Weather Day in Long Key

Day 16: Tuesday, March 8, 2016

It was a rough and noisy night.  The good news is that the anchors held.  Sleep was spotty.  Winds reported to have been 20 knots and gusty.  We are fine!

Breakfast was a celebratory sausage gravy on toast. 

We left our GPS/Chartplotter on all night so that the anchor drag alarm would be active. So, by morning, our batteries were low.  I started the engine and ran it for about an hour to put some juice back into them.  By midday, the solar panel took over and kept the batteries up while we did such things as charge the phone and computer. 

We spent the day reading.  At one point, I decided to venture out to Sea Bird Marina to see if I could fill one of our gas tanks and get some ice for our beverages.  The trip was probably 300 yards and ole dink handled the wind and waves like a trooper.  I worked my way up to the dock near the office building.  As I was securing the dinghy, a guy came out of the apartment above the office releasing two yapping little white dogs who appeared to be trained to chew off my ankles as soon as I departed the boat.  Their handler came to the boat and when I told him that I wanted some ice, he said, “We are closed today and will be open tomorrow.” I said that all I needed was a little fuel and he repeated his memorized phrase.  (I was sitting in front of the gas pump.)  I then tried a similar question about a bag of ice. (I was sitting 15 feet from their ice machine.) He again repeated his memorized phrase.  Now, I am a bit of a slow learner but I finally got the message that they were closed and would not provide services of any type until tomorrow. I motored back to Second Wind.

And we read. 

Today is Tuesday and this weather is slated to hold as is until Friday or Saturday.  We do have enough books to keep us occupied until then.

For dinner, we had chicken Stroganoff with green beans.

We read until bed time at about 8:30.  We were tired.  It had been a busy day.