomatoes, but since tomatoes was what I wanted, it was a successful stop. 

While I was out on my shopping trip, Clark was, guess what, on some other boater's boat looking into an issue they are having with their, guess what, batteries! After he concluded that business, he dove into working on taxes! Another great Valentine's Day task!

Meanwhile, I noticed that the windows on the boat were dirty from all the recent heavy winds blowing salt spray at them. I cleaned the windows and then noticed the railings were showing discoloration, also from salt spray. I spent the rest of the afternoon polishing stainless steel railings and boat trim. 

15 February 2026

Today, being Sunday, we were off to church. We targeted getting there for 10:00, so the band could practice before the service began. 

Practice: John, Vicki, Clark, Steve, Nancy, and
director Tom

Director Tom
on Guitar

Reverend Nancy
on Mandolin

Pastor Deb leads the service.

Pastor Deb at the Contemporary Service

Screens are used during the service to display words for hymns and prayers. The screen below depicts the origins, African, of the first song of the service. 

Clark on Guitar

Jacob on far left on drums
Nancy here on Violin / Fiddle

As the folks in the congregation left the church today, the band played their final song - "This Little Light of Mine". The hostess for the Haitian dinner, Winese, came up and joined in the fun. I planned to take a picture but grabbed a video instead.

Lunch and cookies are served after Sunday service, and folks gather to chat before heading on their way. Today we were quite late leaving the church as we sat and talked with Pastor Deb and our friend Nancy well after everyone else had left. Clark was telling interesting stories that kept us entertained, so, no, they were not about batteries!

Later in the day, we got to enjoy a lovely sunset. Moving from place to place around the marina, I took a few pictures. Even though they were all taken within minutes of each other, they are all quite different.

Through a doorway / across a porch of one of the villas here on the property ...

Looking through the fence and mangroves that separate the marina from the neighboring house ...

Clear view across the water with Faro Blanco in the distance, i.e. no obstructions like above photos ...

From the east side of the inner basin looking at the Marlin Bay tower and beyond ...

From the end of our slip, looking at the boats on the west side of the outer basin ...

16 February 2026

I told Clark that since I washed the windows and polished the chrome on the boat for Valentine's Day, the least he could do would be to put the new tire on my bike. He just repaired a flat on my bike last week. I told him we had a new tire for my bike, but he did not believe me and asked me to pick which old tire I preferred be put back on the bike instead. Reluctantly I picked one. 

Then the next day, I found the new tire, still in the packaging it was mailed in, stored in the closet where we keep bike-related "stuff". I brought it out with an "I told you so" and asked him to install it on my bike. With some grumbling, he did so. Now I have a patched tube inside a new tire. Hopefully that will keep me in business for a good long time. 

We are both sick of me getting flat tires. For the most recent one, he found a tiny piece of coral, from the grounds here at the marina, embedded in the tire, which he speculates put the hole in the tube. The tire is so many years old, it is not surprising that it has been giving us grief.

We had some time after the bike repair and before the concert we planned to attend late afternoon, so we decided to go jump in the pool for a couple of hours. There, we found a few of our boater friends, cool water, and warmer-than-recent air temperatures to make for a pleasant way to spend some time. After that it was off to a "garden party" with live music.

The MTOA (Marine Trawler Owner's Assoc) organization that we belong to informed the group of the event. Not too many of the MTOA folks came. They missed an interesting event.

2026 Garden Concert

Live music was provided throughout that ran from 4:00 until sunset. 

The first folks to perform had to leave early to put on a show at Porky's restaurant. The restaurant was closed earlier in the day due to "Bad Monkey" being filmed there, so they had some time to play at the party before they had to run off to Porky's.

Unfortunately, the one person planning to play throughout the event woke up in the morning with a sinus infection making singing difficult. He requested others to help him out. 

She has a great, deep voice

After that, he asked Lady A to come up and help him out.

The property was decorated, and chairs were set up for attendees. Leis were handed out, and lots of food was available as well as some beverages. We enjoyed the music, found the venue interesting, met some folks we did not know, and talked to some folks we have met in the past - MTOA and otherwise.

Several times the poor man trying to sing with stuffed up sinuses asked if anyone "out there" wanted to come up and sing. Some folks we know were suggesting Clark get up there. If he had had his guitar with him, he might have volunteered!

Busy listening to the music

I had trouble dragging Clark away at the end of the event as he was busy talking with people. While I waited, I wandered around to get some photos of the house and surrounding area. 

I pass by the street where this house is located all the time going to church or Publix or almost anywhere and had no idea the street existed let alone the "Keezy" houses on the street like the one shown below.

The surrounding area is jungle-like with tall trees and plants all around.

In almost every nook and cranny, some decoration appeared.

Flamingos (fake)

"Flip flop" Tree

Skeleton Crew on hand

Clay / stone kitty

The weather did not yield a good sunset tonight, even so, we could not have seen the sunset from this property through all the foliage!

17 February 2026

This morning I had a tough decision to make. Should I go to the library as usual for art or stay at the marina to play American Mahjongg with boating friends. I opted for Mahjongg as I am trying to learn it, and I can do art on the boat on my own. We started at 10:30. I left around 12:30 or so, but others stayed for another round after I left.

