Boating with Sunset Delight: 2022: Christmas at Marlin Bay

December 23 - 25, 2022

No boat travel.

The weather has been unusual in the Keys for Christmas weekend. We have had northerly winds of 25 mph gusting to 35 mph beating on us for the past few days, an occasional rain storm to keep things interesting, continuous cloudy skies, and temperatures in the 50s. With that north wind, it feels a lot colder. Gone are the shorts and t-shirts, and out came the jackets and long pants.

Clark went to physical therapy for his finger on Friday. He was told to dress for Christmas, so he wore green shorts and a red t-shirt with a Santa hat to top it off. After therapy, he had to deal with rainy weather for the bike ride home. The skies had been threatening all morning but waited until he needed to ride his bike back to the boat to shed some rain on us.

He has been very kind to do some basic grocery shopping for us on the way back from his appointments. It helps that I know where in Publix to find the items I want, so I add the aisle number to the list to speed things up for him.

Since I started doing acrylic painting, I have found a lot more interest in cloud formations. I still have not mastered how to capture a good cloud on canvas, but I find it fun to keep studying them and capturing them in pictures.

These pictures were taken around 8:30 a.m.

These were taken around 5:30 ...

Clark took these in the evening ...

We heard on the news that a cold front was coming. Miami was predicting "bitter cold weather" with temperatures plummeting to 40 degrees. The adjective "bitter" seems a little misplaced given the truly cold weather in the northern states.

In the Keys we saw a low of 56 but the wind chill made it feel a lot colder than that. Since we do not turn on the heat in the boat to sleep, I threw on an extra blanket to keep us warm. The lowest the stateroom got to was 62 degrees overnight.

The worst part of the weather is the north wind blowing on the side of the boat and pushing it away from the dock. All night long we had the wind beating on us. Gusts to 35 mph can generate some hefty wave action.

Saturday morning I asked Clark how he slept and he said, "Like a baby! Rock-a-bye baby!" "Good for you", I said, "I didn't fall asleep for hours as I felt like I was lying on a trampoline with someone jumping on it."

Besides being bounced around, I had to listen to the random banging of the anchor chain inside the anchor locker. On a particularly strong hit from a wave, the chain would swing out and slap back down to hit the side of the anchor locker located directly behind my head! When this happened once before in the past, I sent Clark out to address the problem. This night, the gusting was so strong, and he was sleeping so soundly, that I just had to deal with the noise. Besides, it felt way too dangerous to go out on the bow to try to fix it with the boat tossing around.

On Saturday I asked Clark to put addressing-the-anchor-chain issue on his to-do list for the day. Thankfully he did something so that we had no more chain clanging. Neither of us got off the boat once all day today with the strong winds. I ran out of things to do to entertain myself. I did some puzzles, played some solitaire card games, and read my book.

Some fellow boaters decided that we should get together at the Captain's Lounge at the marina for a potluck dinner on Christmas day. Having been trapped on the boat all day Saturday, I was determined that whatever it took, I would escape the boat for the gathering. Working together and wearing work gloves to hold the lines, we managed to pull the boat close enough to jump off!

The party was a great success. We had lots of good food and spent time with boaters we know and met others that were new to us. I added a bunch more names to my list of fellow Marlin Bay'ers. Trisha (Journey) and Robin (Avalon) organized the event, i.e. reserved the room and let boaters know the time and place. Trisha said she thought we might have 16 to 20 folks attend. I did not count the participants, but we did have a full room of people partaking of the fun.