February 22 - March 1, 2016 Key Colony and Marthon Marina

A few weeks earlier I discovered our starboard battery charger wasn't charging.  I called Pronautic and they shipped me a new one (not free since ours was way out of warranty).  In the meantime I wired the one battery charger we had to both banks of batteries.  Not so good for the batteries which I'm sure contributed to their accelerating demise.

So today, I biked to city Marina to fetch the new battery charger, a Pronautic 1260P.   And it wasn't there yet.  Well, ok.  It was a nice day for bike ride.  I had to make a stop at Publix anyway.

Pat and Chip had arrived yesterday for a week in a condo rental here at Boat House Marina.  Chip stopped by briefly for a visit.  We made plans to see them later in the week while they entertained children and grandchildren.  Pat and Chip were among the 4 other boats we journeyed with down the rivers on the Great Loop.  Great fun that trip was, and Chip remembers all the stories and is a superb story teller.  Cant wait! 

Later we took the dinghy over to see Bruce and Rhonda at White Marlin Marina.

It's just under the small bridge and across the little bay from Sparkys Landing.  Great time with them on their boat.  We took a little stroll around the marina and ended up in the rec area where there is  a fire pit.   Some other folks started to congregate and we met an interesting couple crewing a 84 foot Hatteress.  The owner is wheel chair bound but he still manages to get around the boat.  It has some sort of elevator lift.

Next day I, once again, pedaled the bike to City Marina.    And this time the charger was there.  

So I raced back to the boat, got the charger unwrapped and tested the wire runs.  They all fit just fine.  Except one.  The AC power cord.  The original was too short, and I didn't have anything of sufficient gauge on board.

Yup.  Back on the bike heading for Home Depot which is, conveniently I might add,  located 1/2 from City Marina.   I think I managed a 20 miles today on Mary's poor overused bike.

I should mention I do like riding, but since my bike was stolen in Brunswick Georgia a few months ago, I'm tied to riding May's bike around.  Its small which necessitates me riding sort of hunched over with bent knees.   At least I have gears now though, it's tolerable.

I ultimately  bought a 14 gauge appliance replacement cord.    By the time I returned,  it was getting late, and who wants to contort one's body in an engine room at 5PM?

I did take a walk over Vacca Cut bridge tonight and watched a group of pelicans floating down with the current.  Suddenly, they get airborne and fly under bridge and land in the water on the other side. Then they just sit in the water and let the current carry them under the bridge again where they'd repeat the whole process.  Must have been a dozen or so of these guys just joy riding in the current.

The next morning, all of it as a matter of fact, I installed the new battery charger.  It's smaller and has the AC connections on the bottom which meant some additional wiring design.  Also had to run a new temp sensor to the starboard batteries.  The original had a barbed fitting.  This new one has a plug type fitting on the end.  So like I said, it took the whole morning but is working great.

Old on the left, new on the right

Also took the opportunity to charge up the generator start battery since I had to remove it to install the temp sensor anyway.  Its getting weak and I did buy a spare but since this one can still start the gen set I'll use it until it absolutely wont any longer.

We went to Chip and Pats for dinner.  Wonderful time!   We reminisced about the months we spent on the rivers and many other topics.  It really was wonderful!

Before we went over to see them though, I finally got the TCPLink router working with the 2HP Bullet wifi booster.  If your wondering, I had to enable NAT on the Bullet which, I thought, I had already done.  Evidently it toggled itself off because I never forget such things.  Sheez ...

So now we have both 5ghz and 2ghz wifi boosters configured with the same IP and setting since I can only use on at a time.  Just have to switch a CAT 5 cable on the POE injector.  

Today was a dock party.  Chip and Pat stopped over for cocktails and, after we discovered how cold it was out on the dock we all came back aboard.   The wind was keeping the boat off the dock so it was a challenge getting on and off, especially because the finger piers were very short and the tide was out so we couldn't use the swim platform.  

We did go to the dock party for a short time.  Jay cooked a bunch of great meat, Mary made some mac and cheese thing.  We only lingered for about an hour because the wind was so cold and strong.  We again adjourned to our boat for more cocktails before heading to bed.

Pat, Chip, George, Mary, Marilyn and Curt

This morning we all, Curt and Marilyn (who returned late last night from Orlando), Chip and Pat and Mary and I went to breakfast at Island Fish Company a few blocks away.  Very good.  

We had made arrangement with Dave and Darlene to picked us up for lunch.  Our little impromptu breakfast engagement left us with about 30 minutes they arrived.  Impeccable timing one might say.   Luckily I was still hungry!  

Wonderful visit with them!  We went to the Marathon grill and Ale house just down th road from where we are.   We need to make time to stop ind see them in Wausau next time we are visiting LeAnn and Brant in Minnesota.  And they golf too!

They dropped us off at the marina just as Curt called me asking to bring his truck and keys to the nautical flea market near city marina.  They had ridden their bikes there and locked them up before realizing Curt didn't have the keys to their bike locks.  And to the truck as it turned out.  

Curt's Keys

We found the keys on the tonneau cover and then drove down to meet them at the flea market which by then had pretty much broken up.  

They rode their bike back while we drove his honkin big truck to the marina.  

We did beat them back too.

Mary went with them to church the next day while I finally took care of getting our router to use Mac Filtering hence my effort to collect all the various mac address from our swelling collection of devices.  Works great. 

Manatee in the marina this morning and Mary was uncharacteristically up like a flash.  Later we piled into Curt and Marilyn's Truck an drove to the Big Pine Key Flea market.  We bought sunglasses, a 5 inch brass hook, hats, shorts, clasps, and a pair of knockoff Crocs. 

