March 17, 2013

After being moored for 2 days in a quiet cove because of very strong winds and large waves, we are finally on our way again to The Keys. Unfortunately, whilst we were anchored in the cove we did not have use of the internet or the telephone so were out of touch with everyone. I took some sunset photos but they were not as spectacular as ones I have taken in the past.

Several days ago we stayed in Everglade City at a very nice Marina that was next to all the tourists' air boats. Boy, are they noisy things. I do not think I could ride one because of the noise despite being given ear plugs.

 Gary and I decided to bike to the grocery store and hardware store because the map told us it was not too far away. After approximately two miles we took another look at the map and realised it was not to scale. We decided to turn around and head for another store in the town. Because Gary cycles much slower than me I went ahead and had him follow me. After a while I stopped, looked around and no Gary. He was at least 1/4 mile back pushing his bike. I saw a car stop and became very worried something was seriously wrong. I pedalled as fast as I could back to him just as the car pulled off. The driver had offered Gary a ride and he declined. The reason for Gary walking was his bicycle chain had broken (more Johney bad luck). We walked along together a little further when a truck pulled up and offered us a ride. We put the bikes in the back of the truck, got in the cab and were driven back to the Marina by Mitch, a true Floridian. I wonder if I would have done this if I was by myself.

We also met more kindness when we went to sign in with the dock master at the marina. It was quite a walk and we had rubbish to get rid of. This man, Mark was cleaning his boat on the boat ramp and offered us his golf cart to save us having to walk to the office. We accepted and off we went. However, Mark's wife was at the office and saw the golf cart but no husband. So, she rides off to find her husband to see who has got the golf cart. Luckily, Mark was still explaining things to her when we returned the cart. We certainly have met some lovely people.

We are now in the Keys staying at a marina in Marathon. We had a very good crossing from Everglade City despite the wind forecast of 15-20mph. Luckily, the waves were with us most of the way.  We crossed a large body of water which you would think was quite deep. However, in places it was that shallow that the birds could stand on the bottom and preen themselves.

We have a good depth finder and charts to help us navigate these shallow waters, thank goodness.


 Gary has a friend he used to work with (Tom) who has been introducing us to other boaters. He also helped Gary get his bicycle chain back on. Tom invited us to Happy Hour with the boaters last night. They all gather alongside the boats, bring a drink and chatter. It was a lovely way to get to know everyone. Tonight, (St Paddy's Day) we are all meeting at 5pm with snacks and drinks so we should meet some of the same people again and some new ones. I just wish I could remember people's names. Names go in one ear and out the next.

Would you believe it, my microwave/convection oven went on the fritz this morning. Gary is trying to fix it but it has him stumped at the moment. Presently, it is on our dining room table being examined by the engineer. I don't know, if much else goes wrong we will have to sell the boat and house and the only thing we will be able to afford is this:

We had manatees around our boats this morning and I took some pictures of them. They were lighter in colour than the ones we saw at Silver Spring. We asked other boaters if they knew why they were lighter skinned but no-one seemed to know. I took some photos but they are very similar to what you have already seen.

This gives you an idea of the size of the manatee. Our boat is 15 feet wide.

This one had barnacles on him/her.

They enjoy being fed lettuce!

I thought these two were kissing but Gary said he thought one of them was trying to push the other away from the water. I still like the idea that they were kissing. Just look at those kissable lips!!

I also took another photo of a pelican (now my favorite bird, sorry penguins!!). This one was on the pier post next to our boat. He must have sat there frequently
due to the color of the post!! What amazed me was the size of the bird and how he sat only on the back of the post without falling off.

I saw some iguanas this afternoon. Apparently, they swim across the waterway from the mangroves to eat the grass around the marina. There were three of them - Mum, Dad and baby, I think. I took several photos and it was interesting to see them change color due to their surroundings. I had been warned that they would eat my cat and were quite aggressive. I got fairly close to the biggest one in the hope he would flare his dewlap (bright orange) in defense but he never did. He must have trusted me.

Mum and baby.

Dad.

Mom.

Dad.

Dad needs a manicure!!

