Fun in the Keys of Florida

Hey, these are some of the photos of the undersea world at the reef off of Marathon.

Here is Erwin's dive partner, Morgan.

Here is Erwin, having a great time.

Here is a shark sitting under the ledge of the reef.

The rest of the photos are the sea life and all of the great coral plants at the reef.

Isn't this all just fascinating!

Back to cruising in the Florida waters

Well we made it back to Florida and have spent a couple of weeks here, one working on all the various things that needed to be done and one on moving the boat from Charlotte Harbor to Marathon in the middle keys.

We flew into Ft. Meyers and were picked up neighbors of our Dorothy and Larry.  Fred and Dot are some of our new friends that we have made at Harbor Heights which is outside of Punta Gorda.  Dorothy and Larry have been away from home and returned just the same morning as we were flying in.  They had their new tug boat they had purchased on a trailer and were hauling it from the Chicago area to Florida.  Here is a picture of the proud owners and their new boat.  Isn't it just adorable?

We had to go to the boat yard the day after we arrived as we had scheduled for the boat to be plunked in the water.  I was nervous as always.  This is not a light weight boat and those big lifts are huge and noisy.  It is like you want to turn your head, but you have to watch to be sure it is OK.  All American boatyard did a super job.  Here is a couple of the pictures of them moving it from storage to the water.

We cleaned the boat, windows, gally, dishes, beds, walls, dinghy, solar panels, etc. so the boat no longer looked liked it had been stored for a long time in the hot summer heat of Florida.  All in all it really did not have a lot of issues that needed to be addressed, we had the usual to do as in free up some of the metal stuff that had frozen in the heat and salt.  We were very happy that the inside of the boat stayed so dry and even though there were a few bugs in the spices that were not sealed, not a lot of problems.  I tossed the spices and started new with the ones I had brought with me in November in the truck. 

We will be forever thankful for our good friends Dorothy and Larry as they carted us all over the place even though they had been gone a month themselves.  We knew that Larry was anxious to start on the new boat, and we sure could not blame him for that.  We supported the economy well as we provisioned the boat from the local Winn-Dixie, Publix, and the health store which had a wonderful supply of fresh spices.  We also visited the Ace Hardware, West Marine, and dive shop.  It was fascinating to get a call from the credit card company (after Marilyn was denied credit at the grocery), they wanted to verify we were making all the purchases and that it was all OK.  Nice touch on the fraud department.  I love it that they watch out for us so well.  It was Discover by the way.  Good Job.

As we were cleaning and putting all of the supplies away the boat looked pretty much at home on the dock at Dorothy and Larry's.  Here it is:

  Oh yes, we are not in Kansas anymore as this Blue Heron was standing on the dock looking in the windows of the boat as I was putting away all of the groceries.  I think they expect some food, but I was not sharing.  He was so close that I could hear him making a slow gurgling sound in his throat!

We were all set to leave but awoke to some clouds, some wet stuff falling from above, and quite a bit of wind.  It seemed like a good day to take advantage of some more organizing and hug the dock.  We left the following morning early to catch enough water in the channel.  Here is the sunrise as we went under the bridge at highway 41.

We made our way to Ft. Meyers and were hoping to catch up with some of our cruising friends there.  But Don and Linda, and Casey and Edith were not in water so we were unable to see them as we did not have a car.  We were able to see our old friend Frank (from Maine) as he was in Ft. Meyers and picked us up to go lunch and catch up.  Even more important, he took us to West Marine to purchase a new battery for the main engine.  It seems as our old battery did not survive the heat and humidity.  Since we live on the battery and generator with our own power supply, it was a good investment.

After a couple of days waiting for winds and seas to be favorable we said good bye to Ft. Meyers and started our 3 day trip to Marathon.  2 of the 3 passages were nice and easy.  The middle one had a little of the rolly seas that just make it less than pleasant.  Erwin was playing with the new camera and took this picture of me driving the boat.  Note that the water on the Gulf of Mexico is almost flat.  Nice way to cruise.

When we took the pass into Marco Island and on to Goodland, we could not help but remember the water here in Florida is quite shallow.  Just look at the dry land where water used to be on the shore.

We anchored all of the nights on the way to Marathon.  Some of these spots are very secluded.  You can see by the photo, not much other boat traffic.