Last week in Marathon - more new friends and old friends too

Well since our last posting we have been having a wonderful time.  Erwin got an invitation from Steve to go back out on his mom's boat to go fishing.  There were 4 guys and they caught black fin tuna but they were really a long way out into the Atlantic.  Erwin had his hands full with this rod and reel as you can see.  They slap a belt on you to hold the reel and you crank for a very long time as these fish are deep and are fighters.

I was thrilled that we were able to get some of the tuna and it was so tasty and fresh.  The interesting part of the day was that Steve got a fish on and he started to fight it.  He is the most experienced on the boat so it was a good thing that he had the rod.  After 45 minutes of a battle with the fish the tension changed and there was no great pull.  When Steve pulled in the line, well.  Here is Steve fighting the fish.

The other half of the the story, so to speak is pictured below.  Yup, a shark was on the line and had tried to steal the tuna.  Look at those jaw marks!

We were getting the scuba tanks back to the boat after the scuba trip and we met a great couple from Kansas City, MO, Susan and Robert.  They had a new puppy Abbie with them.  We talked a little bit and Erwin asked it they would like to go out on our boat and dive off the reef.  They were excited about that so the next good day we headed out.  Well as usual the weatherman had not totally predicted the waves and wind so it was a little lumpy which made it a less than great trip for the ladies.  Lucky for the guys we totally support their hobby so we "toughed it out" while they went diving on a wreck that is now a permanent spot for the fish.  Here are some of the great underwater pictures that Erwin and Robert took.  I have to say, this was Robert's first time to use a camera (Erwin has two so it was perfect) and he did a fabulous job.





After a fun day of diving, we met our old friends from our home port in Muskegon, Casey and Edith.  We all took our dingys over to a local restaurant on the water called Dockside.  It is a local hangout and everyone loves to listen to the bands.  The night we were there a musician by the name of Joe Mama performed.  He did a great job and we finally got to see this place that several of the boaters hang out at.  It was a lovely evening.  Casey and Edith came back to our boat and we showed them our pictures of the summer cruise we enjoyed on Mike and Lynette's boat.  It was fun to tell them about our adventure on a boat in the northern latitudes.

We focused on getting our boat and ourselves ready to leave Marathon and head back up the east coast to home.  We topped off the propane for cooking, the gas tanks for the dinghy, the water tanks for fresh water, the diesel tanks for the big boat to get us there, laundry, and of course enough groceries for a least 10 days.  Well, we had one more dive trip planned with Susan and Robert.  It looked again to be a good weather day by the weatherman.  It turned out to be a very warm day with threatening thunderheads in the morning.  Well, poor Susan decided to stay back with the dog Abbie so that she would be comfortable and not stuck in a hot cabin, plus Abbie had been under the weather so they wanted to be sure she was OK.

So Robert, Erwin and I went out to Sombrero Reef and there was hardly any waves, just a few and not very big.  The water was crystal clear.  Actually so clear that from the boat I could see the fan coral waving from the bottom and it was 20 feet down.  Here is the guys as they first left the boat.

The guys were down for almost and hour so I knew that they were having a great dive.  I amused myself with feeding a few pretzels to the fish and just watching them on the surface.  Because it was so clear, I could not only see the yellow tipped fish and the grunts, but I saw a couple of parrot fish that were green and brown and also a couple of smaller barracuda (about 3 foot or so.)





Like I said, these guys had a great time and took a lot of pictures.  They saw the best variety of fish and conditions were perfect for Erwin to get some wonderful shots with color as his new strobes work better than ever.



Check out the purple and yellow green at the bottom

This guy looks transparent in all of the pictures









He is about 4 feet across, look carefully as he hides himself well on the bottom.



Here is Robert looking at the giant stingray

OK, so I actually did remember to get a picture of our new friends.  Here they are at our boat.  We had them over to look at the new diving pictures and of course, our Alaska trip pictures.  It was great as  Susan brought the popcorn and a yummy homemade key lime pie.  What a fun evening we all had!



