Now on to Grassy Key and the Dolphin Research Center

Day 33: Friday, March 25, 2016

A close-up of one of the huge coral boulders

I truly believe that we there is little luck in sailing, but last night, we were blessed with a whole bunch of it.  Yesterday, we snuggled up near the abandoned Marlin Yacht Club as we had done in the past. The wind was blowing fairly strongly from the southeast and we were well protected from the waves and that air.  The forecast was for a slight possibility of showers.  It was going to be a good night. 

At 3:00, I was awakened by thunder so I got out of bed and checked our situation and all was well.  The waters were quite calm.  I checked the weather radar and found that a strong cell had passed just north of us and was moving away in a northeasterly direction.  Knowing winds near a

Interesting flower.  I know not what it is.

thunderstorm can be unpredictable and that we were fairly close to the boulders placed along the edge of the abandoned marina, I decided to stay up and keep an eye on things.

I evidently fell asleep sometime around 5:00.  Things did not change during my watch but when I awoke at around 6:00 and looked out the window, the marina was on the wrong side of the boat and the boulders were no more than 20 feet off to the side of us.  The wind had shifted around to the north and the boat had obviously swung around.  I threw open the hatch and scurried forward to begin pulling the anchor rode in and moving away

Bike Path to the Research Center

from the rocks.  Janine heard the commotion and came out.  She started the engine and  steered us further away from the impending danger.  I reset the anchor and again began to breathe normally.

Had the wind blown just a few degrees more towards the west, we wound have been dashed against some really serious rocks.  Also we were really lucky that the water was deep all the way up to those rocks.  I had told many folks that sailing is 85% relaxed pleasure, 10% hard work and 5% terror.  We got our 5% this morning.  We need no more this trip.

We enjoyed our next to the last package of sausage gravy mix with our fresh sausage. We are running out of supplies and are planning on pulling out of the 

water sometime in the middle of next week. 

One of the many tricks performed by the dolphins

 

The wind had completely died down and the waters were glassy calm by 8:00 so we started the motor and headed for Grassy Key where we had spent a night earlier in the trip.  Our friend, Dwight, had told us that there was a dolphin research center there which had been a highlight on a road trip that he had taken, so that was our goal.

We arrived at around11:00 and ate an early lunch before taking the Dink to the beach of Grassy Key’s little park and began the 1.8 mile trek to the center.  The majority of the walk was along a bike path which was probably either the old road through the Keys and/or

And another

the rite-of-way for the major water line that runs from Homestead, on the southern end of the Florida mainland all the way to Key West.  It was an easy, warm walk.

The Grassy Key Dolphin Research Center was indeed an interesting place.  They had quite a large number of trained dolphins who were put through their paces in front of a throng of folks, many of whom had paid the big bucks to get into the water with the animals.  While we were watching, a 2 foot long iguana came swimming across the lagoon to the place where I was standing and climbed the wall.  He, too, was a major source of excitement for the crowd.  They also had 4

Beautiful iguana

trained California sea lions that were put through their paces.  It was a fun place but I must admit that I believe that the word “Research” is added to their name to add legitimacy to a commercial animal park.

I had a frozen piece of key lime pie dipped in chocolate while Janine had sweet tea before we began our long walk back to the Dink.  The exercise did us both good but, we were both tired upon our arrival.

A wonderful lobster dinner

For dinner, we started with our last block cheese along with summer sausage on crackers.  We prepared the lobster tail meat and fried it in butter for our main course.  We finished our meal with the Bake Packer blob carrot cake that we baked yesterday. 

After dinner, I put on my fins, mask and snorkel and went for about a 30 minute swim around the little cove.  There is little to see except around the pilings of a dock nearby where I saw a

And a swim

number of different types of fish.  Back on the boat, we both climbed up on the foredeck and took a warm Solar Shower rinse off.

We spent the remaining hour before bed reading.  It was a good day.