037: Marathon Part 2: Family, Christmas and Cats

I’ve always preferred Thanksgiving over Christmas for the former’s emphasis on family vs. the latter’s emphasis on commercialism; so while we cherish our recent Thanksgiving celebration, it was a bit bittersweet as it was the first time since our children were born that we were not with them.    We were therefore determined to make sure that we celebrated Christmas with both Charlotte and Jack, and as a bonus we got Nancy’s sister Patti to join us.

Patti:

On Thursday, December 21, we all went down to Key West for the day.    The first time I went in 1981, we welcomed in 1982 with a pretty wild night of partying.   Jim, of our travel group was gay and I didn’t have any experience of parting with gay people.  After that New Year’s Eve, when asked about my trip, one of my comments was, “Well, “The Gays” really know how to party!”   (Now, before I get cancelled, let me note that it was forty-two years ago and Ellen had yet to kiss Laura Dern on national tv, there was no “Will and Grace,” and saying you liked Bette Midler could get you beat up on the playground.)   This trip was decidedly tamer, but no less fun in its own way:

 

I met Joe Namath at this bar back then:

 

The cruise ships are big!  Jack taking it all in:

At Hemmingway's house, the cats rule, we even saw some of the famous six-toed cats:

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We had lunch at the Margaritaville Restaurant to honor Jimmy Buffet, and we all drank, of course, the Margarita special.    

The next day we drove up to Miami in a trip planned entirely by Jack.  First stop was the Perez Art Museum.  Continuing the cat theme:

 

I'm not much for the type of art at the Perez, but this was way cool:

We then walked over to a nice place for lunch before driving through the Wynwood area of Miami to do the Art Walk, but it was closed so I guess we did the “Art Drive-By.” Cool area, best covered by web-site than by my poor photography.   https://wynwoodmiami.com/experience/art-walk/

Then we drove up to Miami Beach to take in the South Beach scene.  The weather was not that great, but we did take a beach and surrounding area walk and take in the sights

 

We had dinner at outdoor fancy Italian restaurant, I wasn't that impressed with my meal, but everyone else enjoyed theirs.    

On Saturday, Jack woke up under the weather, and we broke out the Covid test:  result = positive.    Bummer.    He spent the next two days in bed recovering, while the rest of us did various odd sight-seeing locally.     Christmas morning, we got a good sunrise picture, but “red sky in morning, sailors take warning” again reared its ugly head and mid-morning it started raining on and off again until early on Tuesday morning.  

Jack was feeling better, but we canceled our resort-Christmas-dinner reservations and wound-up having dinner pool-side at the hotel, isolating as a group.   It wasn’t the feast we planned on, but we were together and that is all that really counted.  

The next day was full of more sight seeing with Jack back up to strength.  Various pictures from our sight-seeing:

At the sea turtle hospital:

Charlotte at the Mile Seven Grill:

Beach time:

Old Bridge walk:

A highlight of Marathon is Crane Point:

You can have a fish-pedicure!   I have a video as well of little fish nibbling on my feet, but some of you may be squeamish:

Or catch a view:

Or see a baby racoon:

I'll close this section with our final cat theme, from a local coffee place:

All too soon on Wednesday, the 27^th it was time for Jack and Charlotte to leave.  It went WAY to quickly.   Ten days would have been better!   We were “up and at-em” by 5:00 a.m. for me to drive them to the Miami airport.  We left Marathon at 5:30 a.m. and got to the a/p by 7:30 a.m. which was fast, but with Keys’ traffic, you never know.  With much of it just two lanes, it doesn’t take much to snarl traffic.  Case in point, it took me three hours for the return trip!

