13 December 2023 Wednesday
no travel
We had heavy rain overnight and woke to the rock and roll of the boat pulling at the dock lines against the wind. The folks at the marina that come around weekly to pump out holding tanks said they wanted to do the boats on our dock today as the weather prediction indicated worse conditions, i.e. higher winds, for our typical Thursday pump out.
I spent the day on the boat updating the blog and doing miscellaneous chores. Too wet and windy for walking about the marina much. I did walk up to the main building early on and took a picture of the wetness from inside.
14 December 2023 Thursday
no travel
When we woke this morning, we had no idea what time it was as we were in the midst of a power outage all the way from Islamorada to Key West. We later found out that the outage was due to a faulty lightning arrester. The power went out at 5:30 a.m. By the time we got out of bed, the power was just coming back on. We slept in late.
We had yet another miserable day of rain. I found a time when the weather broke for a while, so I went for a walk and took pictures around the marina.
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| The flowers refused to stay still for a photo. |
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| Not sunbathing today! |
The palms were waving in the breeze facing away from the wind.
Steve, a dockhand here, was busy for hours, rain or no, raking up rocks into dirt piles where the old dirt mound used to be. He said that the iguanas nested in the rocks of the mound, so removing the mound should reduce the iguana population in the marina.
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| Steve's coat is whipping in the wind as he rakes |
Clark called Bottoms & Props to have them come scrape the bottom of the boat. I could not believe the diver showed up today. Clark checked and the winds were gusting to about 40 mph.
I guess if he's under the boat, he is out of the weather. I took a picture through the boat window of him prepping to go in. When he got in the water he just jumped off the side of the walkway. SPLASH!
15 December 2023 Friday
no travel
Today, being Friday, I went to the library at 11:00 for the photography session. The only attendees for the session were the instructor and me. We worked on making Holiday cards out of the pictures we took at the park last week. We used the Canva design tool to do the editing.
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| Ceiling of the library |
Maria pulled out two of three lights to use while Santa was visiting. Assembling them took the two of us as it required more than two hands to bend things into position. A new learning experience for me. The lights are LED with diffusers.
The picture below is the backdrop for Santa where the children will sit and tell him their wishes. A form letter / Christmas wish list to be filled out by each child could be found at the front desk. A mailbox sat beside Santa so the kiddos could mail their letters. I later learned that about 200 people attended the event despite the miserable weather.
After lunch, we got a surprise visit from folks we recently met on a boat named Rock & Roll (appropriate for our current weather situation). They are at Marlin Bay temporarily as they await a weather window to move to an obscure marina near Castaways. They decided that they wanted to get off their boat and talk. They kept us company the whole afternoon.
Clark had just gone down into the opening below the salon to work on the inverter when they came. He quickly closed up to remove the hazard of an open hatch. After dinner, he went back down in the hole to work on the inverter.
This is the hatch I fell through in 2017 and broke my arm. I know just how dangerous it can be.
16 December 2023 Saturday
no travel
Saturday is supposed to be Farmer's Market Day, but not today! The rain and wind just keep on coming. It might break for a while to fool someone into thinking the worst is over, when whoosh! The rain comes down heavier than ever. It has been days now with no end!
Clark decided to go up to the marina club house to take a shower and was gone for ages. The wind and rain was so heavy at times, I did not dare get off the boat to look for him as I figured I would be blown / swept away off the dock into the water and rocks below never to be seen again if I did. He eventually returned as I knew he would. Apparently, folks on "Rock N Roll" and "Puffin" decided to get off their boats to talk and play games. Clark joined them for the talking part of that.
With nothing better to do, I decided that my teddy bear needed a Santa shirt to go with his Santa hat, so I pulled out the sewing machine. I had sacrificed an old red shirt to make a dive flag when we visited the Dry Tortugas. I decided I might just as well use the leftover fabric to make a teddy bear shirt. The fabric had ruffles in the front, so I kept them for the costume.
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| Santa Bear in his new shirt |
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| Santa Bear with his buddies |
17 December 2023
no travel
Miraculously the rain seems to have mostly stopped. The sun made an appearance and I ran outside to take a picture in case it started to get gloomy again.
