Dinghy Day

Finally!!! A break in the wind. After days of it blowing, the wind dropped in the wee hours of this morning giving us a respite from being awakened continually during the night to strange sounds. Of course, being semi-comatose, we slept in. Yeah team!!

Even though it was a bit chilly for these parts, everyone emerged and went into busy bee mode, especially all the cruisers readying for the run to the Bahamas tomorrow. This gave us the bright idea of blowing up the dinghy, attaching the outboard, and checking out Boot Key Harbor where about 100 cruisers are located on mooring balls in front of the Marathon City Marina. Putt-putting through the moored fleet is quite an interesting experience. The boats fall into two fairly distinct categories: neat and cluttered. The neat boats are tidy, everything in its place and without an abundance of "stuff" on deck. The cluttered are the antithetis: just about everything you could ever want is piled and lashed on the decks. It starts with multiple 5-gallon jerry cans of fuel, then bicycles (compulsory to qualify in category), a blown up dinghy on the foredeck, and (for extra points) washing pinned to the life lines to dry. We even saw one that appeared to have a canvas out-house cantilevered out over the transom. On closer examination, it appeared to be an enclosure housing a large pet bird. Having a keen observational skill set, it is noted that the really cool old wooden schooners, the boats of unique or custom origin, and the sailboats of less than 30 ft length floating abnormally low to their intended lines invariably qualify as in the cluttered category.

We did find two fairly large dinghy docking areas where one could tie up and go up to the shops and stores. This was good to know in that will save a 2 mile walk each way. On returning from our dinghy adventure, we opined that where we are staying at Marathon marina is probably as nice or nicer than its competition, and from the looks of the competing waterside establishments, we probably have the nicest restaurant on site. So to celebrate, we dined out and captured a really spectacular Keys sunset to cap off a very nice day. Oh yes, and by tomorrow night the wind will be back and many of our cruiser friends will be pulling into the Bahamas.