Activities in and around Faro Blanco Marina
Someone asked me the other day, after learning that we will be staying on our boat here at the marina for a total of three months, "What do you do all day?" Surprisingly, it seems that no two days are exactly the same. We interact daily with the folks from our boating community here and frequently either become engaged in their activities or pull them into ours. Clark is quick to jump in when someone has a question about their boat or need something electrical looked into. For example, he has helped fix a bow thruster and worked on numerous battery-related issues while we've been here.
Of course, we have regular activities such as trips to the food store and Home Depot as well as visits every Saturday to the farmer's market. When I am not busy with friends or chores, I like to read. I just finished reading the first book in the Outlander series and have just started on book two.
Over the past week, Clark and I have participated in all sorts of things.
Art Class
Yasmine, on the sailboat "Yasmine Anne", told me about a Sea Art Class being held at the hotel next door. She convinced me to sign up to attend with her and another boater, Trish. The three of us spent a few hours being "crafty" with sea glass, shells, and epoxy. I have never tried this particular form of 3-D art and was happy with my first attempt.
The glass color did not show as brilliantly as I liked, so the next day, per my own interpretation of a suggestion from the instructor, I used my acrylic paints to provide a backing to the art to make the colors "pop"!
Several other boaters said they wish they had attended the session. Yasmine and I have talked repeatedly about perhaps, now that we know how it is done, getting a group together to do a class ourselves. All we need is supplies which just happen to be rather expensive to acquire.
Around Town -- Doctors and Shopping
On Friday I had my final recheck for my bout of pneumonia to confirm that I am now in good health. I passed with a clean bill of health albeit with a warning from the doctor not to overdo activities else the pneumonia might come back.
Boaters who have a truck here at the marina gave Clark and me a ride to the doctors. We took our bicycles with us to bike back to the boat via a shopping trip afterwards. We had multiple stops planned on the trip back.
When we came out of the doctor's office, we first stopped at NAPA to look for some Yamaha outboard motor parts. They did not sell what Clark needed and suggested a place in Key Colony - two lights down and a 1/2 mile beyond. Given the doctor's instructions to "not overdo" and not knowing the distance entailed in "two lights down", I decided to pass. Clark left me to head east and I headed west for the bagel shop and dollar store. I told him he could find me there when he was done.
The place was closed for lunch when he got there and decided to hang out for 45 minutes until they opened. Since he had time to kill, he looked around and took some pictures so I could see what I missed.
 |
| Atlantic Ocean - Coco Plum Beach |
 |
| Key Colony - Coco Plum Drive (looking east) |
 |
| Key Colony - Coco Plum Drive (looking west) |
 |
| Broken docks off Coco Plum Drive in Key Colony |
My doctor's appointment was scheduled at 11:00 a.m. We left there around 11:40 or so. We got back to the marina at 3:45 p.m. Since I only covered about 6 miles in that time that calculates out to about 1.5 mph! In truth, I spent an hour hanging out near the bagel shop waiting for Clark to return from Key Colony.
We stopped at numerous stores as well as the post office on the way back to the marina. Including lunch at the bagel shop, it turned out to be a lovely day out! I enjoy riding my bicycle especially at such a relaxed pace.
The bad news from today ... as we folded up our bikes to put back on the boat, Clark heard a pop and found that one of the spokes on his bike tire had just broken. Since our bicycles are our primary mode of transportation, this is a bit of a catastrophe. He immediately got on the phone with a Brompton dealer to see what could be done, and a replacement spoke is now "in the mail". When it arrives, the bike will need to be taken to a repair shop to have the spoke replaced and the tire balanced. I guess though, that after seven years of hard use, one broken spoke is not bad! If needed, he can use my bike while he waits for his to be repaired.
Sea Grass -- Removal and a Turtle Rescue
When a northerly wind blows, the marina collects sea grass. By Friday, after several days of northerly winds in a row, we had "wall-to-wall" sea grass blanketing the marina.
 |
| Sea Grass Collection by Boat |
I noticed that the jellyfish took immediate advantage of the opening and come up towards the light. The brown-striped jellyfish in this marina look nothing like any jellyfish Clark or I have ever seen before. The water in this marina is full of them!
 |
| Jellyfish peaking through sea grass to get light from above |
Everywhere we go down here we see signs telling us that the sea grass is "good for the environment" and cannot be removed. However, Eric on "Slow Lane" spied a poor, little turtle struggling on top of the sea grass. Try as hard as he might the baby turtle could not penetrate the grass to get to the water below. Eric scooped him up in a net to help him out.
 |
| Sad and exhausted 3"-to-4" sea turtle |
Eric original planned to release the turtle in open water, but given its sluggish behavior, he called the nearby Turtle Hospital instead. They immediately came to take the turtle back to their facility for tender loving care.
