It's been very busy over the past week including bike repair, boat work, dinners with friends, and fun activities.
Thursday 1/24/2019
The replacement spoke to repair Clark's bike came today from the bike shop in St. Petersburg. The shop owner there told Clark that he could not do the repair himself as the tire needed to be balanced. Since the hurricanes came through, there are no more bike repair shops in Marathon - only bike rental places. Clark found a bike repair shop in Big Pine Key.
Clark went looking for transportation to the repair shop, and Jim and Faith on "Third Degree" graciously agreed to drive us there. We agreed that we would make it an outing including lunch at the No Name Pub on No Name Key. Clark expected it would take a while for them to do the work, we could eat, and come back later to collect the tire. Surprisingly, they said they could have it done quickly, and in about 10 to 15 minutes Clark was walking out with the repaired tire in hand!
With the task part of our journey completed, we had nothing to do but go enjoy some good food and brews at the No Name Pub. The food is good here. The decor leaves one's mouth gaping open. Every surface, walls and ceiling, are covered with layers of one-dollar bills!
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| Pub that is hard to find but worth the effort |
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| Ceiling at No Name Pub |
We enjoyed our meals. When we left the parking lot, what did we see on the corner of the lot?
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| Picnic table near No Name Pub Family of diners with dog |
The weather this week has been less than stellar, and today was no exception.
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| Sunset on a Dreary Day |
Friday 1/25/2019 - My Birthday!
Yesterday, before Jim and she drove us to Big Pine Key, Faith went out with Yasmine and some other boaters here at Faro Blanco to try her hand at pickleball. This sport, surprisingly (to me), has been around since the mid 1960s. It is all the rage here in the Florida Keys, and Key Colony has a free, municipal court that provides balls and paddles for interested members of the community.
Today, Yasmine, on "Yasmine Anne", drove five of us with her to play again. Every year for the past four years, I have enjoyed doing something I have never done before in my life. One year Clark bought us tickets for an airboat ride in the Everglades, last year he rented personal watercraft (waverunners) and took me out for a ride, and this year, for the first time ever, I played pickleball.
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| Evelyn - first time at the pickleball courts (Looking a little doubtful) |
We had a little bit of a setback upon arrival. A man "greeted" us as we exited Yasmine's car and politely asked if it was our first time playing. I said, "Yes". Someone else said it was their second visit. All seemed quite nice until he said, "Well, you can't play here if you are new to the game! You'll have to go to 7th Street to play. The league has the courts." I had no idea where we would find 7th street.
Some of the six of us in the car were long time, expert players; others were novice. We split up and four of us headed over to the court for ostracized players. The two excellent players remained at the main courts. Even though we had been sent away "in shame", the four of us had a marvelous time playing pickleball. It is like a crazy mix of tennis, badminton, and ping pong. The scoring is bizarre and takes quite some getting used to. Since I had no idea how to play (or score) pickleball, I watched YouTube videos last night for almost an hour to comprehend the rules.
All was going exceedingly well at play, and we were having a great time until Robin from "The Lower Place" tripped over the support wire for the net and literally fell on her face. With a few scrapes and sore muscles, her playing time came to an abrupt halt. The four of us walked back to the main courts to join the others in our group. Robin is a real trooper, and even injured, she said we should continue to play as she iced her injuries. I played four games today, and my side won two of the four. Given it was my first time out, I was ecstatic!
A couple of days ago, I asked Sandy if she could drive me to Publix when she had time. She heard today was my birthday and, conspiring with Ann on "Morning Star II", decided that we needed some girl time out to celebrate. She said she would take me to Publix today and had a couple more stops to make as well. When I asked, "Where?" She kept it a secret. I figured she had something planned, so I ate a light lunch.
The secret turned out to be my choice of either ice cream or a cupcake at Sweet Savannah's. I chose the ice cream, but when I ordered a small scoop, Ann told the server to make it a medium. I finally had to say, "Halt!" as she kept adding more and more to the cup. Sadly, since it was a combination of cookies and cream with Heathbar Crunch, I had no trouble eating all that she gave me! Ann bought three homemade cookies and gave me one as a present. I saved that for later!
After our tasty treats, we walked to the store next door and browsed around. Marathon has some great gift shops, and this was one I had never been in before. I was forced to part with some of my money as I found a couple of items I just could not pass up. We did eventually get to Publix, so I got groceries for my birthday as well!
The Lighthouse Grille restaurant at the Faro Blanco Marina offers free dinner to patrons who come in to dine on their birthday. Given the quality of the food, this offer is just too good to pass up! Last year, Clark set up a dinner at the restaurant with a large crowd. This year we decided to keep it small and invited Scott and Linda from "Ramble On" to join us. The restaurant was loud, so after dinner, we returned to "Sunset Delight" to relax and chat.
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| Clark and Ev - Sunset Delight Linda and Scott - Ramble On |
Saturday - 1/26/2019
Having had so much fun at pickleball yesterday, we planned to go again today. However, the weather did not cooperate. When we played yesterday, we had winds up to 15 mph. It definitely made hitting the ball challenging. When we hit into the wind, the ball stopped dead mid-court. When we hit with the wind, it sailed into the next county.
Today, we had an overcast and chilly day. The winds blew at 20 mph, and so we decided not to bother.
One of the things the wind blew in today included a number of Portuguese Man O' War specimens.
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| Portuguese Man O' War - near our boat |
The first time I saw one of these was last year. It looked like a balloon sitting on the water. Ann assured me that it was not and told me to stay far away from it.
