On The Ball

Well the Superbowl was actually a good game, and about 100 people showed up at the Marina lounge to watch it on a big projector screen. We gathered with our new friends and had pizza and a good time - glad the Saints won.

We have had 3 cold fronts move through in the past 9 days. The first 2 were medium and minor, but blustery. We were at anchor at the far end of the harbor – about 1 mile from the dingy dock, showers, and where our bikes are tied up. We learned to love our BIG Fortress anchor as our storm anchor. It dug in and that was that. Learned that you can actually spin on 2 anchors and get away without getting tangled. Not like one of our neighbors who wrapped his anchor around his keel and ended up facing the wrong way while we spun. Yikes! Shortened our anchor line to avoid collision.

We have spent our daytimes checking out the surrounding area on bikes, eating lunch at various places and the checking out quality of their key lime pie. Burdines is the best so far. ( Arnie mugging with the mask). Lots of local color, people, dogs, even nature, which in fact is significantly better than up in populated areas of Miami and north.

Then on Wednesday evening, we got our long awaited phone call from the harbormaster. They had a mooring ball for us. After 8 days of waiting, we had arrived at the promised land. No more concerns about wind direction and strength or where the other boats were aiming. Only 5 minutes to the dock and showers. Halleluah! Just in time for the big blow on Friday evening – big black clouds at sunset. Lightning, wind and then more wind. All night – mid 30 knots, gusting to 52 knots recorded. Not much sleep – just too much noise and bouncing.

But then the other highpoint of the week occurred after the front moved through. Two Manatees, a mother and her baby swam into visit the dingy dock to say hello and receive a fresh water drink from the hose there. They even liked being petted, which both Arnie and Ronnie proceeded to do. They felt like a wet elephant, if you can imagine that. Big blubbery lips and beady little eyes. And very big. The mother probably weighed 2000 pounds, the baby a mere 300-400. Very neat.

The weather continues to be abnormal. It won’t even reach 70 this week, and nighttime is downright chilly with lots of wind. We are seriously thinking of staying another week in the hopes of better weather – we are pretty far south – and renting a car to bring the truck and trailer down here instead of sailing ( more like motoring into more Northerlies), and playing hide and seek anchoring in less than protected waters at night. We will check out the ramps and logistics of doing that in the next few days.

More next week.