Happy Birthday to Chloe! Our charming granddaughter is 6 years old today. How time does fly by. We are sorry we won't be with her and her family to celebrate one of the down sides of the cruising life missing those occasions.
We had spent the last few days just living the boat life nothing extraordinary going on we spent another day at the beach, one doing laundry and cleaning, done some reading and caught up on my "shows" using the Marina wifi. Boats are coming and leaving in larger numbers on a daily basis. The winds have been pretty steady out of the east to some southeast at 15 knots making for a hard slog with the wind pretty much on your nose until you get up past Tavenier Key or so. A group heading for the Bahamas left on Thursday they were stopping at Rodriquez Key for the night before heading over to Bimini the next day. Part of me wanted to go with them but LR is not set up in cruising mode right at the moment and India would have needed to see a vet to get her documents in order to go. We will have to apply for a special permit for her to enter the country which would take a few days. There are some Florida boats visiting from the Northern regions mostly west coast. Most are headed to Key West for a few days after visiting here and then will head back toward their Northern berths. And some of the snowbirds are heading back up the ICW and the East Coast. I see them leave with mixed feelings too, I will miss our dock and dock mates in the Chesapeake this summer. Good people and good times, but neither of us wants to face the ditch and all its dredging issues.
Today there was a nautical flea market at the Marina. We didn't have anything to offer for sale but I did buy two books on Ham Radio and getting your license. That might be handy with the single side band as it would open more frequencies for us to be able to transmit and receive. After perusing the flea market we hopped in the car and headed Southwest on US1 to Ramrod Key. I had seen a mini golf course on our way down to Key West and we thought that would be a fun way to spend a sunny Saturday. The course did not disappoint it was full of kitschy tiki idols, waterfalls and deceptive holes. We had a good time and it was a nice ride down. The scenery here is just gorgeous as you cross from key to key. After a rousing round of golf we headed to their restaurant for lunch. Great atmosphere in the island tiki style. The food was good, I had a salad with the catch of the day Cobia. My first time trying this fish, very tasty. I think I may be growing gills with the amount of fish I have eaten since arriving here. It's so fresh and delicious that it is my go to dish. After a very filling meal we headed back to Marathon. Scott managed to commandeer a TV to watch the masters and I fought with bandwidth or lack thereof on the IPad. We had intended to go to Docksides to listen to a new guitarist for dinner but we were both still stuffed from lunch so after showering we just headed back to LR where we could hear the music from the boat. A nice ending to another great day on the ball in Boot Key.
The picture is of the Captain approaching his next shot, fitting on Masters weekend don't you think?