When we woke on Saturday, we saw a reprieve from the sea grass. Overnight a southerly wind had come in to start blowing the sea grass away from the marina. Given that the piled up grass had started to stink under the heat of the sun, we were only too glad to see it moving out.
Mel on "Morning Star II", Clayton on "Flight", and Roy on "Yasmine Anne" decided to give the sea breeze a helping hand to get the sea grass removed sooner. They all started their engines to blow it out - Mel and Clayton started their motor vessels, and Roy went around on his dinghy getting into the close-to-the-dock areas.
 |
| Roy from "Yasmine Anne" blowing out the sea grass with his outboard motor |
While the engines did their magic, Clark and I grabbed boat hooks to push the weeds out from around our boat into the path of the outboard wash. It took a while, but low and behold, we once again had boats moored in water - not grass!
Demos and Presentations
A boater walking by on the dock behind our boat told Clark about a water-maker demo currently underway over by the lighthouse. We immediately left to check it out. A two-hour presentation preceded the dock demo of the Rainman portable desalination system. Unfortunately, we do not listen to the Marathon boater's net where the presentation was announced, and so we knew nothing about it. Luckily, the passing boater told Clark about the demo, so we could attend at least part of the show. Clark is very interesting in their products for future purchase when we are ready to make another trip to the Caribbean.
Reading one of the boater forums, Clark learned about a presentation to be given by the local US Power Squadron. Since his bicycle was out of commission, he walked to the marina hosting the presentation. Had he known, multiple boaters from here drove to the talk and he could have gotten a ride. While there, however, he found Brent from "Change of Pace". Brent is staying at the Marathon Marina like he did last year and dropped Clark off at Faro Blanco on the way by. Clark always enjoys learning "local boater knowledge" and collected some useful, takeaway knowledge from this talk.
Boat Work and Maintenance Runs
Clark has a never-ending list of boat projects. Often, whether I want to or not, I get pulled in as a "volunteer" to assist. Repairing the dinghy cover recently became one that ended up in my task list. The cover is relatively new, but wind causes movement and any pressure points become rub spots and holes can appear. Chafing had occurred over the outboard motor and two decent-sized holes needed to be addressed before it got worse.
Using my handy-dandy, 50-year-old, portable Singer sewing machine that I brought along on this trip, I managed to do a decent job patching the worn area. Having watched Faith from "Third Degree" patch our old cover, I had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do. I cut open and flattened an old eye-glass case and sewed that over the holes to use as protective material to prevent further chafing.
Given what I had on hand, I thought matching the canvas color would be an issue, but, as luck would have it, the dinghy cover had an extraneous flap of material that Clark always tied back out of the way. I cut it off and used the material from the flap to do the repair.
 |
| My handiwork - Square patch on top of outboard |
When we were home in Rumson, we replaced the window and porthole screens with screen material rated to withstand gnats. However, we forgot about the hatch coverings. On our trip home in December, we collected some more screening material and brought it back with us.
Clark and I make a pretty good team. Working together, we managed to do all three of our hatches, and they look professionally done. Removing the old spline was a royal pain in the a$$ and took the largest amount of the time! Whoever did the work, glued the spline in place. We had a devil of a time digging out the old spline to have a clean surface for the new.
 |
| New screens installed for our hatch covers! |
Clark was thrilled to be able to remove two items from his work list!
Weekly, every Monday if weather allows, we take the boat out for a maintenance run. Most folks staying here do not move their boats for the duration of their stay whether that be one week or four months. Clark, however, insists on running the boat weekly to keep the growth and barnacles off the bottom and props. He would rather enjoy a boat run than pay a diver to scrape off the scum and, with it, the bottom paint.