Hopefully next week we will have pictures of Key Largo and points further north.

Visitors and more

Hello again to our friends near and far,


We have had a very busy week this week.  Our friends Dorothy and Larry (from Punta Gorda) brought their 5th wheel down to the Keys and are in a park just across the 7 mile bridge from us.  Their friends, Barry and Donna (originally from Wisconsin) brought down their fishing boat.  They were kind enough to include us in a couple of dinners at the RV park but the most fun was the fishing.  The third party or group to join was Steve and Christy (also from Punta Gorda).  They had rented a place a few miles from our boat and they brought down Steve's mom's fast fishing boat.  I wanted to be sure to correct this since we just met Steve's mom and dad who are great folks.


Well we all made a plan to take the boats out fishing.  We all new that Steve and Cristy were the expert fishermen so we all just followed their lead.  Here is a picture of their great boat.

It was a great day out in the Atlantic.   I thought we were flying as the boat is equipped with two 150 horse engines and it can move!  The ocean was lumpy for a while but it got calmer throughout the day.  It was a great afternoon, the other boat with the foursome caught 7 fish and we caught 5 mahi mahi dolphin fish.  Now do not be confused, these were not like the dolphins that look like Flipper, these are a beautiful tropical fish that is delicious to eat.  We were thrilled to have them take us fishing and loved every minute of it.  This is our catch on that afternoon.

These fish in the water are yellow with aqua and green.

Then we took a day off from fishing and took the bus to Key West to hook up with my sister Lonnie.  She was visiting a friend in Naples, and they took the fast boat from Naples to Key West to spend a night and check out Key West.  It was great fun to have lunch with all of them.  Here is a picture of me and my sister Lonnie (boy you sure can tell we are sisters).

This is the whole group (minus Erwin) after we had devoured our yummy lunch.  Erwin was such a good sport to go with me and he was a charmer at lunch.  We explained a lot about cruising the rivers and what it is like to live on a boat.

Erwin and I also capture many of the images of Key West, here are a few to show you what it looks like:

The schooner ship down by the waterfront





This is a banyan tree (the roots grow down from the top)

This is the art museum

This is me standing by the statue

The plaque with the name of the statue

The Famous Conch Train

This is one of many tours throughout town


The last day with all of these great folks was Erwin's day for fun.  Larry drove the boat and he is now officially my hero (I was supposed to drive the boat)  Steve and Erwin went diving, actually they did three separate dives.  The first dive was interesting as Erwin had clipped his camera to his dive suit, but the clip was not secure.  He motioned to Steve that he had lost the camera.  Steve was wonderful and thought quick enough send up a buoy to mark the spot they were in.  It was amazing as they actually went back and located the camera in the Atlantic ocean.  I think that is pretty remarkable.  Since it is an expensive camera and housing, we will always be grateful for Steve's quick thinking.  Here is a picture of Erwin getting all of his gear on.

Here is a couple of the pictures of those two diving.



Here is Steve with his spear gun (the picture below).  Yes, he was spearing fish and trying to teach Erwin how to spear. 



This is one of the fish that Erwin captured with the camera. 

This is one of the hog fish that are very good eating.  Steve and Erwin got hog fish for dinner, yum.



The last dive was on a wreck and those are great havens for the fish.

Here is a picture of Barry, Donna, Dorothy, and Larry back at the 5th wheel. (left to right)  The flash did not work very well, but I promised this group a picture after they had fixed a marvelous meal for us.



Family Fun in the Keys

Well we had a wonderful week with Erwin's sister, Bonnie, and her hubby Bill.  It was a fun filled week and here are some of the memories we created.


Here are some of the everyday things that Erwin and Marilyn take for granted.




This is the mural painted on the wall at the City Marina at Boot Key Harbor.






This is one of several dinghy docks at the City Marina.

These dinghy docks are important to all of the boaters including the 226 boats on a mooring and the other boats at anchor.