Clark has been anxiously awaiting this moment to get back to working outside on the boat. When we visited the Marquesas Keys, the dinghy took a hit and got a chip in the fiberglass. He ran out today to work on patching the boo-boo. Unfortunately, he decided he needed my help.
He stood on the gunnel so he could reach the dinghy. He needed me to help hold some things in place for him as he worked. Even standing on the gunnel I am unable to reach. I had to lie down on the floor of the flybridge and shimmy my way across the boat to get to the spot I needed to reach under the dinghy. Thankfully, with all the rain we have had, the floor was quite clean!
I got into position and did some stuff for Clark. He then said he had to go mix up the patch material to apply. I told him there was no way I would climb under the boat a second time. Instead I just laid there and waited until he came back to continue his work. The floor was hard and uncomfortable but much better to lie there than to try to slither across it multiple times.
We got the job done and I spent the rest of the day relaxing with my latest novel.
18 December 2023 Sunday
bike ride
Thankfully I had enough food on the boat to outlast the deluge. Today we had to go to the food store as I had run out of cookies! I had a list, but cookies was the highest priority. The winds were only blowing in the teens today, so we pulled out the bikes to go shopping.
Because we do our shopping on bikes with backpacks, I end up "cherry picking" from my grocery list trying to only buy the highest priority items. Even so, we were loaded down as we made our way back to the boat.
Publix has workers that pack the grocery bags for customers. They are trained on packing plastic bags but no so backpacks. I do not want the plastic, but often it is just too frustrating for all involved. I could do it, but it is frowned on to take the work away from the packers. I usually give up and ask them to pack the bags which I then empty into the backpacks before we leave the parking lot.
We got home in time for lunch where we dug into our cookies for dessert.
Clark received a package yesterday. We both knew what it was - my present! It came in a huge box that barely fit through the door of the boat. Even though I told him I did not want the cardboard in the boat, he dragged it in to the pilot house. I guess it became too much of an obstacle because he asked if I wanted to open the gift. I said,"YES"!
My present was a collapsible wagon for shopping, etc. I see lots of future uses for it. One thing I hoped to do with it was be able to pull it behind a bike. Clark said he bought the wrong wagon for that. However, he decided to give it a try.
He found that it worked okay, but he has to remember that the wagon is a lot wider than the bike. If he forgets, he might get a rude reminder as the wagon catches on something. If I use the wagon, it will be with me walking!
The wagon does not collapse to a very small size. Figuring out how / where to store the wagon became a "reorganize the boat" activity. We decided it needed to be handy to be useful. We also do not want to store it out in the weather. We agreed on using a closet on the boat. We had to remove quite a bit of stuff to make room. Hopefully it will prove to be a useful addition to our boat supplies.
19 December 2023 Tuesday
no travel
Today being Tuesday, it was art day at the library. I decided to take my own supplies to use.
The art teacher, Maria (same as photography), planned a pot luck breakfast for today's session. Folks brought enough food for an army. Maria put a video of a fireplace on the screen for atmosphere. She had Christmas music playing in the background. For the first hour of class, no one did any art.
Eventually, folks settled down to "do their own thing".
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| Artists busy at work |
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| Our friendly leader - Maria waving hello |
Someone at another table did some Christmas watercolor.
I had a coloring book with me and drew a gnome with watercolor pencils. I forgot to take a picture of my own work!
On the walk home I passed by the area where all the fishermen come into Keys Fisheries. I could actually see a huge difference in the amount of sea grass that had accumulated while I was at the library. The photo below shows the accumulation thus far and the sea grass still flowing in!
With the sun out today, I got some interesting pictures of shadows.
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| Shadow of palm tree on sea grass |
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| Palm tree shadows on walkway |
As I came into Marlin Bay, a man was there operating a lift to do palm tree trimming on the grounds.
Even though we still have a bit of wind, 20 knots today, this butterfly was enjoying the blooms at the marina.
Having finished watching yet another drama series, Clark suggested we watch a movie. We spent the night watching "Oppenheimer".
We got very sad news today. Our dog buddy on "Concession", Sammy, passed away recently. She was 13 and had a great life including completing America's Great Loop. We will miss her happy face and wagging tail! I am so thankful we got to spend time with her last season at Marlin Bay.
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| RIP Sammy |
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