Mum climbing a tree to get away from me.

Dad also needs a pedicure.

The biggest iguana was about 2.5 feet long including his tail which he uses to whiplash you, so I am told.

Good news, Gary pulled out the microwave, took it to pieces and found out that we had blown a fuse. He rode to Home Depot on his bike, bought 2 new fuses and fixed the oven. Yippee, we do not have to sell the house.

We are off to the Symphony tonight with Tom and Elinor. That should make for a lovely evening.

Gary has come up with a wonderful idea to let you see where we are or where we have been. Click on the highlighted link and follow it to a Google map of the area you have chosen. You can zoom in and out of the map to see a wider perspective. Give us some feed back if you like it or not or if you have any problems.



We stayed at the north end of Pelican Bay just inside the bright white beach line in 5 feet of water.

This is a google map link to Tarpon Bay.
We anchored just north of Tarpon Bay near the area noted as "shallow mouth". We dinghied in but the next day when the winds had changed the tide was so low we would have had to walk the dingy across a sand bar.

We moved on to Russel Pass.
Russel Pass is the large pass just to the right of Russel Bay near Everglades City. We dinghied into Lane Cove to do some bird watching. The area we went into was called the 10,000 islands area and everywhere we went through the mangroves looked like the last place we have been through. We has some doubts about finding our way back to the boat but with Margaret's good sense of direction, we made it back OK!!

The Google link to our location on Little Shark River is a picture of a cloud so it isn't shown..

Google map link to our marina location in marathon fl.

March 8th, 2013

What a beautiful morning after two very windy days. We spent two days at the Cape Haze Marina due to the weather but took advantage of the time to meet a neighbor of Gary's he had not seen since he was 13. They both agreed that neither of them looked a day older than when they last saw each other!!! Wanda and Bill were kind enough to drive an hour to the marina to meet us and then took us to Gasparilla Island whose main town is called Boca Grande (Big Mouth) south of where we were moored. The island very much reminded me of Key West but not quite as touristy. It had a lovely beach which we walked on for a while for me to look for shells etc. I found a dead puffer fish and a strand of whelk cases which were most interesting. People were looking for shark's teeth, I guess to make necklaces out of.

Whilst at the marina we had our dinghy looked at. Since powering the boat with the dinghy upside down dragging in the water (unknown to us) the dinghy has not ran. We do seem to learn the hard way, don't we? The dinghy had water in the carburettor but was fixed quite easily and cheaply compared to what we have paid out so far. Now we can dinghy into places the boat cannot go. Uh oh, I spoke too soon. We went for our dinghy ride and would you believe it one of the side chambers started to deflate which meant we could not stay out as long as we planned. I did find a sea urchin on the beach but not much else.

Can you believe it, we had a day were everything went right, nothing broke down or deflated. We took the newly blown up dinghy into Tarpon Bay on Sanibel Island for some nature watching and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We took some underwater pictures of a whelk (says Gary) conch (says me) and a string of whelk eggs. Gary also took a photo of his beloved wife leaning over the front of the boat looking down into the water (my favorite/favourite position!!!).

No butts about this one.

Is it a conch or is it a whelk?

I am not sure what is in the bottom left corner - any ideas?

A whelk/conch with his foot out taking a walk.

A string of whelk's eggs.

My lovely pelicans.

My lovely hubby.

The back of the boat showing our homemade Kingston Rover sign and our country's flags.

Our clocks went forward this morning. It seems too early for that. Can you believe I got up at 7am this morning? That's 7am old time 8am new time.

I had a bit of a giggle with a tourist boat the other day. It was one of those "Rocket" boats that go very fast. It was full of tourists enjoying themselves speeding along at 30 mph. Behind the boat in the wake were two dolphins leaping in and out of the wake. Every time they leaped out the tourists would all go "oooh". You could hear ooohs intermittently as the boat drove into the sunset. Our boat plods along at 8mph so I do not think we will ever have dolphins leaping in and out of our wake.

