DIVING MARATHON
22 March 2017 | BOOT KEY HARBOR
BREEZY AND WARM
Monday was pretty much a goof off day. We dinghied into shore and took care of internet business, paying bills and checking up on the web news, gossip and of course Facebook. Jack treated me to lunch at one of our favorite spots, Burdines. The food is good, and they have an interesting selection of beers in bottles, no drafts. This assures our sobriety. We are too cheap to drink to excess at $4.75 a bottle. One is plenty. The restaurant is on a wraparound deck up a flight of stairs from the marina with a good view of the boats coming and going. It is always windy dining out at Burdines. It finally occurred to me that we are almost always waiting out adverse weather when we are here at Marathon. Someday I’ll have to come here on a calm day.
Tuesday dawned bright and clear without a care in the world. We’ve decided to wait out the next weather front here in this safe harbor rather than winging it in the Bahamas. This morning we made an early hasty trip into the marina office and maybe were still a bit sleepy. No explanation is available here for our haste.
Part way in the dinghy motor sputtered and quit running. “Oops” said Jack, “I forgot to refill the gas tank.” No problem mon’, we always carry a 1 gallon can of gas and the tank only holds about a quart. We don’t even need to pull over. Procedure is to lift the cover off the motor to be sure it was empty, unscrew the gas cap, dump in a little gas, replace the cover on the motor, drop the gas cap overboard and say a naughty word. Problem now! Optimistic Jack realized he dropped it in very shallow water next to a curious little house boat that is a harbor landmark. I can tell he is starting to relax, as he didn’t get upset after the initial expletive. He figured we could take care of business on shore, then come back with a mask and snorkel and find the cap.
Back on Caprice Jack noted that water temp was low 70’s so he suited up. Some call it a wet suit. Jack calls it as a "Grandpa coozie". Suitably attired we packed our diving flag and dinghied back to the houseboat. We noticed the residents were not on board so we wouldn’t arouse anyone from a mid-morning snooze. Amazingly, after snorkeling about and making a few surface dives he spotted and retrieved the gas cap. A cheer went up from the dinghy crew (me). This saved a whole routine of finding a parts dealer for a 20 year old outboard, biking there, standing at the counter rattling off age, make and horsepower and feeling rather foolish in front of a bored parts counter guy or gal.
As long as he was stuffed into his wet suit, no easy task, Jack decided to rid our prop of a recent population of sea life that is attempting to take up residence. This is one of the hazards of staying too long in one place.
This task complete, we planned a bike ride into Marathon to pick up Charlie’s alternator which arrived at the Advance Auto Store. We need some exercise and a 4 mile bike ride on level streets will do the trick. On the way back we treated ourselves to fast food, a first since we left home two weeks ago. One can only smell that grease so long without succumbing to temptation. The Burger King was crowded with boisterous teenagers of all different sizes and shapes wearing matching white tennis shirts. I believe we encountered break time at a local tennis camp. Included in the training routine, I guess, is a healthy diet of burgers, fries and large drinks. Why not? They’ll work it off! We also stopped at the Marathon airport and visited a tiny EAA museum. Free admission was the draw, with donations accepted. We were greeted by a very friendly guy who got our aviation histories and our current boating status, make model type and destination. He made us feel very welcome so we spent a few minutes admiring their resident Beech 18 and WWII posters.
That occupied the middle of our day and we spent the rest relaxing on the boat. "Relaxing" includes checking all our weather sources and we confirmed much to our dismay the forecast hasn’t changed. So we’ll spend another quiet night here on a mooring, and seek new local adventures tomorrow.