Day 70 january 9, 2012
Today was a work day. I started by taking off our alternator to give to a alternator guy here in Marathon. He said my old alternator probably could not put out enough current to fully recharge my batteries as I had suspected. So, he suggested a 95AMP alternator for a replacement and to upgrade my cable size for the new alternator. The problem that has been happening is not uncontrollable. But, I figured after anchoring out all night and a good days run to our next stop, that the alternator would recharge my batteries to full state before we anchored for the night. That has not been the case. So, our fall back plan is the 2000w Honda portable generator to recharge the batteries via the 2500 watt Inverter/charger. It does a great job in about 2 hours. The Honda 2000s are very popular down here on boats. And you have to have some recharge method while on a mooring ball. Most boats have solar panels and wind generators both. I thought about installing a wind generator. But then we realize we are not going to be operating our boat back in the Chesapeake in the same manner as down here. The cost of solar and wind generation will buy lots of gasoline for the Honda. For the people LIVING on a mooring (some have been here 18 years per the dockmaster) wind and solar make sense. But for us the generator and a better alternator would be a better choice. The new alternator should be the trick for the way we operate our boat. It should recharge everything during a days run with no need for the generator to run. We will see. At least I will have a spare generator in case one a failure.
Second thing was to sand some more of our teak brightwork. Those of you that have seen our boat knows it has character with all the teak. But it was the last thing on my list to work on. But sitting here on the mooring ball with a nice breeze and mid 70ºs seems like a nice time to work on it. Susan has been working on cleaning the hull and mustache that has accumulated on the bow from the dinghy. It is coming along nicely.
Todays picture is actually a moonlit picture of the Boot Key Harbor.

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Liquid Therapy had been sitting too long on the mooring ball and we decided to go out to Sombrero Light ( http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=701 ) for a snorkel. The weather was forecast to be good today but worse tomorrow. So we tied the dinghy to the mooring ball and left the harbor. A very nice trip to the lighthouse about 5 miles off shore. There were a few jellyfish to watch out for but the view from the boat to the bottom was great. Fish were swimming by. We picked up a morring ball proided for divers and the boat was rolling a bit. Not really calm out there although the winds had died down to less than 10 kt, it was still rolling from the days before. I got in the water and then jellyfish started coming by by and I hung around the ladder so I could re-board fast . I shot many underwater pictures and we stayed a bit, but decided to head on back in at a leisurely pace to enjoy the cruise.
We stopped at the marina and took on water. And then it was back to our mooring ball. We cleaned the bottom of the dinghy which was starting to accumulate barnacles. Then we went by dinghy to the marina and got a shower and back to the boat for sunset and the conch blowing as it faded into the horizon. It's kind of fun listening to boaters blowing the conch shells and on boat fired a cannon as the sun sets.
Picture is a fish swimming by the boat at the reef...

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Another day in the Boot Key Harbor. Today Susan cleaned the hull and waterline of what is know as the ICW mustache. The ICW has lots of brackish water tht stains the bow as it plows though the water. My lazy idea was that when we go across the Atlantic to the Bahamas that the crystal clear water would erase the mustache. Most say that will not happen. So, while Suz scrubbed the waterline from the dinghy, she exclaimed that we had grass growing on the sides of the boat. Now we all know that grass doesn't grow on a rolling stone and usually the same can be said of a boat that has proper bottom paint and is on the move. So, I guess we have been sitting still too long. Tomorrow we are going to leave our mooring ball for a while ago out to the Sombrero Reef Light about 4 miles off shore. Im gonna run Liquid Therapy hard to see if the grass will ablate away the way the paint is supposed to work.
I continued on my beautification project of sanding the teak doors and windows and putting back the tedious wooden plugs that have been missing since I replaced some cracked windows. I refinished the wooded window frames and screwed them back with the new glass. But I failed to cover the screw holes as this is a slow process. You have to have the screws down far enough that the plug can be tapped in. You have to TRY to see the direction of the grain of the plug and match it with direction of the grain on the frame. Then your cut off the plugs excess length with a chisel leaving the plug a little high. Then you have to sand it even with the frame. Then you have to put varnish over the plug and the frame. THEN IT LOOKS GOOD.
So, after all of this work we took the dinghy in to the marina for a well deserved shower. I got in my shower room and suddenly noticed that my towel was not in my shower bag. I was not deterred one bit. I took my shower and dried off with paper towels.
Todays picture is of me drying off with paper towels. Not really. here is one of the wooden plugs tapped in before I chiseled off.