 

 Dave

 

 

 

036: Marathon Part One: Family and the Mile Seven Grill

On Tuesday, December 19^th, we (Nancy, me and Jack) were up early so that we could leave the dock by 7:00 a.m.   We motored over to where KatMat was at and met Matt in the channel.   (Kathy had flown back to Chicago earlier to prepare for Christmas up north.)   Eddy, the boat captain, had advised us to take the backway out of Marco Island to avoid a charted reef and the need to go so far offshore.    The blue line is our path out the back way:

 

The plan was to “run down and hug the coast” if the seas were still too rough.   The forecast was for two-to-three-foot seas, pushing us (I.e., coming from our stern), which made us try the direct route.  The seas were more like three-to-four-foot for the first third of the trip.  Not great, but coming from the back, not terrible either.  We elected to stay offshore.  The seas gradually settled down, as Eddy predicted they would, until they got to a more comfortable one-to-two-foot. The little jog in our path below is where we decided to forgo the Garmin auto-guidance suggestion on where to cross the Seven Mile Bridge and go through the main channel instead:

 

Seven Mile Bridge:

We arrived at Safe Harbor Marina in Marathon at 3:30 p.m. having gone approximately ninety n/m’s at an average speed of eleven knots, not bad.  This will be our home for the next month as we celebrate the holidays and try and decompress a bit from our two-thousand-mile trip so far. 

 Nice sunsets from our dock:

The next morning there was only one thing that I wanted to do, which was go to the Mile Seven Grill directly across the street from the marina.   I first ate there in late December of 1981, my senior year in college.  I went to Key West with Valarie, a grad student with whom I worked; Valerie’s friend Jim; and Sue, one of my sister’s roommates.   Sue and I went forthe scuba diving, and Valerie and Jim went for the Key West partying.   (New Years Eve on Key West, nothing like it back in the day.).    The Mile Seven Grill was one of our favorite places on that trip.  I have made sure I stopped there on the two times I have been back to Key West since 1981.   

 

For breakfast I had the Key Lime pie. (The waitress gave me a fist bump for ordering dessert for breakfast.) The best Key Lime pie ever.   Made with real Key Limes, which are less tart than a regular limes.  

Jack and I at the M7G:

 

 Question: Did I come for the food or to relive 1981?   Both, and to make new memories.

Matt left to join Kathy back up north and is letting Jack stay on their boat.  Hygge was a bit crowded with three of us!   This is really nice of Matt and Kathy as hotel rooms are insanely expensive in the Keys in the winter!   

Later Nancy and Jack went to the Turtle Rescue Hospital (more later) while I borrowed Kat Mat’s outboard engine and took a spin on the dinghy.   Hygge’s electric outboard engine was waiting on parts from the manufacturer and low and behold, despite me emailing them the Marathon Marina’s address, they sent the parts to our old address in Oak Brook.   (Now trying to track the part down.)   

Nancy, Jack and I went back to the Mile Seven Grill for dinner while we waited for our daughter Charlotte and Nancy’s sister Patti to arrive.   Jack had the Key Lime Pie and his reaction was like this:   https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=583283636139040

Patti is joining us for Christmas and was good enough to arrange to pick Charlotte up from the Miami Airport.  Unfortunately traffic was terrible, but they made it eventually, and the next morning it was back to the Mile Seven grill for breakfast!

 

Dave

 Odometer: 2,050:  one third of the trip is in our wake!

035: Bad Weather, Good Friends

We left Cabbage Key on Tuesday, December 12^th with the idea of heading down to Naples, Fl to stage for picking up our son Jack from the Ft. Meyers a/p on the 16^th.  It would have been a relatively short run, but there was “no room at the inn” in Naples for us.   The storm from two days before was just the beginning of a week of unsettled weather and all the boats were “hunkering down.”   We decided to continue on to Marco Island as we knew there was at least one nice area for anchoring there. 

KatMat was able to the last available slip at Rose Marina in Marco and friends Mike and Beth Zindrick came to Hygge’s rescue by letting us tie up to their dock and have use of their house while they were back up north for Christmas.  THIS WAS HUGE!   Real bathrooms, hot tub, laundry, use of a car, and a dock with power! We can’t thank them enough as we were to stay there seven nights waiting for a weather window to run south to Marathon.    Pretty nice setup:

 

Mike has a boat captain, Eddy, who watches the house and takes him to the best fishing spots in the Gulf of Mexico (I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you), and he helped us get settled.  Thanks Eddy!   