We had a panic with Mia a couple of days ago. We were moored at a pier and she decided to go "walkabout". I was at the back of the boat with her as she leaped or attempted to leap from the boat to the wooden pier. However, she did not realise the boat had swung away from the pier a little creating a larger distance than she was used to. Anyway, she jumped and misjudged the distance ending up with just her front claws clinging to the pier while her body dangled 6 feet above the water. I do not know how she did it as she is 16 years old but she was able to pull herself up onto the pier by her own strength. She did not go "walkabout" again whilst at that Marina and I do not blame her. I cannot get out of a swimming pool unless I use the steps so I admire the cat's strength.


It is Mother's Day in my homeland. I wish all the British Mothers reading this a wonderful day knowing that your children love you and thank -you for everything. Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful Mum.

The name of the skin under the pelican's bill is dewlap - the name also applies to the loose skin under certain cows' chins.

March 3rd, 2013

I am not a happy blogger at the moment. I spent an hour yesterday writing my blog and about another hour today uploading photos only to lose the lot and not know why. Dear Gary can usually recover my mistakes but not today which means I have to start all over again. Boo hiss!!

 Now let us see if I can remember what I wrote yesterday. I think I told you we were on our way South from Sarasota. We are calling this the beginning of The Great Loop so put up our flag to let people know of our intentions. The loop will finish here sometime next winter. You can read about the Great Loop on a website and it will give you an idea of what our next adventure will be starting in June.

The initials stand for America's Great Loop Cruiser's Association.

 We have just spent a lovely week with David who returned home much more relaxed than when he arrived. He went to 2 Oriole's Spring Training games with Gary whilst I took myself to a Botanical Garden in Sarasota. The Oriole's won so that was a good start to the baseball season.

Whilst I was there I spied a Great White Heron hovering around a flower bed. I whipped out my camera just as the heron struck his head into the flower bed and lo and behold, he came out with an anole (lizard). He swallowed the live lizard after turning it around in his beak and you could see it go down his long neck. I never knew herons ate lizards.

 

 

 

 

 

I was surprised to see amaryllis growing outside in winter.

This is a photo of the Monarch butterfly caterpillar eating off the Milkweed (the only plant it feeds off and lays it's eggs on).

 The gardens were not very large but fairly interesting due to the vegetation in Florida being so much different to that in Maryland.

We also went on a lovely kayak trip that David treated us to. It was over 3 hours long and we had the undivided attention of our guide, Colin as it was only the 3 of us. We paddled around and through the mangroves. Colin would stop, jump out of his canoe and grab something off the floor bed and then show it to us. He seemed quite knowledgeable about objects which made the trip even more interesting. He showed us 2 conchs, one of which weighed about 15lbs. He also showed us a star fish, sea urchin, and a sponge.

David and I went for a quick walk and saw a palm tree and another tree growing harmoniously together. The tree of which I did not know it's name surrounded the trunk of the palm and both trees lived symbiotically.

We have met with old neighbors of ours from Poplar Ridge who are thoroughly enjoying retirement and Florida living. We also met with one of the previous owners of our boat, Phil. Phil and his wife Rose did the "Loop" in our/their boat and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. They gave us advice and hints to make the journey easier.

On Sunday Gary and I watched some men para boarding (water-skiing using a boogie board and being pulled by a parachute). It was quite windy that day so they were really buzzing along in the water. Some of them would leap into the air, catch their boogie boards and land back in the water to continue "sailing". We were surprised that many of them were not youngsters but men in their 40s.

 Here is the answer to my bird identification quiz:

Avocet, sandpiper, pelican (do you know the name of the piece of skin under the pelican's bill for extra credit), wood stork, reddish egret, top immature ibis, bottom snowy egret, shoveler, American bittern. black vulture, avocet, great blue heron, ibis, coots, right skimmer, left grebes, spoonbill, great blue heron, great egret, top snowy egret, bottom grebes, moorhen, osprey, great egret, bald eagle, snowy egret, glossy ibis, red bellied woodpecker, anole (lizard), grackle, male bunting, female bunting, red winged blackbird, snowy egret, roseate spoonbill, and last but not least green heron. If I have made a mistake with their names, please let me know for future reference.