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Well today the wind starting calming down and I did a little brightwork. We discovered that the two doors were both leaking when we had a terrible rainstorm somewhere in North Carolina. So, fixing them has been on my mind since then. It doesn't seem to rain here in the keys. Cold front brings strong wind but no rain. So, anyhow it was a nice day in the mid 60s to work outside. I quit at lunchtime and we were supposed meet some people to go on a dinghy trip if they were not tied up with a new watermaker that they were having installed. When we dropped by their boat it was locked so we set out on our dinghy trip by ourselves to Sombrero Beach. It was a nice trip and we pulled the dinghy up on the beach and went ashore for a while. Really pretty water out there, but still too chilly for snorkeling. We hoped back in the dinghy and went up some canals looking at the homes. Nice vantage point from the dinghy. After retuning back into the harbor we motored down to the local watering hole ( Dockside Bar and Grill ) What a cast of characters. We had a drink and took in the conversations and headed back to the boat for sunset and dinner. And as announced on our cruisers net this morning, the International Space Station flew overhead at 6:37PM.
Believe I'm gonna hit the bed early tonight and try to jump right on the sanding and epoxying of the door leak in the morning. WE are staying in Marathon at least until 1-3-11 and will be staging to go to the Bahamas from here.
Todays picture is me at Sombrero Beach. Water is beautiful.

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January 1, 2012
Happy New Year, again! Rose Parade, NOT this year! No TV, but we really do not miss it! After coffee and the Cruisers Net we decided to take a walk and find lunch!! Gradually, we are finding out where things are, but we still needed some exercise, so we started out. We had seen a West Marine from the bus on Friday when we went to Key West, so we headed that way. We never found Burdine's, a recommended eatery, so took a tour of West Marine and ended up taking home a hoisting harness for the dinghy motor we borrowed from Nelson and Carter. Thanks, SO MUCH, guys!! We enjoy taking dinghy rides and are getting better at this. We ended up at another recommended eatery (by that I mean, open air, somewhat self serve, lots of fun and GREAT local dishes), called Keys Fisheries and both of us ate lobster tacos with a side of smoked fish spread. Smoked fish spread and fried conch fritters are a Florida staple on the appetizer menu! We may go back there to eat or get fish from their fish market. Almost worn out, but not totally, from this long walk, we visited Daffy Doug's which is a big Dollar Tree type of place at the beach. As you may have noticed, I write about FOOD! This has been a very nice first day of 2012!
Picture is Liquid Therapy hanging on mooring E4

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Day__, December 31, 2011
New Year's Eve we started the day by listening to the 'Cruisers Net', which comes on over VHF channel 68 every morning at 9AM. Their agenda is multi purposed: to introduce boats new to the Boot Key Harbor community and bid farewell to those leaving; to give general announcements of daily happenings, such as spanish and yoga lessons, get togethers; to connect the community to service people they may be searching for; to buy, sell, trade anything; and to train our brains with trivia questions. Very useful. They are starting another Cruisers Net at night where people can chat back and forth about common issues. Today, on this show, they announced a New Year's Eve get together at our marina Tiki Hut, so we took an appetizer and went over at 7! Lots of fun, many people. Before this get together we visited by dinghy the Dockside Bar and Restaurant. This is a colorful place where locals go. We did have a delicious home made Bloody Mary and considered going back for New Year's Eve prime rib. Ultimately, we decided the Dockside dinghy dock was too small to go back to on this holiday eve, in the dark, so, after the Tiki Hut party, we walked just across the street to Annette's Lobster and Steak House for a quiet dinner!! We were both tired, for some reason. So, after a fruitless search for a live feed of the crystal ball drop in Times Square, we fell asleep by 10:30!! Hark: we were awakened at midnight by conch blowing and fireworks!
Happy New Year to Everyone!!!

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