1/23/21 Saturday: Marlin Bay Resort & Marina in Marathon. What a beautiful place! What is not to love about this?! The weather is still beautiful, sunny, and calm.
1/23/21 – Enjoying Marathon
Boat Trips
1/21/21 – Making our way down the Gulf
1/21/21 Thursday: We had about 40 miles to travel out on the Gulf today, to get from Ft Myers Beach to Marco Island. We left the dock around 9:30, and it was splat flat out there! This is looking back at Pink Shell as we tootled out into the Gulf.
1/17/21 – On our way to the Florida Keys!
1/17/21 Sunday: At just 2256 hours in 20 years, Island Girl got a rebuilt starboard engine. That’s a long drawn out story. Short story is this: She now has only about eleven hours on the new engine, so it’s time for a break-in trip. We plan to do the Great Loop again this year (6000+ miles) but we need to get about 50 hours on the new motor before we set out on that journey. This trip ought to accomplish that goal. Plus, our daughter and her husband are parents to 20 month-old triplets, (seriously!) and could use a vacation break away from the babies. We invited them to meet us in the Florida Keys and spend a week with us on Island Girl. They said YES! 😃
We planned more than a week of lee-way to get to Marathon before they do, so we can mosey our way down and take advantage of good weather days. It is January in Florida, and that means unpredictable temperatures, wind and waves. When we left the dock today at about 8:00am, it was cloudy and only 55 degrees outside. Brrr! 🥶 Yes – that is Brrr temperature for us!
6/28/20 The final Keys/Islands episode
Sunday, and it’s time to go home tomorrow. We’ve had a really fun three weeks! And hey – technically, we’ve docked every night on an island! Cabbage Key, Marco Island, Marathon, Key West, and Estero Island!
We spent some time in the pool today, and it felt really nice. I think it was a little cooler than it has been. The sky was really hazy today, so no direct blistering hot sunshine. YAY! It looked like a few white caps out on the gulf. We sat facing west, hoping to get some of the breeze, but somehow we were pretty sheltered from it. There was definitely more time in the pool than in the chairs.
6/27/20: Just another day in paradise.
Saturday – We stayed in the boat most of the day, enjoying the air conditioning as the temperature outside along with humidity hit a “feels like 110 degrees”. Long ago, we each adopted our own places to sit while we’re hangin out. Kenny sits on the aft couch, and I sit at the dinette couch.
6/26/20: Feels like 106?!
Dude.
1:00 in the afternoon, 92 feels like 106. But hey – the good news is that it’ll drop below 80 degrees tonight… to 78! 😳🥵. Heat Advisory until 6pm tonight. Again.
Read more6/25/20: Relaxin at Pink Shell
To help you see where we are, here’s a little map. We are the blue dot in the lower right at the north tip of Estero Island. Sanibel Island is to the west of us. The town of Fort Myers is up the Caloosahatchee River from here.
6/24/20: Journey North across the Gulf
We were up at 5:30am today, before the sunshine’s alarm clock even went off. It was 82 degrees outside. Seriously! And sticky-sweaty-humid. Perfect if you’re a tropical jungle plant. There was plenty enough light in the marina to see what we were doing, so we unplugged our power cord, untied our lines, and shoved away from the dock at 6:00. By then, the sun was starting to think about getting up. The water was calm, the air was calm, and we could see fine well-emough to go out the Key West Harbor channel.
6/23/20: The final Keys episode
It’s our last day in the Keys for this trip. All four catamarans that were docked by us are gone, and nobody has come in their place. The dock seems so empty! I didn’t note this earlier, but there are still quite a few restaurants, bars, and stores that are not open yet in Key West. One popular restaurant right here at the marina called Turtle Kraals is still closed. The famous Sloppy Joe’s Bar on Duval is still closed. The drag queen shows are not happening. And of course, there are no cruise ships. Not everything in Key West is back to normal. Last night while we were walking through town, it was SOOO nice because nothing was crowded. But the town can’t survive forever at this reduced level of tourism. Hopefully Covid will ease up and our world can get back to a new normal before too long.
Read more6/22/20: Monday projects
One thing we haven’t done in the last two weeks, is watch the news on TV. This morning I thought that perhaps I should check on the Covid status in Florida. Sheesh! I guess cases are going up up up. Of course, the hotspot of the state (48% of the cases) is still the Miami/Ft Lauderdale/Palm Beach area. Hmmm. What if we don’t go that way after all, and head back up our own west coast from here? That depends on what the weather looks like for crossing the Gulf on Wednesday. So I pulled up all of my various marine weather apps, and … it looks great! The weather has been calm, and the Gulf has been calm for several days. Wednesday winds are forecasted to be 5-10 knots, with seas around 1 foot. It doesn’t get any better than that.
