19 March 2026 - Thursday
Today, being Thursday, was holding tank pump-out day. The guys show up some time in the morning, but it is not on any schedule such that we can predict when they will get to our boat. Clark planned to go work on the boat with the battery issues. I felt lazy, so instead of going to play Mah Jongg, I stayed on the boat to wait for the guys to get to our turn. When the guys were getting close to our boat, I called Clark and told him to come back. I try to avoid pump-out duty though I have done it a few times.
While he was gone, I happened to notice that my bear, "Monty", (Vermont Teddy Bear) was still wearing his clothes from St. Patrick's Day. Tsk Tsk. He needed a change of outfit for sure. He decided that he wanted to go tropical! After he was dressed in his bright-colored shirt, beads, and captain's hat, he was ready to go, but where??
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| "Monty" ready to party?! |
I decided he should try a SUP (stand-up paddle board), so I spent part of the day making him one. It was too windy today, so he just posed with it. He's ready for the first day he can get out without being blown over by the wind!
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| "Monty" and his new SUP |
Since I did not play Mah Jongg with boaters this morning, I pulled up the "Mahjong 4 Friends" app on my laptop to play a few games online. The suggestions given for hands based on tiles picked were interesting and diverse. I played for far too long.
After the pump-out was complete and Clark had eaten lunch, he returned to the "battery boat" to work on it. Although new batteries had arrived yesterday, the battery box that they would rest in had yet to arrive. Late afternoon, the battery box finally came into the marina and work could continue, and continue it did, well into the night.
At 7:00 I got a text from Clark, "It will be a while, you may want to go ahead and have dinner." I replied that I would wait. While waiting for him to return, I decided to take a peek at the sunset. I took the picture from the bow of our boat today.
By 8:30, I had heard no word from Clark and decided to eat. Several times during the night, I picked up my phone to ask him when he would return and put it back down again without calling him. He'd be back when he was done.
While I waited, I decided to watch Season 4 of the "Bridgerton" series on Netflix. As I watched the first episode with a trite Cinderella plot, I was not enthused; however, after that the storyline picked up considerably. Clark finally climbed onto the boat with all his tools and such at 10:30. They were finally done for the day. I reheated the pizza for him that I had cooked earlier.
Clark said it was essential that they get the job done as they could not leave the boat without the batteries up and running.
20 March 2026 - Friday
This morning, my friend, Nancy, gave me a ride to Publix to stock up on food. Many things can be purchased and carried on our bikes; however, the package of 16 water bottles I bought today is not one of them. I filled several large bags with food getting ready for departing from Marlin Bay and Marathon in the near future. April 1st we will be pulling in our lines and heading out. I need more things before we leave like fruits and fresh veggies, but I will fill up on those closer to departure time.
Meanwhile, while I was out shopping, Clark was (you guessed it) back on DanCyn looking at their batteries. Fortunately, he was only there in the morning as in the afternoon, he met with his friend, John, to practice playing before church service on Sunday.
21 March 2026 - Saturday Spring has officially arrived!
April 1 seems to be a popular target date for boaters here at Marlin Bay to be departing for destinations known only to them. Several folks are talking of heading up the west coast of Florida, many are targeting the Bahamas, and others are focused on heading up the east coast. Some folks will leave boats in Florida and travel to northern climates by plane or car, including Canada, for the summer. Others, like us, will take their boats north to their home locations. Many plan to return again next season; some are thinking they won't be back. Given the season is winding down, folks are trying to get in as many activities as possible in the next few days.
We have a chat group for Marlin Bay boaters, and via that, someone suggested that we get together tonight at what has now been dubbed "Sunset Corner" to have a group dinner - bring your on fish / meat and a dish to share. Clark and I planned to attend. I had pulled out a steak for the grill, and then our plans abruptly changed.
Years ago, when Clark and I were still working and owned a Mainship 350 named "Sea Moss", we participated in boat raft ups with other Mainship owners. We belonged to two groups actually - one in South New Jersey and one in New England / Long Island. In those days, we were working, so we had money but no time to spare. (The opposite of today where we have plenty of time and watch our dollars.) We never traveled to New England for a raft up, but we did get to Long Island several times. Depending on the location, we could do the trip in a weekend or on three day weekends as well.
