Key West

Well, we have finally made it down to the most southerly point of the United States after an eventful journey. We were nearly at our destination when we heard a very large bang and smelled smoke coming from the starboard engine. Crikey, I thought, what has gone wrong now? Gary quickly turned off the engine to discover the warning light on saying the engine was over heating. I had driven for quite a while and not noticed the light and neither had Gary when he took over. We put the blower on to get rid of the smell and turned on the other engine for the remainder of our journey into Key West. We thought docking might be a problem having only one engine but Gary managed to dock us safely without any problems and with the assistance of a fellow boater on shore. Gary went into the engine compartment underneath our bed and discovered a very large hole blown in a water pipe. We are now awaiting the arrival of the spare part so that we can leave Key West on Wednesday.
I forgot to mention in my last blog that we passed two grain silos with figures painted on their sides. They were quite artistically done and impressive.

Having been to Key West 3 times before it is difficult not to repeat myself. It is a city bustling with crowds, noisy at times and is comprised of many, many bars filled with young people enjoying themselves. Being "old" we now avoid the noisy, raucous bars and settle for more sedate surroundings. It is however, one of my favourite cities due to the ambiance and feeling of frenetic excitement about the place.
We are moored in one of the city's busiest and very expensive marinas and will be here for approx one week depending upon the winds. We do not like to motor in winds over 10-12 miles per hour in open seas or bays as we really get rocked around and I am prone to sea sickness. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for the next 10 days is not good as the winds are supposed to be 13 mph and higher. The marina at night is a pretty place to visit as many boats have coloured lights on their decks and rigging.

We do not have any pretty lights on our boat.
We have visited many places of interest during our stay. One of which was Jimmy Buffet's Restaurant.  Jimmy Buffet is known for the following songs "It's Five O Clock Somewhere", "Margueritaville" and "Cheeseburger in Paradise". He was not present at the restaurant. We had a nice meal there and our first slice of Key Lime Pie.

We took the Hop On Hop Off Trolley and visited East Martello Fort which turned out to be quite disappointing and not really worth the visit. They had a Teddy Bear, "Robert" on show in a glass enclosed enclosure. He belonged to a young boy many years ago and when the boy was in trouble with his parents he would always blame Robert saying "Robert did it". Even into his adult years, Robert got the blame for many things his owner did. Well, I took his photograph and then read the notice that said if you want to take photos you have to ask "Robert" for permission or bad luck will fall on you. I am now waiting for that bad luck to happen.

On the trolley tour we passed the local cemetery and noticed that most of the grave stones were above ground like they are in New Orleans. These, however are above ground due to possible flooding from hurricanes and to the ground being too hard to bury the deceased too deeply.

I am a lover of flowers and quite a few are in bloom down here due to the lovely warm weather. This flower caught my eye but I do not know what it is.

Key West is inundated with lovely turn of the century old homes each with their own particular style. They were really nice to see in tree lined streets and roadways.

Key West is not only known for Ernest Hemingway's 6 toed cats but also chickens. There are chickens all over the place and they are protected by law. Hurt a chicken and you may be given a $500 fine (and that is not poultry!!!)..

Along one of the streets outside the local cinema was a life size model of Marilyn Monroe. Why it was there, I do not know.The statue is taken from the the film "The Seven Year Itch". This scene of her skirt being blown up by a subway vent so infuriated her husband, Yankee legend Joe DiMaggio that he divorced her shortly afterwards.

 No visit to Key West is possible without visiting Mallory Square to see the sun set. We went to see this spectacle along with several hundred other visitors each vying for the best place to take a photo. I managed to get a fairly good spot. There was a lady behind me with a dog in her arms and she asked me to move so that the dog could see the sunset. I politely refused her request. I took several photos but unfortunately the sun set into some clouds. We also were hoping to see the "Green Flash". A phenomenon that happens when the sun sets into the horizon into water. We hope one day to see this spectacle.

 Mallory Square is known for its street performers and some of them are very good. They are mostly jugglers, unicycle riders and acrobats with a good comedic patter. They can certainly draw in the crowds and hope for donations when the act is finished. The one we watched was very good. He climbed on top of 6 balanced chairs and then juggled some torches that had been lit on fire much to the applause of the audience.

Finally, we visited the Key West Aquarium and saw many different types of fish and turtles. I made a wonderful discovery... I found "Nemo"!!!

The aquarium gave talks on different topics, one of which was lion fish, an invasive species from the Indo-Pacific. The fish is characterised by a conspicuous warning colouration with red, white, creamy or black bands. They are now on the wanted list because they are voracious predators and they are venomous. Their spines contain a toxin which, if you come into contact with it causes extreme pain that can last for several days, sweating, respiratory disease and even paralysis. The female can lay eggs every four days and lays up to 2 million eggs in one year. The eggs are contained in a mucous sac that tastes terrible so have no predators. They are popular aquarium fish as they are so pretty.

Finally, there is a beautiful bronze statue in Key West depicting "The Wreckers". These were men who had been pirates, buccaneers or privateers who turned to a legal way of earning money from ship wrecks. They would wait for a ship to flounder and then race out to the ship to "rescue" its cargo. The first person to get there claimed the best part of the loot for himself and then shared the saved loot with his fellow wreckers and the passengers who owned the goods.

