SUSAN'S BIRTHDAY! So we took it easy all day. NO WORK. NO PROJECTS.
We started to go out to breakfast at the American Legion. But Susan had many early phone calls wishing her happy birthday so we decided to just have cereal. Besides we were planning on eating out dinner and eating out twice in one day goes against our stomachs.
The cruisers net that we listen to every morning had been promoting a local theater production of "DIXIE SWIM CLUB". Susan and I miss the Barksdale back home and this seemed like a nice diversion from our normal routine too. The playhouse and the play were wonderful. It was a 3PM matinee and to early to go straight to dinner. So, we went back to the boat and watched the sun set. The wind will NOT slow down. So, the dingy ride is iffy about getting wet with our nicer clothes. But, we stayed dry.
Annet's Restaurant straight across from the marina and is one of the finer dinning establishments. Susan got shrimp Alfredo and I got grouper macadamia incrusted dish and chocolate covered key lime pie. Nice dinner and nice day.
Picture is Susan and me at Annett's.

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What to say? What to say. We were leaving Boot Key Harbor today with 10-15 kts forecasted. We were going to run the Hawk Channel (Ocean side) rather than the ICW which is really the Gulf Of Mexico and has lots more open water and it's realy shallow. 7 1/2' in the channel. The wind forecast changed yesterday afternoon late and forecast went to 15-20knot until TUESDAY! So, we are staying on our mooring.
I sanded some today as the dust just flew away and the temperature was high 60s. Nice temperature for work outside. Since we were staying here and canceled our slip at Islamorada we needed to take on water and get more fuel for the generator. Getting off the mooring and back was tricky in the wind. We took on water here at Boot Key Harbor Marina. But they don't sell fuel and we went down to Burdines Marina to get gasoline. Windy in docking maneuvers. But Susan and I are seasoned to about 30 kts now. The boat is very predictable now. Not putty in our hands but we can get it done.. back on the mooring and we took time to actually sit on the Flybridge and watch the sunset. Some guy shoots a loud canon from his boat as the sun sets and lots of conch shells blow. Fun
Yes we have skipped a few days and nights on our blog. Thursday night we went with some fellow boaters 14 in all to see the Blues Brothers tribute band at Salty's Waterfront Grill. Lots of us poured into two cabs and had a great time. It is also a marina and we were walking around and there was a casting contest into some floating circles. They talked me into the last contestant and I dropped the plug into two targets tying for third. I won the cast off. Yep still got it. Lots of surf and swamp casting history in my arms and eyes.
The picture tonight is ME by the scoreboard. Didn't count them but it was right many contestants. Hey the judge gave me a Corona too!! The prize money was huge too.

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The day started out early for us with the alarm going off at 6AM. Today we're headed for Key West by bus to meet Wanda and Windy Chandler, our neighbors from back home. They were going to be in Key West on a cruise ship. After dinghying to shore and stopping by the "STUFFED PIG RESTAURANT" for a 'home made that morning cinnamon bun' and coffee, we hopped aboard the bus for our two hour ride to Key West. It's only 50 miles, but this 'local' bus stops often. We had a nice chat on the bus with a couple, also on their boat in our harbor, waiting for a good crossing day to the Bahamas. Exchanging tips with other cruisers is always fun. Key West was pretty much still asleep at 9:30 in the morning. As we walked toward the cruise ship docked near Mallory Square, roosters were crowing! It was not long before we met up with Wanda & Windy! It was really great to see familiar faces and we started talking just like we were back home! We walked a bit down Duval St and popped into Sloppy Joe's as they have a webcam. We sat at a table, ordered Bloody Mary's and e-mailed and called people to look at us on the webcam. Jonathan called from NY and we all got a laugh waving at the webcam. Carter, Wanda & Windy's daughter, emailed us that she had seen us too. After walking, talking and shopping much more, it was time to eat, again, this time at the Conch Republic Seafood Company. Nice yellowtail snapper and fish tacos. W & W re-boarded Enchantment of the Seas around 1:30, we walked around, and found a Wells Fargo ATM! Then we headed for a tour of the Ernest Hemmingway House. That was fun, even with the power going off, stormy, and six-toed cats running all around. Very enthusiastic, 21 yr old docent! We were able to make the 4:06 bus back to Marathon. It was dark and VERY windy! Much of our bus ride Brooke was checking Sombrero Light weather station, 5 miles off shore, directly out from our mooring ball and it showed steady 40 knots, gusting to 50! YIKES!!! We were just at Sombrero several days before to try and snorkel! Too many jelly fish. When we reached our dinghy, wind was blowing so hard, we decided to put on life jackets to go in the dark, the 200+ yards to Liquid Therapy. After Captain Brooke got us headed in the right direction,we made it safely to our swim platform!! Both of us got totally drenched from salt water coming from the waves into the dinghy. Oddest thing was this squall with such high winds was not predicted!! All in all, a fun day!
Picture is Wanda & Susan

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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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