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.