After all the shopping, we went to NoName pub with Curt and Marilyn, who drive us there. We met Phil and Maggie there.  We had met them last year just prior to going over to the Bahamas.  

Maggie feeding the small Deer Key deer with pizza crust from NoName pub

And Jay who’s a resident at the marina.  Nice time.  The little Key Deer, deer, made an appearance and much of the crowd at the bar went tout to ooo and ahh over them.   And of course feed them.  Tame little critters.  Dave, they still miss you and your "fresh" apples.



We mad a stop at a nearby Blue Hole and watched a gator slowly swim towards us.  He never got all that close, but it was still neat to see.

I'm guessing this one was the runt of the litter.  Kinda small

We headed back late afternoon, stopped at Sweet Savannahs for ice cream.  Then, Curt, Marilyn and I, let Mary off and then took an evening stroll at Coco Plum beach.  It was littered with all kinds of stuff including (Kathy?) sponges!

Coco Plum Beach at high tide with Curt and Marilyn.

We were leaving the next day and we needed to take our dinghy somehwere to either hoist it aboard, or just drive it down to Marathon Marina.  I called them to see if I could leave the dinghy in their  basin overnight and Judy said sure.  

So off I went in the ocean, the 6 miles to Boot Key.  Along the way I had a dolphin for company.  He was quite happily riding in the dinghy bow wave for several miles before getting bored I guess.

Dinghy home for a night after a nice ocean run

I first stopped at the City Marina where I turned in our bathroom and laundry cards and then headed back through the crowded anchorage (43 boats waiting for a mooring ball) to Marathon Marina where I tied to the sea wall.  I started walking back towards West Marine but was intercepted by Curt,  Marilyn and Mary in Curt's truck.  

Curt needed an impeller for his outboard but thought the Marathon Marina was the Marathon boat yard.  So we returned to where I left the dinghy and after discovering it was the other place, Marathon Boat Yard.

We left but not before Judy, knowing we were coming in tomorrow, talked us into attending their Italian night pot luck.  Judy is the energetic dock master at Marathon Marina.

We finally did make it to Marathon Boat yard, where we pet the three dogs we remembered from our stay here last year, and then made a stop at West Marine for some reason I cant remember. 

Soon after, it was back to City Marina for some book exchanges.  Next was a stop at Publix and then to the boat.  We had a drink on board before all four of us went to Tarpon Creek Bar and Grill for dinner.  Then after we made yet another quick stop at Sweet Savannah’s for ice cream before heading back to the boat.

I put in a short route to Marathon Marina which took us a few miles off shore to make water, got the bike on board and moved the kayak up to the bow.  We’re ready to go tomorrow morning.  I was  planning on arriving there around high tide, 1:53 PM  to fuel up and pump out before getting into the slip

Heading into Boot Key Harbor

We took our time this morning waiting for the tide to come up.  Left around 10:30 and ran out into the ocean several miles before I started the generator and we commenced making water.  The tank indicators have 4 colors, Green for really full, Yellow for full to about ¼ full, Orange is quarter full and red is empty.  When the tank is in the orange it usually takes between 1.5 to 2 hours to make enough water to fill it it.

But water temperature makes a difference too, the warmer the water the less efficient the water making. 

This is an odd year.  The gulf stream with its warm water, was running only a mile or so east of Sambrero reef.  

We were about 7 miles off shore and making only 6 miles an hour.  Yes  We were in the gulf stream and the water temperatures confirmed it.  74.5 degrees.  That in turn effected the water maker so we were only making 50 gallons an hour instead of near 70 gallons per hour when the water temps are in the 60’s.

Anyway it took almost 2 hours to make enough to fill the tanks which meant we had to run a few miles south of Marathon before turning in towards shore. 

We had planned on going to the fuel dock first but a boat beat us in there, a fun couple from Pensacola  on "Thanks Dad", a Mainship 39.  They are Gold Loopers too with a big bull dog and a Boston Terrier.  I wandered over after we had tied up and swapped Looper stories with them for a while.

I had passed on the idea of waiting around for the fuel dock to clear because the winds were picking up.   SO we didn't refuel which was not a high priority.  And pumpouts are schedule once weekly at the dock so we're fine.  We'll fuel up the day we leave for the Bahamas.

Our docking experience was not pleasant.   

There was a stiff NE wind blowing us off the dock and the dock hand didn’t quite get the idea of a spring line.  He took a bow line and cleated it very loosely which meant I had to jockey the boat in the slip until we got a stern line on.  That was tied too loosely too.  It took a good  ten minutes to finally get secured.  And then we spent another hour tweaking lines before I went to get the dinghy and Mary paid for the slip.

Our new home for March.  Slip #53

I ran into Dave briefly and stopped to say hi to Joanne.  Rob and Sue were off somewhere.

We got back to the boat and Mary made some Italian sausage dish for the impending Italian Pot Luck the marina was throwing.  Much fun.  We sat together, (Rob Sue, Dave, Joanne Mary and I) an then after went over to Papillon to poke around Rob’s stabilizers and other cool techie things while the girls talked and drank wine.

We spent an hour or so there before retiring back to our boat.  Sue dragged out an old picture of them when they were 18, many eons ago..    What an eye opener.!  He had a 60’s Vett then.  That was really an eye opener.  Sweet car which he no longer owns.  Probably because he's too old to drive something that cool? 

And so begins another month in Marathon.