We had lunch on Tuesday with Nancy's former yoga instructor and friend Debra Johnson who lives in Naples now.  And we generally “mooched” around the area, going to the local restaurants (Mango’s, Island Gypsy, CJ’s, Doreen’s, etc.), the beach, grocery shopping, etc. 

Old Native American wall made out of conch shells:

 

Island Gypsy Restaurant:

On Friday morning while Nancy was visiting with Debra, disaster struck as my Surface laptop refused to turn on.   After trouble-shooting the issue with my I/T-wizard-sister Caroline, it was determined that I needed to bring it in into a local shop. Verdict: laptop dead.   I ordered a new one on the spot and began to scramble for all the passwords, encryption keys, etc. so the place could clone my hard-drive over to the new unit.  Luckily I had backed up Thursday morning, so if worse came to worst, I was only out an afternoon's worth of work.

At noon on Friday, my h/s friend (Mary) and her husband (Jed) came down from Naples to join us for lunch and we had a nice visit.   Mary and I spared Jed and Nancy too many h/s stories, and Mary, Jed and I spared Nancy too many University of Illinois stories.   Jed, Mary and me:

 

That night Nancy and I drove up to Naples to visit with friends Amy and Steve Louis and had a lovely dinner at their amazing home.   Steve is a legend in the orthopedic trauma community and is enjoying a well-earned retirement.   It was great to catch up with them.   (Steve and I didn’t talk about orthopedics and golf too much, we hope.)   

 

On Saturday the 16^th, the big storm arrived and while it had high winds and a lot of rain, it wasn’t “Aunty Em” level.  But still.

I was able to pick up my new laptop in the early afternoon and then we headed up to Ft. Meyers.  This was the day we had to pick Jack up at the a/p.   His flight didn’t arrive until 8:00 p.m. but we wanted to see some sights.  We went to the Edison/Ford Winter Estates Museum.   Very interesting place and history.   https://www.edisonfordwinterestates.org/     

We were able to tour the grounds during a break in the rain.  The main Edison house was off limits as there was a wedding and reception on the grounds that afternoon/evening.    We did seem some of the bridal party around and I heard the bride crying over the weather.  I was going to tell her that, “Hey, my parents got married in a Nor'easter and they did fine,” but discretion prevailed over valor.    

Nabbed this off the website, Edison's house:

Me and big tree, and it isn't even the biggest tree on the place:

We picked up Jack as scheduled and drove home in a driving rainstorm.    That night Jack and Nancy slept in the house while I stayed on the boat.   I had to get up twice during the night to adjust the boat fenders as there was a storm surge that brought the high tide level up to five feet vs. the normal three feet.   Eddy stopped by the next morning to make sure we were ok, and we looked at the weather forecast and judged that Tuesday would be the best day for the run south as the winds were switching from the Northwest to North on Monday, and “you want to give it a day to settle down.”  

On Sunday Nancy and Jack had errands to run while I did some additional reinforcing on my boat-top luggage rack.    Monday found Nancy and I going to the beach to look for shark's teeth while Jack worked on applications for a summer job (he is a first-year law student at the University of Michigan).    We also did some provisioning for the boat and cleaning of the house.    

We didn't find any shark's teeth, but did enjoy a nice long beech walk:

That night we watched a few episodes of The Crown and got to bed early as we were leaving the dock at 7:00 a.m. to head south to the Keys.

 

Dave

 

  

Odometer: 1,956

 

034: Broken Things and a Nice Place

On Sunday, December 10^th, we had forty-eight n/m to go to get to the Cabbage Key Inn.   We couldn’t check in until 3:00 p.m. so that they could have the dock free for the lunch crowd.  That gave us a two-hour window until the bad weather was supposed to get in, so plenty of time, right?   Leave the mooring ball by 9:30 a.m., travel at eight+ n/m per hour, easy.

