I'm Gonna Blame it on the Wind!!

Yes, I am very delayed in writing a post but my excuse is that I didn't have many pictures or stories to tell about Marathon so put off blogging and then we headed North and very abruptly lost all service and got waylayed in the Everglades due to windy conditions on the Gulf!  So here is the Keys update. We did go to Key West by bus and had good food for breakfast and lunch but didn't really see any crazy stuff. To me, Key West is just a bunch of tacky shops and restaurants and lots of people.  Our highlight was watching a very large cruise ship release lines and take off from port.  Their stuff is much bigger than our boat stuff!! Sadly, we watched a family of 5 run for the pier as their ship sailed away.  Wonder what happens in that situation?  Those ships don't wait for late comers.

 We went to the southern most point in the USA but there was a long line to get next to this marker so I took a picture of people taking pictures and that will have to do!

Al was on good behavior so I opted not to leave him at this Husband Day Care Center.

Marathon Key was a very crowded place for boaters as seen at this mooring anchorage packed with hundreds of boats.  We used the dingy to poke around this harbor on the only calm day that week. Mostly what we did in Maraton was enjoy the company of looper friends and do fun chores like grocery shopping via bicycle and always more laundry. On the morning of our last day (2/18) we had a diver clean the boat bottom and check for barnacles and the good news was it looked good but the bad news was that the diver found this piece of crab pot rope wrapped around one prop. Luckily it did no damage and taught us to be even more cautious when passing those nasty crab pots!  

This is the potentially damaging bit of rope that could have stopped one of our engines!  So on we went that Thursday heading north to check out beaches and Everglades while picking our way carefully between hundreds of crab pot buoys. 

A beautiful night on anchor off of Cape Sable, 30 miles north of the keys.  We had plenty of wind and chop but enjoyed the solitude.

We took Victory Lap through the choppy water to Cape Sable beach to get our exercise and check out the shells that were abundant on this empty beach.

Not a bad place for a nice walk as Victory Lap waits paitiently for us. 

The tiny speck is the mother ship rolling around in the wind and waves.  Now on to the Everglades!