No boat travel.
Today certainly started out normal enough for a day in the Florida Keys. Clark planned to get out early to work on varnishing the boat trim to get it done before the sun hit the port side of the boat. While he was out in the cockpit pulling his gear together, Jim from Hour Plan stopped by to ask if Clark wanted to attend the Keys Clean-up Event happening this afternoon. They knew about the event from the AGLCA Forum. He told Jim he would think about it.
As he added another coat of varnish to the trim, he decided he would participate in the clean up activity. I hurried him along telling him that if he planned to get then he had better get ready to go. The only problem being that my watch had the wrong time on it for some reason. It said the hour was approaching 2:00 when he was supposed to leave when, in fact, it was an hour earlier. Consequently, he was ready to leave an hour early. Now there's a first!
I decided not to take part in the action. With all sorts of allergies, I was not sure my body would appreciate me digging through the mangroves. Besides, I already had plans which involved swimming in and lying by the pool. I missed the opportunity on Monday and had promised myself I would be in the pool on the next nice day. With low wind and temperatures in the 70s, today was that day.
Clark took his camera with him and got some pictures of the clean-up crew. A looper named Becky on True North drove and took Clark and Jim from Hour Plan to the clean-up site. That site being around mile marker 6.5 and therefore almost in Key West. When they arrived there, they joined other participants including Wendy Wilson and some of her children, another family with two girls, and Leland McClellan of Leland Oil in McClellanville, South Carolina (we stayed there when we traveled the Great Loop).
The volunteers have been cleaning up the debris-staging areas. Heavy equipment had been brought in previously to pick up the big items. However, smaller items fell through the claws of the equipment and were left behind. This included things like water bottles, beer and soda cans, roofing materials, mirrors and other glass. Some items had blown into the mangroves and had to be extracted using boat hooks. All told the volunteers collected around 35 big, black bags of garbage during the two hours that they worked at the site.
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| Picture taken after cleanup |
As the team of volunteers worked on the site, people passing by on the highway let the workers know they appreciated their efforts. Cars honked their horns. Bicyclists shouted out thank yous. One person even stopped his car, got out, and blew on a conch shell, which in Keys language is a "great big thank you"!
Clark left at 2:00. Cleanup took from 3:00 to 5:00. It took another hour for Clark to get back to Marathon. At 5:00 I headed over to docktails because of the beautiful weather. I was surprised by the lack of participation in today's gathering. Only Mel and Anne from Morning Star II and Sandy from L'Attitude Adjustment joined me at the lighthouse.
Jen from Fat-n-Sassy passed by on her way to dinner and stopped briefly - just long enough for me to ask the fate of the man taken away in the ambulance yesterday. I heard that he suffered a broken nose, a cut on his chin, and a head injury requiring a number of stitches. He is back on his boat again, but no one seems to know what caused his falling episodes. One of the dock hands here is walking his dog for him while he recovers.
Mel, Anne, and I were just planning to return to our boats when Anne spied Clark running across the dock to join docktails. He told us a little about the Keys clean up, and then Mel asked him about a problem with his FM radio. Since our boats are docked next to each other, I suggested we start walking back and they could talk on the way. They did not attempt to fix it tonight thankfully. Maybe tomorrow.
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