Our maintenance trip is not very exciting and lasts less than one hour. We found that going straight out from the marina to the John Sawyer Bank avoids the majority of the fish traps. We still find a few but they are easily avoidable. It makes the trip more pleasant when it can be done without continually maneuvering around traps. Additionally, with the recent north winds, we find it more comfortable to be cold driving into the wind on the way out and warmer, with the wind at our backs, on the way into the marina.
Baby Shower and a Wedding
The Hyatt Hotel, Faro Blanco Marina, and the Lighthouse Grille all share the property here. On an occasional Saturday, we will find a wedding taking place on the grounds. The wedding party holds their ceremony out at the beach on the point and then, weather permitting, has an outdoor reception catered by the restaurant. One such event happened Saturday night.
Since Hurricane Irma, the "wedding island" had gotten a lot smaller! Only small weddings fit!
 |
| Wedding on the point (violinist on extreme right-hand side played nice music) |
 |
| Wedding Reception at Faro Blanco - Lighthouse Grille |
Docktails just happened to be underway during the wedding ceremony. We spied on them from across the marina. When the folks attending the wedding applauded the wedding couple, we joined in!
Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m., a baby shower was held for one of the workers at the marina named Devon, whom Clark and I have known since we started coming here four years ago. Since Devon's due date was towards the end of February, it looked like a good day for her friends to choose. Surprisingly, when Devon went to the doctor's on Friday, the doctor decided that the baby should be born immediately, and Devon went straight from the doctor's office to the hospital for a Caesarean section.
With Devon doing well, I was told that the shower would be held as planned. Having been delayed by an earlier event, I arrived at the shower 45 minutes late to find the party attendees but no guest of honor. When we departed at 1:00 the new mother had still not arrived. Although Devon had been told she would be checked out of the hospital at 8:00 a.m., it did not happen on time. I finally got to see Devon and her tiny, new baby a couple of hours later just as she was leaving the marina.
 |
| Decoration Station and Gifts at Baby shower for Devon |
 |
| Task: Choose a onesie or bib and iron on a decal |
 |
| End results - I did the pink elephant one! |
 |
| Cupcakes from Sweet Savannah's (champagne in pink and carrot cake in white icing) |
 |
| Wear a crown |
 |
| Sandy from "L'Attitude Adjustment" modeling the flower crowns at the baby shower |
Visitors
Friends came to Key West for a long weekend this weekend and drove to Marathon to meet us for brunch on Sunday morning. (The activity that made me late for the baby shower.) Clark and I belonged to the Mainship Owner's group many years ago and attended several events held in Long Island where we met other Mainship Owners. Our friend, Dave, is one of those folks. Although we have not seen each other in many years, Dave and Clark still keep in touch. Dave brought his wife, Michelle, whom we had never met with him, so we could meet her.
We ate at the Sunset Grille. I checked out their menu ahead of time and found it to be a more-than-suitable brunch menu. Dave, for example, had the Florida Seafood Omelet - certainly not your usual menu item. We all enjoyed our food very much!
I hardly had a chance to talk with Dave. He and Clark talked nonstop on their side of the table while I chatted the whole time with Michelle. Michelle used to be a member of the New York state assembly, and I found her very interesting to talk with. We all had a great time, but the visit was far too short.
 |
| Dave and Michelle on their boat "Uptick" |
Eclipse of the Moon and Sunsets
Sunday night we got to see glimpses of the Super Blood Wolf Moon eclipse. Sadly, we had heavy cloud cover, so glimpses were all we were able to catch. I would have forgotten to even look if it were not for Clark. He dragged me outside to stare at the sky around 11:30 p.m. Around midnight Anne from "Morning Star II" and Sandy and Bill from "L'Attitude Adjustment" came out for a look as well. We all got pretty stiff necks trying to look up at the sky. Clark and Sandy actually laid down to get a better view, but I could not get myself to lie on the walkway. Clark tried for a picture but failed.
 |
| Amost Full moon - picture taken on 1/19 |
 |
| No, it's not a slice of bread in the sky Clark's attempt to capture a picture of the eclipse! |
Clark is always busy with chasing sunsets. Since they look pretty much the same every night, he has taken a few inverse images like the one below to provide some diversity.
 |
| Sunset Reflection at Docktail's Time |
Thanks for sharing this with us! Some really amazing features.
ReplyDeleteBest airboat ride in central florida