Another mode of transportation once you take the dinghy to shore is a bicycle.  Here is one of several of the bike racks at the marina.  On any given day there will be a least a couple of hundred bicycles.  Another very typical mode of transportation is just good old fashioned walking.  It is about a mile or so to the local grocery store (Publix), to the West Marine store (very important for the boaters), local restaurants (which we typically do not use), pharmacy, and many other businesses.  Although we were very spoiled all week having the van these two drove down.

One of our first adventures of the week was to show Bonnie and Bill the History of Dive Museum which is located at Islamorada (this is the next key over from Marathon).  Since we had Bonnie and Bill's van it was a short drive to the museum.  There is a very good bus service on the keys as we used it last year to go to the museum.  Here is a picture of Bonnie and Bill in front of the Dive Museum.

After we had toured the entire museum we were hungry so we stopped at the restaurant with no walls.  It was a beautiful afternoon and the scenery was great.  We were also enjoying the one man steel drum performance at lunch.

We took a dinghy ride through Sister Creek just off of Boot Key Harbor and showed the two of them all of the beautiful homes along all of the channels.  It was a lovely afternoon of cruising in the dinghy which is one of our favorite pastimes.  In the evening Uncle Bill drove us over to Sombrero Beach which is located right in Marathon and just a few miles from the City Marina.  Here is a picture of all of us on the beautiful white sand beach.

We drove to Key West to see the farthest southern tip of the United States.  It was Aunt Bonnie's first trip to Key West.  It was great fun to walk all through Mallory Square and of course we all did the Duvall Crawl.  This is what the locals (called Conchs) call the visitors stroll down Duvall avenue which of course is packed with stores selling t-shirts, jewelry, art, and items that folks usually collect on vacation. Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Bill were able to connect with old friends Jeanette and Ben (they lived in Orange Park Florida at the same time)  Jeanette made us an original Key Lime Pie which was out of this world good.  We all enjoyed that later in the evening.

 Key West is a very popular stop for the cruise ships and so we would not be disappointed, there were three in town that day.  Here is one of the local houses which has a unique feature; notice the roof of the porch on the second floor.  This is called eyebrow design which shades the second floor from the hot sun and provides for ventilation to the second floor.  This is very typical as there was no air conditioning when these houses were built.

Here is another Key West home that has been restored.

We had gone to Key West a couple of times last year and Frank and Bonnie Post had taken us to the observation roof of the LaConch Hotel.  It is the highest point of Key West at a total of 7 stories!  We thought it was a great place to show the two of them Key West.  Our view did not disappoint.  Here is the view from the top of the hotel.  Notice one of the three cruise ships in the very back of the picture.

We also walked along the harbor (as Erwin and I typically do.  Right next to a restaurant, this guy was cleaning his catch of the day which included a mahi, mahi, and this wheelbarrow full of mackerel.  Yum.

The highlight of the week was the last day of Bonnie and Bill's visit.  We watched the weather and knew it was a perfect weather day to go hook on a mooring at Sombrero Reef so that the three of them could go snorkeling.  Our planning paid off as it started out cloudy, but the sun came out later and we all had a blast.  Here is the three of them in the water.  I could not snorkel as my ears have been infected, but I had a great time watching them play and listening to them chatter about the life below the surface.  Uncle Bill and Erwin actually dove in the 1960's and Uncle Bill was one of Erwin's first diving buddies so snorkeling was really special as Erwin and Bonnie did this as kids also.





Aunt Bonnie is on the left, Uncle Bill is at the bottom of the picture and my dive guy, Erwin was the one in the black suit at the top with the red snorkel.  You can also see another boat at the top of the picture on a mooring just like us.

The real treat was Erwin taking pictures underwater with his dive camera.  Look at the great pictures he got of this same school of fish.







Here are some more of the beautiful underwater pictures.

Here is Uncle Bill diving down to check out the great coral on the reef.

After a very fun filled week, we sadly had to say good bye to our guest.  They were great sports about adapting to life on a boat and the entire week was so special to all of us.