Sunday - 1/27/2019
It seemed like my birthday went on for days as we still had one more event planned. The local theater group puts on plays each month. The current show is "Drinking Habits" - a comedy about nuns making wine without the Mother Superior knowing about it. We had never attended a show here before and thought it would be good to see one.
I guess we picked a popular one. The show was sold out for today - the first matinee ever to be sold out in the history of the theater. Also, this show has brought in more revenue than any other show. The highlight, however, turned out to be a member of the audience who attended today to celebrate her 102nd birthday. She did not look a day over 80!
Faith had seen the show on Friday night and told Clark, "It was good but had a slow start." In general, the audience seemed to enjoy the show. Perhaps, if I were Catholic, I would have laughed more at the jokes. As it turned out, the second act had several very funny surprises. Clark and I agreed that we have seen better delivery of lines in other amateur productions back home in NJ.
We hemmed and hawed about the weather and whether we should walk or bike to the show. Clayton offered to drive us, but we wanted some exercise. Ultimately, we rode our bikes and took our bike covers to wrap them in case it rained. We got lucky and had no rain before or during the show.
After the show, we biked to the Florida Keys Steak and Lobster House for dinner with Karen and Mark on "Captain's Choice" and Mandy and Jim on "Shell Belle". We locked our bikes to a bench outside the restaurant and enjoyed dinner with our friends. Since both sets of folks plan to go to the Bahamas soon for their first time there, Clark regaled us with stories of our travels there in 2016.
We all walked back to the marina from the restaurant - the guys up ahead and us gals taking our time following behind. No sooner did we arrive back at the marina than we felt the first drips of rain. Ten minutes after we were safely on board our boats, it poured rain in buckets. How lucky were we?!
Monday - 1/28/2019
Once again we woke up to nasty weather and high winds. Faith suggested that the weather did not support a trip to the pickleball courts, so we passed for today. Later I discovered that four folks from here did go and played even in the challenging conditions. Still being sore from Friday's play, I was happy to wait before venturing back onto the courts.
Since the weather kept us inside, Clark worked on the install of the fuel gauges. He had undone the install he did a few days ago because the tank would not stop leaking fuel. After consultation with Scott ("Ramble On"), he determined that the part was tapped too deeply, so it caused the valve to not seal properly. Today he installed the new part he had ordered and it went well, i.e. no leaking!
Moving 800 or so pounds of fuel all to one side of the boat definitely makes the boat tip, i.e. increases the angle of list. My cupboard doors either wanted to slam themselves shut or fling themselves open depending on which way we tipped. At one point Clark said, "I feel like I'm walking uphill."
Tuesday - 1/29/2019
We played pickleball in the morning and got back at lunch time. After lunch Clark and I did our weekly boat maintenance run. As opposed to yesterday, we had little wind and calm waters. Besides cleaning barnacles and yuck off the bottom of the boat, Clark wanted to check out his handy work with the fuel gauge install. All went well on our outing.
Clark pointed out that the canvas cover for the upper helm had gotten quite filthy over the past weeks, so I took it and some other canvas up and threw it in the washer. While that was happening, we hosed the salt off the boat - our standard procedure after even a short voyage around here.
The weather this week has been cold, windy, and sometimes wet. Clark did manage to get a nice sunset picture today.
Wednesday - 1/30/2019
After pickleball yesterday, Yasmine, Faith, and I stopped by the Art Studio nearby to see what they offered in terms of classes and activities. We found several pieces of ceramic that we thought would be fun to paint and decided that we should come back today to try our hand at it.
Today, we played pickleball from 10:15 until 11:30 or so.
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| Getting ready to play |
Once again, we found the courts very busy and decided to walk over to the 7th Street courts to warm up before jumping on the busy courts. Yesterday when the three of us played, Yasmine played against Faith and me. Today Faith played against Yasmine and me. Much to our embarrassment, Faith beat the two of us!
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| Evelyn, Yasmine, and Faith (the winner of this game) |
By 11:00 the courts thin out a bit. Especially today as a number of folks quit at that time to do volunteer work cleaning up the park. We managed to get a foursome of folks and play two more games before it started to rain and drove us away for the day.
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| Faith - "Third Degree" - serving Tammi (in pink - "Liberty") on her team |
I offered Clark's services to take Thorn (visiting "Flight") on the dinghy pub crawl today. Nine dinghies went to the Key's Fisheries for lunch. Several went on to Barnacle Barney's afterwards, but having eaten lunch, Clark decided he had done his duty and came back to the marina.
Besides the pickleball in the morning, Yasmine, Faith and I decided that we would spend the afternoon painting some ceramics. I grabbed a shower and a quick lunch to get ready to go back out again. I barely said more than "See ya later" to Clark as I ran out the door.
We spent about three hours at the art studio - first deciding which piece to make and then carefully painting our artwork. It is very hard to tell what the colors will look like while painting. The paint dries very faint in color. The tan color I used for skin tone was so pale that it did not even look like I had painted the piece. The items will be ready for pick up after 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. I am excited to see what they look like when done.
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| The before firing picture Sea Horse Plate - Faith Sea Horse - Yasmine Mandy the Mermaid - Evelyn |
We got back to the boats at 5:30, and after changing to warmer clothes, I walked over to docktails. Since we are at the end of the month, we have boats getting ready to leave soon and other, new ones coming in. Our friends on "Hour Plan", A.C. and Jim, arrived today. I did not see them at docktails but did meet some other boaters there whom I have not met previously.
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