Days 32 & 33 - Monday and Tuesday, 2-11/12-08 - Marathon

In spite of a comfortable and beautiful setting at the mouth of Boot Key Harbor just north of the Seven Mile bridge, we're growing restless waiting for the weather to clear to make our crossing to Bimini in the Bahamas. But, life goes on... In the a.m., Sara wrestled with the propane oven to bake a cake. (Have to use an oven thermometer to get to and maintain the desired temperature.) The guys removed, scraped and re-bedded a skylight port. Sara & Rog picked up the rental car at the airport, returned to get Jean & Gerry and headed to the much touted Keys Fisheries restaurant open to the beautiful turquoise water of the gulf to the north of the Keys. We had their famous lobster Reuben sandwich while the tarpon, parrot fish and other unidentified species swam all around. We've found that many of these establishments vend fish food so children (of all ages) can chum the fish with healthy food. We all agreed the sandwich was tasty, but perhaps a waste of good lobster meat.

After lunch, we headed north again to the Dolphin Research Center at Grassy Key. Several of the real Flipper's descendants were in the show. Just the females and their calves performed, mostly in teams of three. They turned flips high in the air and some did full twists in the air. They walked on their tails, both forward and backwards. Flipper's granddaughter vocalized each time she did a trick. The center uses interns to help with research.

We made a stop at Office Depot on the way back to the boat for Roger to buy a mike/headphone for his computer. He's trying to set up Skype as a telephone system to use while we're in the Bahamas. The girls discovered a Beall's Outlet and spent way too much time inside considering we have not an inch of space left for anything else in the boat. We tried some of our shelf-stable meals for supper (acceptable at best) and headed for the tiny cinema to see Bucket List. It was sold out and since we knew we couldn't stay awake for the late showing, we bought ice cream and headed back to fix dessert. The cake was amazingly good. Roger beat Jean and Sara in a card game called "thirteen" before calling it a night.

The rain limited our activity today (Tuesday). The guys made a Home Depot/Winn Dixie/West Marine run and actually came back with everything on the list. We went to The Stuffed Pig for their famous brunch dish ---Lobster Benedict. We all still prefer our lobster with drawn butter. After the guys returned the rental car, we read and napped for awhile. Jean and I played cards and manned the bowls catching the leaks from the ports that the guys didn't get a chance to re-bed today. Roger grilled steaks for supper while Gerry held the umbrella. We ended the evening with the last of the cake topped with strawberries and a game of Sail Worthy. Do you know what state has a sailboat on its automobile license plate? (SBS)