KEY WEST

It took two days to get our davits, solar panel and battery monitor installed on Manana. That meant two days at a dock with shore power and all the conveniences. We were able to get the batteries charged to 100% while SALT did the installation. David from SALT did an excellent job of installing everything and seemed to take a lot of pride in doing so. While we were at the dock, I was pumping rain water out of the dingy and a huge manatee poked his head up to get splashed with the fresh water just a foot or two away from me. He lazily swam around our boat and Denise went chasing him with the camera. With a lot of manatee "whispering", she got him to pose for a few pictures.

We finished up some minor chores and then went back out to the mooring again on Wednesday night (12/5) and decided to spend one more day in Marathon to see some of the things we have missed and to give the solar panels a good test to see how well they would do for a whole day. Starting from a full charge for the night, we wanted to see if it would bring them all the way up. Thursday was a little cloudy but a very calm day. We dingied out to the ocean and the beach and then back to the boat. We were looking for a restaurant and bar but found out later it was inside the Boot Key Marina. Some scenes on the way to the ocean

We had lunch at Burdines and then took a taxi to a specialty hardware store to get the right equipment to install lifts on our dingy. After that, we had a drink at Castaways bar that was recommended by the cab driver and was close to where we left our dingy. This guy was actually in an aquarium in Castaways

We took a ride back to the boat and, after installing the lift equipment we dingied to shore and took a walk to find a place for dinner. We wound up at the Brass Monkey, which was a very reasonable place with a great happy hour, but they didn't serve dinner! Oh well, we ordered a pizza and once again made new friends! Back at the boat, the solar panel had charged all the way up to about 95% on a very cloudy day. In fact, it could have been 100% because it had been dark for several hours already. That was as much, or more than we had hoped for. We went to bed with the idea of getting up at first light to head for Key West. As we headed out Friday morning, there were several boats going the same way. Although the winds were light, it was a beautiful day and we motorsailed most of the way. It didn't seem to take long before Key West was in sight and we had to wait for the Carnival Cruise ship to clear the channel before we headed in.

It was a great feeling to be cruising past Wisteria Island and the Key West Bight. There was a lot of activity with tall ships going in and out and just watching the shoreline.

To get to our mooring, we had to go around Fleming Island, which is to the West of Key West. It was a very narrow, but well marked channel and before we knew it, we were picking up our mooring in Key West Garrison Bight mooring field. The Dockmaster told us to come in the next day to register. The wind was coming from the North and Northeast, but was not uncomfortable. In the morning, we took our time and headed towards the Marina office to register. It is a fairly long dingy ride and the waves, although small, loved to spray us every once in a while. As we were approaching the channel, a fishing boat started coming out of the channel right at us with a good size wake behind him. I turned to port to avoid him and his wake, but he seemed to keep turning toward us. He came within 10 feet of us and, more or less, swamped us with his 3 or 4 foot wake. I guess some things never change. We got registered and then went exploring. Denise had read that there would be a Christmas Parade Saturday evening, so we thought we would visit a few places and hang around for the 7 O'clock start. For lunch we stopped at a place that we had found before that served some great Mojitos. They had changed there name to Willie T's, but the mojitos were great and so was the constant live entertainment. We then explored the rest of Duval Street and walked back down to Mallory Square to a beautiful sunset with all the street entertainers on the square and the tall ships making picturesqe passses in front of the setting sun.

We decided that Willie T's would be the best place to view the parade and have dinner at the same time. The parade was very much like a small town Christmas Parade but had a lot of palm trees and things like that. Willie T's for the parade

They wouldn't let this Santa in the parade

Wonder why? We had good seats close to the street and met a delightful Cuban couple, who offered to take us back to the marina. Before we went, however, we decided to visit the Garden of Eden. This is one of the places that does the body painting for Fantasy Fest. We had been there a few years ago, but, Saturday night was much different than lunch in the middle of the week! Of course, we didn't stay too long and our new friends, Frank and Betty, gave us a ride back to the dingy dock. They wanted to see our boat, but it was very late, and we were'nt 100% sure we could even find it on our first night time ride. After some difficulty, and the help of our neighbors flashing yellow light, we were safe and sound aboard our boat once again. We had contacted our friends Larry and Donna on Saturday, and they had graciously invited us for a cook out at their house on Sunday. In my last post, I had mentioned how we had met them the weekend before. They have a beautiful home and are wonderful people. I brought my guitar and they had several other local guests. Larry and Donna had a restaurant for a short period in Texas, and the food was delicious! All the guests were interesting and very friendly people. I offered to play a few songs after we ate and, although I had a noticeable lack of practice, everyone seemed to enjoy it. Larry didn't play, but I hope to hear him sing some of his original songs soon. Once again, Larry and Donna gave us a ride on their golf cart back to our dingy. This time we found our boat with a litle more confidence. We spent Monday preparing to leave Manana to go home for Christmas. We had invited Greg over from Ocean Ministries to have lunch and give us some hints on what to do to secure the boat. He also offered to watch it for us while we were gone. Ocean Ministries goes to areas where hurricanes are threatening and helps people prepare for the storm and to help them afterwards. He has been in the Caribbean for many years and was a wealth of knowledge. Today, he picked us up to take us ashore to get to the airport. Our boat is secured and in good hands and we will be back to her arond New Years. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!