Florida: Marathon - poolside

Day 219

Miscellaneous chores took up the bulk of the morning and into early afternoon. I did laundry, for example, while Clark tried to chase down a plumber to address a frozen water pipe in our South Jersey rental property. The laundry was easy compared to getting a plumber to return a phone call. Clark  started trying to find a plumber yesterday after the tenant notified him that she had no water, but since it was Sunday, no one answered the phone.

After a rather late lunch, we decided to head up to the pool to check out the water temperature. Clark said it was warm, but his definition of warm and mine are not quite in sync. I dressed in my swimsuit in case I decided it was warm enough to venture into the water. We sat by the side of the pool for a while as Clark opened a package of parts he ordered for the boat.

Although the sun had made an appearance earlier in the day, I saw only clouds by the time I got out to the pool. Nevertheless, I decided that I would go in. I knew deep down Clark wanted to go for a swim, and only moments after I went in the pool, he followed. We were the only two in there although I heard that the water aerobics class started again this morning at 10:00, so we knew folks had been in earlier in the day. Oh well, I missed that one.

While Clark swam some odd-shaped laps in the unusually-shaped pool, I did my own water aerobics. Today I focused on activities that I thought might help strengthen my stomach muscles. After that we played for a while. It was actually quite nice to have the pool to ourselves. I relaxed in the pool doing a back float. Clark could not resist pushing and pulling me around the pool as I did so.

Deeply Relaxed in the Marina Pool

Being Towed in the Pool

Several boating friends sat poolside watching our antics. The photos are compliments of Jane from Jammin Jane who had her phone camera on the ready. She also captured a shot of the group sitting poolside while we were swimming.

Boaters from Sum Escape, Liquid Assets, and Jammin Jane

As long as I was in the water, I was warm enough. As soon as I got any skin exposed to the wind, I immediately felt quite cold. I took a nice hot shower after my swim, and while I was doing that, I later found out that Clark made dinner plans with our Jammin Jane friends.

All the time we were at the pool, Clark kept hoping he would get a a return call from one of the plumbers where he had left messages. Finally just before we were to leave for the restaurant, his phone started ringing. The back-and-forth discussions between Clark, plumbers, and the tenant as he tried to make arrangements for someone to look at and resolve the issue continued right up until after he had placed his food order at the restaurant.

Of course when it rains, it pours. He went from having no plumber returning phone calls to having one there at 6:00, one coming an hour later, and one scheduled for tomorrow morning. Needless to say, two of the three appointments had to be canceled. Once a plumber finally got there, the problem was resolved rather quickly. We know of another house a couple of blocks over from ours where the same plumber took two hours to get the water flowing. Perhaps he learned from that experience and knew just what he had to do to fix ours?

I do believe there are a number of restaurants on the island of Marathon. We have been here for more than two weeks, and besides dinner here at the marina one night, I have only been to one other restaurant (unless subs made at Publix counts as a restaurant - we did that once). I guess Clark liked that particular restaurant because that was where he wanted to go tonight - the Marathon Steak & Lobster House. I thought we would walk like we did the last time, but I was very pleasantly surprised to learn that Ben had called for a taxi to take the six of us there for dinner. I felt like I was being treated like royalty with such service!

Although the restaurant has a delicious dessert menu to go with a large selection of main course meals, we passed on dessert. At dinner last night on Knot Sew Easy everyone cajoled Bob into agreeing to make an apple pie from scratch. He made the pie today, so when we got back to the marina, we all went to Bob's boat to beg for pie. He said he had pie crust lessons from another boater who bakes every day on her boat - When I'm 64. He did a good job. The pie was very tasty!

Clark and I begged off early after having the pie treat. The laundry I did this morning was the sheets for our bed. The bed remained unmade all day long. If I wanted to sleep in it, I needed to make it! Gee life is rough living on a boat!