The boating groups would pick a spot where we could meet. Sometimes we would have over 20 boats rafted together, and once tied up, we would climb over a number of boats to get to the one we were targeting - usually where the action / partiers were located. I remember one time our boat was the hot spot and we had something like 29 people on our boat!
One of the folks we met through the Long Island gatherings is our friend Dave on "Uptick", and he just happened to be stopping in Marathon today for just one night, tonight, with his wife Michele. His stop in Marathon was completely unplanned when he left Key West, but he had an issue with his boat and had to make a stop for a repair. That gave us a chance to get together.
We agreed to get together at 5:00, and just before 5:00 we hopped on our bikes to ride to Marathon Safe Harbor Marina where they were docked, to eat dinner at Lazy Days - the restaurant located at that marina. We ate there in February when we celebrated St. Valentine's Day together. We hoped that the road construction that forced us to ride into traffic on Route 1 las time had been cleaned up.
Alas, that was not the case. Once again we waited at the edge of the road construction for traffic to clear so we could ride on Route 1 up to the street for the restaurant. We had to wait several minutes to get a stretch long enough to make it past the construction safely before more cars came.
Dave had made a reservation for dinner, but the restaurant was, for a Saturday, surprisingly not full. We had a very enjoyable dinner together and left about 7:15 to race back to the marina before sunset. Clark did not want to deal with putting lights on his bike. We took a group picture
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| Clark, Dave, Michele, and Ev |
When we got back to Marlin Bay, folks were still milling about "Sunset Corner". They had quite a crowd there. Some folks took group shots and shared them with the rest of us.
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| Posted by Brian to the group |
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| Hannah taking a group shot |
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| Lisa posted this picture of the group |
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| Jean and Carol |
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| "Avalon" lit up by blue lights |
22 March 2026 - Sunday
Today started out like a normal Sunday for us with band practice before church followed by church. However, our friends, the McFalls, who are visiting here this month from Michigan decided to treat Clark to a special day due to his recent birthday.
We biked to church for 10:00 as per usual and enjoyed a delightful, uplifting service at the church. After grabbing a bite to eat at the church, we put our bikes and Clark's guitar in the back of Jim and JoAnn's car and they took us to see their rental house for the afternoon. Sadly, I did not take many pictures; only one in fact of a wall hanging I found interesting.
JoAnn made us a scrumptious, early dinner of chicken parm with a great salad. Afterwards, we headed over to Sunset Park, also in Key Colony Beach, to hear today's free concert.
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| "Ocean Drive Concert in the Park FREE" |
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| Crystal Carew |
At the park, I saw several of my friends from art at the library, and as we sat to watch the show, our friends from church, Nancy and Steve, came with their dog Diesel.
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| Clark and Jim Ev and JoAnn Nancy and Steve |
As part of today's plan, JoAnn had included a trip to Sweet Savannah's for dessert, so when we left the park, we headed their for a sweet treat of ice cream.
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| Wild Bill's Root Beer and Black Cherry Pop |
Although not shown in the picture below, JoAnn and I had plastic palm fronds to wave at the appropriate points in the chorus of the song above.
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| JoAnn, Jim, Ev, and Clark Sunset in Key Colony Beach |
People were scattered around the park and on the beach waiting for the sun to drop below the horizon.
And, when the sun disappeared, we heard the music.
With the sun down and the music finished, it was time for Jim and JoAnn to take us home to the marina. When we got there, the evening's light show was not yet finished.
23 March 2026 - Monday
As we walked around the marina this morning, Clark decided to stop by Dan's boat where I got invited to come see the results of their battery efforts. At first I declined but then I could not resist seeing what they have worked so hard to accomplish.
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| "TaDa" - a work of art! |
The day was a beauty. The sun was shining brightly and the wind was only a breeze. It seemed the perfect time to let Monty come out to play with his new SUP. I managed to get him to provide several poses!
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| Paddling out |
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| And he's up! |
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| Taking a rest |
As Monty and I were checking out the new SUP, I heard Clark say, "Sea Breeze" is leaving. I quick grabbed my camera to go check it out. I was too late to get a picture as they left the marina basin, so I walked down to the end of our dock.
I wanted to see where they went - to the right would mean towards Miami and to the left most likely would mean to somewhere to get fuel. However, when they got just outside of the basin, they went neither right nor left. They just stopped and sat. Donna, who was sitting on the back of her boat, told me that they had a yacht controller installed, so most likely they were checking out operating the boat with this new device. I took a few pictures anyway. It's a very pretty boat.