We are now in the Florida Keys after having spent 4 days in Delray Beach due to high winds. Because the boat is a catamaran she does not do well in high waves and winds. I have also been asked several questions about the boat so here are the answers. Yes, we do have radar, GPS and a depth finder to help with the navigation. We do approx 7-8 miles per hour and get 2 miles to the gallon of diesel fuel. We have two engines but usually run on one one day and the next day swap to the alternate engine.
Whilst at Delray Beach we visited the Mckee Botanical Gardens in Vero Beach and spent a nice day wandering around the gardens. We coincided our visit with The Lego Exhibition which we had seen twice before at different gardens. The McKee Tropical Garden did not contain many flowers but was arranged as a garden you may find in the tropics.

Each Lego Sculpture had a write up telling you how many pieces went into the Sculpture. I think the Butterfly had the most pieces, 42,000.
There was another interesting sculpture I photographed.

Gary suggested taking a close-up to get the reflections in each of the water globes.
We also visited Merritt Island again to see the birds but due to being later in the year there were no large flocks of birds. We saw herons, egrets, ibis, coots, moorhens, grebes and several smaller birds I do not know the name of. We also saw a very large alligator resting in the shade. He appeared to have a big smile on his face.

The Island has a very large wild hog population and this time were were able to see 2 fairly close up whilst they were looking for grubs.

The visitor centre had a bird feeder being visited by squirrels, red wing blackbirds and painted buntings. The male painted bunting is very colorful indeed.

We ate several times in Delray Beach at a pub called "The Blue Anchor" and had a good meal both times. The meals were based on an English Menu so Gary had roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding and I had lamb shank.The front facade of the pub was brought from London an unknown number of years ago. The facade dates back to the 19th century and it is rumoured that 2 of Jack the Ripper's victims were said to have spent their last nights alive drinking at the pub.Winston Churchill was also said to been a frequent visitor  in his days as a Fleet Street Journalist and Member of Parliament.

We had a very good journey once the winds had subsided and passed many huge personal boats and cruise ships. Some of them must have cost several million dollars. I wonder how many miles to the gallon they get or should I say gallons to the mile!!! One very large boat even had a side door at water level that allowed a small boat to be berthed safely.

We passed a window washer washing the port holes on a cruise ship. He was in a cage attached to a rail that went along the full side of the ship.

We passed this beautiful sailing galleon moored next to a modern day boat so I just had to take a piccy!!
Whilst we have been in the Keys we have visited several places within a taxi ride distance from where the boat is moored in Marathon. We went to the Turtle Hospital which is a not for profit rescue center for injured turtles. Most of them had been injured by boat strikes and were recuperating well at the hospital. The hospital hopes to release all of its residents when they are well enough to return to where they were captured. Some unfortunately cannot be release due to their injuries and being unable to care for themselves in the wild. Whoever finds the turtle gets to name it and there were some funny names seen on the back of the turtle's shell.

 The three turtles above were some of the injured turtles we saw. The top one, George was suffering from "Bubble Butt Syndrome". This is where a turtle is unable to dive due to air getting trapped under the shell, damage to the lungs and muscles surrounding them and nerve damage. The staff add lead weights to their shells to help the turtle dive down for its food. Unfortunately, the lead weights will drop off requiring new weights to be added so these turtles must remain as permanent residents of the hospital. The next few photos I thought were cute. One of them shows a close-up of the carrapace and how beautiful it is. Turtles were almost rendered extinct in the late 19th century due to the ladies of the time wanting objects made from tortoise shell. They were also captured for their meat and made into turtle soup. Today, it is illegal to trap and capture turtles so they are now protected from being harvested.

 Being a hospital there is an operating room which you can view on your way to the turtles. It looked very well equipped.

We have seen several green iguanas down here in the Keys. Here are two photos showing the iguanas with different camouflage coloring to match their surroundings.

Another place we visited was Crane Point. The complex has a natural history museum, marine touch tanks, a bird rescue centre and nature trails. One of the objects that was of interest to me was a boat called a chug in which 11 men and one women crossed the Atlantic from Cuba last year. How they ever got 11 people in the boat, I do not know. A docent told us that the people were allowed to stay in the US because of a law called "Wet foot, dry foot policy". This law states that anyone who fled Cuba and entered the US would be allowed to pursue residency a year after entering the US. A person caught with "wet feet" would be returned to Cuba but those with "dry feet" would be allowed to stay. The law has since been repealed earlier this year.

The final place we have visited in the Keys was the Dolphin Research Center. We spent an enjoyable 5 hours there watching dolphins being trained to follow instructions, weighed, watered and played with. The Center also had 4 Sea Lions one of whom was blind. Her name was Karen and she always swam with her head out of the water.

 Each dolphin's fluke is as individual as our fingerprints.

 The dolphins seemed quite happy and loved to leap out of the water.

We also saw the handlers weighing the dolphins and giving them medication and water to keep them in tip top shape.

Dolphins, apparently have 3 stomachs and the water is poured into their first stomach.

I almost forgot that we also visited the EAA Air Museum. The museum was quite small but had very knowledgeable volunteers to answer any question you could think of.

The last photo showed a kit plane made from parts that you put together yourself. As you can see, it was very small. I think Gary and I would have had a difficult time getting in and out of it. Its wing span was approx 14 feet across.
Well, I think that is enough for one day. We hope to leave Marathon tomorrow (Tuesday) and go to Key West doing some snorkeling on the way. However, we have heard it maybe too windy to leave so we may have to spend another pleasant day here.