Francine mixing up the tiles

We had enough folks to have a table of 4 and a table of 3 to start. Then a person, Mary, stopped by whom we did not know but who did know Mahjongg, so she filled in the vacant seat for us. 

Clark needed to bike off to the church for guitar practice this afternoon, so I fixed lunch. After he left, I pulled out my pencils to do some art on my own. Once again I made greeting cards to send to my grandchildren. I was pleased with my results, but my favorites, of the ones I did today, are a rabbit with a puzzled look on his face and one of a couple of butterflies.

Tiny Dancers

Triplets

Wacky Rooster

At 5:00 I met up with Clark at today's MTOA meeting (Marine Trawler Owner's Assoc) held at the City park on the opposite side of Route 1 from our marina. Clark took my bike off the boat for me earlier in the day, so that I could ride there when it was time. I was so consumed with my art that I had to hurry when it was time to leave!

We had the business meeting, met some new attendees, and ate some goodies before heading home.

I had trouble dragging Clark away, and the sun had already set before we finally left the meeting. When we got back to the marina, however, we did find a number of people still standing around at the place where the sunset watchers gather. We stopped to chat there. Eventually, we made it back to the boat where I quickly threw a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner.

After that, Clark disappeared to work on his laptop, and I worked on the blog to bring us up to date.

2026 February: Haitian Dinner at St. Columba

 13 February 2026

Today was a busy day for both of us. We both had commitments at St. Columba church this morning. Both of us needed to be there for 10:00, so we biked there together. Once there we went our separate ways. Clark went to practice music for Sunday's church service with Johnny while I headed for the kitchen area to help prepare food for this evening's Haitian fund-raising dinner. 

I expected to find some number of people in the kitchen area, but the only other person there was Pastor Debra. The food had not arrived yet nor had the person in charge to say how she wanted things done. I decided to grab a seat to wait for things to begin. 

Before coming to the church, I went shopping at Walgreen's and Publix. I keep track of expenses in my phone, so I decided to update my records. No sooner did I open the app than Debra put me to work setting up and decorating the dining area. She said, "I don't want to waste your time." and proceeded to assign me work! Love it!

My first task was to put the napkins and menus out on the table. The Haitian flag contains red, white, and blue, so we used that as the color scheme.

Haitian Flag

We ran out of blue napkins, so Debra suggested we alternate tables blue then white with a menu at each place setting.

Once that was done, she asked me to put red, white, and blue beads out for a decoration.  Separating out the red, white, and blue beads from the vast assortment of other colors proved an interesting challenge. I ended up decorating myself! My friend Nancy said we needed a picture!

Once I untangled the beads from each other and from me, I placed them on the tower shown below as a bead tree.

After completing those tasks, the fellow kitchen workers had still not appeared. Fortunately, Debra had more work for me. She had gone through her personal collection of Haitian art to offer some items up for auction as part of this fund raiser. She found me a dust rag and put me to work putting a shine on these, mostly metal, object d'art.

Then I worked with Debra to set up the display of the items to be bid on.

This truck was the hardest item for Debra 
to part with.

Besides the items up for silent auction, Pastor Debra brought in a number of items for show only.

Debra rummaged around the church closets until she found the bulletin board she was looking for to make a display for the evenings gathering.

We were just finishing these various preparations when the food and our chef arrived to begin food prep. Almost 80 tickets were sold for tonight's dinner, so we had a lot of vegetables to chop up. My friend Nancy and I began by slicing multiple heads of cabbage and then moved on to slicing radishes. 

Nancy (Sous chef) and Winese (Chef)

While we were busy chopping, Pastor Deb continued decorating and put out orchids on tables.

Although they are all fake orchids, they look so real.

By 1:00, I had been at the church working for three hours and needed to head "home" for lunch. Clark was still busy rehearsing with John for Sunday. We biked home as soon as he was ready to go. After lunch he headed off to work with a fellow boater on a battery issue while I stayed on the boat and tried to stay awake while reading. I mostly failed!

Around 5:30 it was time to head back to the church for the big event. We passed by the folks waiting for the sunset and grabbed a picture before continuing on our way.

We thought we were on time, but when we got there, the room was packed with people.

Fortunately, Nancy and Steve had availability at their table for us. The food was plated in the kitchen and brought out to us. The menu is shown below.

Black rice, coleslaw, chicken and
fried plantain on my plate.

Dessert table

As described by Pastor Deb,
"Rum Punch with rum and
Rum Punch without rum!"

We had music before dinner.

Steel Band Music

After the meal, Pastor Debra made a presentation explaining the purpose of the dinner 

Pastor Debra

and then called Winese out of the kitchen to recognize her efforts to support the orphanage in Haiti and ask her to say a few words.

Winese

The event proved to be a success. The food was excellent; the silent auction fruitful for the orphanage. I was happy that I was able to acquire the one thing on the silent auction table that I wanted because it would fit on our boat. When I went to check out the table, I found that the refrigerator magnets that I coveted were not part of the auction, and I could buy one right then and there! Yay!

I have added this to my nook on the boat where I place my treasures from memorable moments.

Ev with Winese at the end of the event

I helped with some of the cleanup; Clark chatted with his fellow band members. By the time we left on our bikes to head back to the marina, it was near 8:00, so we put our lights on our bikes and headed out.