This evening at 5:00 was bingo once again - probably the last chance I will get to play before we leave here next week. Once again, Hannah was in charge.
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| Hannah calling numbers for bingo |
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| Heidi worked the bar |
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| We had a full house for the game. |
A fellow sitting near me really had a hard time understanding the rules for winning a round. Twice he called "Bingo!" when he did not meet the criteria for winning. The first time Hannah made him wear the basket on his head. The second time she decided we should take a vote. We had 20 people playing. Of the 20, more than half said no to making him wear the basket a second time. After that he said he would never call bingo again!
Unfortunately for Hannah, she forgot that there are no "N" numbers in certain patterns, and she got tripped up and had to wear the basket herself.
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| Hannah wearing the basket |
At 6:00 bingo ended, and I decided to walk around to visit folks before heading back to the boat. I walked over to the tower to look back at the outer basin.
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| Inside the tower |
24 March 2026 - Tuesday
When Nancy takes me to get groceries, we have about 10 minutes to talk each way in the car. When she dropped me off last time we went, I said that we needed more time to talk one of these days. She came up with plans for us to spend time together today.
She picked me up around 9:30 and drove to the parking lot at the beginning of the 7 Mile Bridge bike / walking trail to Pigeon Key. We planned to walk the 2 miles there and back to give us time to talk. As we walked the boardwalk, the Pigeon Key trolley went by us.
After our walk, we made a quick stop at Publix for Nancy to pick up some items and then drove to Marlin Bay to collect Clark for lunch at Nancy's condo in Key Colony Beach. He joined us with guitar in hand because after after lunch at Nancy's, they would be going to band practice at the church.
The view from Nancy and Steve's place is amazing as they are on the third floor of their building and overlook the ocean.
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| getting ready |
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| lifting off |
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| way up there! |
When it was time to leave for band practice, Nancy pointed out the lovely orchids growing on the trees by the condos.
Before going to the church for practice, they dropped me off at the marina where I spent the afternoon working on this blog update. They dropped Clark off at the marina after practice. He walked onto the boat around 4:30 or so.
When he saw I was busy on the computer, he grabbed his tools and went off to work on the boat "Crazy Horse" to look at the problem they are having with failed bilge pumps. Clark found two issues with the pumps, a failed connection and a bad float switch and managed to address both of them for Francine and Thom. Done!
Having had a large lunch including key lime pie from Sweet Savannah's, we decided to have a late dinner, so after finishing with Crazy Horse, Clark grabbed some stuff and went off to visit Dan on "DanCyn" to talk about how their batteries are working. Apparently things seem to be going well. They operated the last day or so on battery power to see how the batteries held up without the boat being plugged in to shore power. Clark seemed pleased with the numbers Dan provided to him regarding battery consumption. The charging from solar panels in the morning was less than stellar, but would help.
While he did that, I went out to seek yet another sunset picture!
On my way, I walked by the boat DanCyn where Clark has been hanging out this past month. The folks on the boat next door said hello to me and started to tell me where Clark was. I beat the to it, and said, "I know exactly where Clark is!" They laughed.
Later, as I passed by the pool bar, I noticed that the Scouts from Sea Base had taken over the area. No one was at the bar including the bar tender who I later found out had gone up to the Club House for supplies.
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| Scouts from Sea Base by the bar - billiards, ping pong, and more |
Earlier this morning while I was out with Nancy, Clark heard some commotion and went out to see what was happening and found one of the Sea Base sailboats was pushed up against the boats on the west side of the basin with a bunch of folks pushing the sailboat away from their boats. Clark said it was a 4 knot wind!
Later, as I walked back from the Club House, I snapped some pictures of the architecture and palm trees.
The shadows cast on the side of the condos caught me eye.
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| Florida Sea Base 2026 on his shirt |
While I was up there, I took a couple of pictures of the outer basin. Our boat is somewhere in the picture on the east side towards the middle.
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| Marlin Bay Outer Basin soon to be much emptier |
Walking back towards the boat, I took yet more pictures of the sun setting.
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| Palm tree reflections |
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| Tower Reflection |
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| Blue, Purple and Red Cloud over the water |
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