Laundry day in Marathon

Day 21: Sunday, March 13, 2016

The winds died down last night and we both had a wonderful night’s sleep.  Amazingly, I slept past my usual waking hour and came alive at about 6:00.  I was surprised that it remained dark for so long when I figured out that it was the day of the daylight savings time change and I had in fact awakened at my usual time.  We now have bread so we celebrated with a wonderful breakfast of sausage gravy on toast.

Some of the expensive boat lifts in the abandoned resort/marina

Shortly after breakfast it started to rain and the showers continued for the majority of the morning.  It was a cool refreshing rain that helped to wash the salt that had accumulated on the boat during our passage from Cape Sable to Long Key.  We planned to make an early trek to the marina with a large load of laundry but decided to wait until the rains stopped and we had finished our lunch. 

While we waited on the rain to stop, we tuned into a radio chat session that takes place amongst boaters via their VHF ship to shore radio.  The moderator was a smooth personality who kept the conversation going and kept a handle on the well-organized daily sessions.  For instance, he had a

A sample of the many condos in the resort/marina

session in which he asked for departing members of the anchorage community to acknowledge themselves and he had a kind farewell and comments for each one.  During that session, probably 15 boaters reported that they were leaving and had a parting comment as well.

By the time we headed out, the sun was beginning to bear down and the humidity rose to a somewhat uncomfortable level.  We motored in the dink to shore and were again greeted by throngs of folks heading for the Seafood Festival.  We got our machines running and I headed for the showers. Janine went to the book exchange library.  This is an amazing thing that cruising sailors do. They drop off

A common sight

books that they have read and pick a title of interest.  We have seen this at a number of places, however, this one we agree has more than 1,000 titles from which to choose. 

Back at the laundry, Janine took a turn in the shower while I was entertained by a young lady who had two small children, the youngest was 15 months old.  The mother and her husband had both been army medics.  The husband was still in the reserves and the young lady had gone back to school to become an RN.  Eighteen months ago, they took all of their savings and bought a 36 foot sailboat in South Carolina and had sailed it down here where they were hole up while they earned enough money to continue their world adventure.  She was working as an OR nurse at a local hospital.  She worked 5 eight hour shifts a week, leaving their boat at 5:00 the morning and rowing

her kayak to shore and then walking to the hospital.  She also took call so her husband had to be “Mr. Mom.” 

We returned to Second Wind and we spent time straightening up the boat and putting away clothes, talked to Doug who was getting ready to head out and took a dinghy ride.  Our first stop was in the boat yard near us where Doug was finishing up some chores before he leaves.  He plans to head back east for about 20 miles, cross out into the Atlantic side and catch the Gulf Stream on the way to the Bahamas.  It appears that he has a great window so we wished him well as he motored out.

We continued on along the shore looking at the various homes and marinas that dot the north shore of Vaca Key.  These homes, although some are nice, do not hold a candle to the ones that we saw back east up the Keys.

Back at the boat, we prepared our dinner meal.  For the first time on the trip, we have fresh meat to

Bake Packer blob carrot cake

grill and that came in the form of a shish kabab that contained beef chunks, green peppers, onions and cherry tomatoes.  Janine got out some mashed potatoes and green beans to round out our feast.  We listened to classical music on our radio as we dined in cruising elegance.

After dinner, we baked a Bake Packer blob carrot cake and listened to a couple of pod casts of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” before bed at around 9:00.  We need to work on our time change biorhythms.