Nancy and I thought we’d dinghy into Sarasota for some Starbucks, but the dinghy engine wasn’t working.  This was not supposed to happen.  

I spent 2x the cost of a small gasoline engine for an electric outboard with less power.   Just plug in the battery and go!  No gas, no pull cord, no choke, etc. etc.    I did not buy one of the two most established brands (Torqueedo, E-Propulsion) but went with a brand I saw at the Seattle Boat show a few years back. Probably a mistake.

The last few times I used it, the motor was slow to turn on, but it did get going after some cord-jiggling.   Again, electrics are supposed to be plug in, turn switch, go.  My theory is that having fixed the dinghy’s leaking issue, Neptune wanted to mess with me some more.  No Starbucks for us today.

The offender:

 

We left as scheduled at 9:30 and were happily on our way.  At 10:30 a.m. we passed a big “looper” boat anchored just off the channel.  “Rude” was my thought.   As we passed him to approach a low bridge that is supposed to open on demand we got a radio call from him, “The bridge is broken, they are only going to open it at noon and at 4:00 pm.”   That explained his anchoring off the channel, and that is what we had to do as well.   

The bridge opened at noon, but now we were ninety minutes behind schedule with weather coming in.  The next few miles were slow going with lots of “no-wake” zones, so we were getting a bit worried about making it in my 5:00 p.m.

The offender, a swing bridge:

We did see interesting things on the ICW.

Osprey:

 

Santa on a jet ski:

Luckily the ICW did open up to some large bays and open water where the speed limit was 25 mph.   This enabled us to speed up to make lost time.   There were occasional no-wake zones around bridges or more built-up areas.    Typically there was a big sign letting you know that you were approaching a no-wake zone.   One sign was missing as both us and KatMat never saw it.  We passed a restaurant with a big no-wake sign so we slowed down and didn’t pay particular attention to a northbound boat (we were southbound).  About fifteen minutes later my phone rang from a Minnesota number.  I answered it and it was a woman on that northbound boat admonishing me for violating the no-wake limit.  (She got our phone number from our profile on the AGLCA website.)   I explained that while I did notice the northbound sign after the fact, that there was no southbound sign.  She didn’t really seem to accept that explanation at first and went on about the importance of “following the rules” and I politely (against all Kanzler-training) explained again that there was no southbound sign.   Then she posted about it on Facebook, so I’m glad I was nice to her!  (Humility is not my strong suit.)

 

With the throttle down, we made it to Cabbage Key Inn just before 4:00 p.m.   It is a pretty cool place, accessible only by water.   https://cabbagekey.com/history/

Though Jimmy Buffet was a frequent guest “back in the day,” he did not, as some guides indicate, get his inspiration for the song “Cheeseburger in Paradise” from there.  The true story is that he invited the owners of the resort to one of his shows, front row seats, and dedicated that song* that night to them.    

 

The dock staff was super helpful getting us squared away and we had nice hot shower and dinner at the Inn that night, while the rains came down.   The storm did blow pretty well that night and we rocked a bit.  Nancy and I got up twice during the middle of the night to adjust the boat fenders as the tide was going down.   Nothing major, just interrupted sleep.

The next day Nancy and Kathy went for a walk around the island while I did work for my client most of the day.   Also called the outboard engine folks and trouble-shot a few things.  They are sending me a new cable that connects the battery to the engine.   Fingers crossed.

Cabbage Key Inn sights.

New Friend:

Historic Water Tower:

The Inn:

Sunset:

 Dave

 

Odometer: 1,899

 

*My “Cheeseburger in Paradise” story:  University of Illinois, circa 1980: I am at a party talking to this coed about favorite music, artists, etc.  I take the then popular Alan-Alda-sensitive-guy approach and tell her Jimmy Buffet because he “sings meaningful songs about life, its ups and downs, etc. (I’m thinking “He Went to Paris”).  She looked at me and said, “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” and turned and walked away.   Swing and miss!