Key West, Bus Ride, and Broke Boat

In Marathon we are on a mooring ball (one of over 200) in the middle of town grocery and restaurants galore within a couple of miles. The wind is really rolling but when the temps are 70-80 it is not so bad. We saw our first manatee and it was really cute. A boat in our bay had left a hose dripping and apparently manatee love fresh water. The first night a trumpet player played taps at sunset which is celebrated by every bar and boat on the Key. We rode the bus to Key West yesterday and we were trying to remember the last time we had ridden a bus—maybe to Michael’s Wedding and that was with friends and a case of beer on board for less than an hour. This bus took a couple of hours and had everything from people that were going to/coming from work, sailors from the Key West Naval Station and women with children—we flirted with a little 2 year old and missed our Holden. One guy got mad and called the driver an a**hole when the driver wouldn’t make a special stop for him—humanity. We got to Key West about noon and immediately hit Caroline’s for a beer. We shopped, grazed, and people watched until we caught the return bus at 8:30 –not sure whether we were more into the bus experience or Key West. We have been to Key West several times and not much has changed—they certainly know how to celebrate sunset on the pier with lots of vendors, old farts on guitars, and street magicians like Jackson Square in New Orleans. Three cruise ships were in and with the spring breakers Key West was pretty crowded. Something everyone should do at least once we got a week’s pass which was actually $15 each but still a great tour of the lower Keys--jury is out whether we will go again this trip. We got to the boat at about 10:30 and the inverter had kept the essential things going but we went to charge it up with the generator and it did not even start to crank. Fitz put on his work clothes and headed to the basement. He gave up about an hour later, went to bed and after a couple of hours work on it this morning, it cranked right up. Salt water—no other explanation –he took apart all the contacts, cleaned them off and put them back together and 2 hours in found the culprit. Thanks Heavens—no one is more unhappy than Fitz when his boat is broke.

Look clsely and you can see our first sighting of a manatee right of the engine

Terry at the Southermost point of the continental US

Keys Lighthouse

Mallory Station sculpture of an artist painting the sculpture

Sunset Entertainment