MARATHON

He Said:   Hello from Marathon Marina.  It’s been about 6 weeks since we last blogged.  We have celebrated the holidays and the arrival of 2015.  But nothing in my life is quite as exciting as The Ohio State Buckeyes.  

For those of you who know me pretty well, I have been a die hard Buckeye Fan.  This goes back to my childhood days of growing up in Columbus.  I guess I have been a big fan for over 50 years.  Our last challenge of this fun year is simply this: The Bucks have to _uck up the Ducks - a little poetry, but it tells it all.  I, of course, will be glued to the TV this Monday nite at the Hurricane Bar and Grill (where I have found a hand full of fun Buckeye fans) to watch the National Championship Game with.  It will be a big challenge. Coach Meyer seems to like this underdog thing - Wisconsin and Alabama seemed to prove it.  We scored over 100 points in those 2 games with our 3^rd string QB.  I feel certain we can also score against the Duck defense.  The challenge will be stopping their explosive offense.  Keep your fingers crossed, and I will be hoping for the best.  

 

OK, now back to the world of boating.  Since we last reached out we have been hanging in Marathon - at times with a fair amount of boat stuff happening, but also lots of hang out time.  While at Burdine’s Marina we enjoyed the boat parade - not a ton of boats, but they were really well decorated.  The boats were from about 18 ft. to about 50 ft. and came right by our marina.  It was lots of fun. Later that evening they awarded the best-of at Dockside - the same bar that we spent Thanksgiving at.



One of our favorite boats

Another favorite

This guy was having a good time
 

On Christmas Day we headed back to Dockside.  They had a nice little deal for the boaters - toss in 5 bucks per person and they supplied the turkey and ham.  We simply took a side dish and paid for our own drinks.  It was a fun day with fun people.  The owner, Eric Stone, and his band had live music on the dock.  On Sunday the 27^th we worked the inaugural Beer Festival.  We got 1 free beer for our efforts.  We like to volunteer at events whenever possible.  They had some gr8 live music and believe it or not I didn't use all my beer coupons.  Following our shift there was not enough hours left to put much damage in the beer inventory.  Later that evening we returned to Dockside for some music and a little dinner.  A 19 year old blues sensation by the name of Myles Mancuso played - out of site.

 

MTB decorated for the holidays. 

On Thursday the 1st we left Burdine’s and moved to Marathon Marina - about a 5 minute boat ride.  They changed our slip at the last minute.  Of course I was sweating bullets, but at the end of the day it all worked out just fine.  The marina here has about 120 slips, about 10 RV spots, work out room, bar and restaurant, and most important a terrific swimming pool with a view of the ocean to die for.  It’s been a great move.

Marathon Sunset

The weatherman got rid of the wind a few weeks ago and turned up the heat. I believe in the past few week we have set record highs and high lows, does that make sense?  Our days have been about 80/82 and our lows only about 70.  We love the fact that the temps only swing 10 degrees or so.  It makes the evenings very nice for sitting outside and throwing down a few cold ones.

We are looking forward to seeing some of my family in about 1 ½ weeks.  They are coming from Cincinnati, Ohio to Sanibel Island and then here to visit us in the Keys.  The month of February will be very busy for us - we have our front bedroom booked for nearly everyday.  We have 4 different sets of friends and family coming - it should be a blast.

Sunset from the pool at Marathon Marina

We follow the weather around the country and realize that everyone is not as lucky as us when it comes to sunny and warm weather.  Take care of yourselves and be safe during some of those challenging times.  That is about it for now.  About 100 hours until game time.  It’s time to start getting loose and pull out the jersey.

Take Care and have a GR8 2015, Jack

 

She Said:  Happy New Year!  Hope all of your holiday happenings were fun and festive.

Jack and a festive manatee

We’ve been in Marathon for six weeks, and we’ve decided to stay here for January as well as February.  We hoped to take the boat down to Key West and cruise around the Keys, but after researching our options it just didn’t make much sense.  There are quite a few nice anchorages, but they are all pretty similar.  We decided instead to stay put and explore the Keys via bus and car.  If we decide to take the boat out for a couple day cruises, we can still do that. 

 December started out pretty slow down here, but it’s gotten busier as the month progressed.  Early in the month we took a day trip to Key West to do some Christmas shopping.  It’s always a fun day in Key West.  But shortly after that I was getting a little bored and called around looking for volunteer opportunities.  No one even called me back.  On top of that, I came down with an infection that almost put me in the hospital.  I was completely out of commission for 4 days, but I’m fully recovered and feeling fine.  I did eventually sign us both up to work the “Craft Beer & Bubbly” event which was really fun. 

Getting ready for the holidays in Key West

Mallory Square - Key West

We are using the dinghy a lot this year.  Instead of walking 3 miles to the grocery store (and cabbing home), we’re now taking the dinghy to the City Dock and walking 1.5 miles to the grocery store.  The beach is about 30 minutes away by dinghy and we’ve gone there twice already.  We’re also taking the dinghy out at night now that we’ve got it set up with lights.  We have a lot more evening options when we take the dinghy.  We’re also much more familiar with the area, so being out at night isn’t intimidating.

 

Beautiful Sombrero Beach, Marathon - a short dinghy ride away

The boating community is kind of small, and we’ve run into lots of people that we met over the last year and a half.  It’s so much fun catching up on everyone’s adventure.  We’ve also met some new boaters and look forward to running into them along the way.  The social season is definitely picking up.  We went to a marina potluck one afternoon, attended a Christmas Eve marina party and a Christmas Day potluck.  A really fun night was meeting up with friends for a “cook your catch” dinner.  A couple guys went out fishing and caught cobia.  A bunch of us got together at a restaurant that cooked the fish for us.  What a fun night!

 

Sunset with friends - "Cooking our Catch"

It’s not all fun and games.  We’ve had plenty of boat projects.  One day the rug in the cockpit (aka back patio) was soaking wet.  Turns out the bar sink drainage hose disconnected.  After a couple of hours we were actually able to fix that ourselves.  Yeah for us!  A project still in the works is our fridge.  It’s never been really cold, but with the high heat and humidity, it really seems to be struggling.  A local mechanic had us duct tape the door closed at night to see if a tighter seal helped.  (If anyone saw the fridge that night they’d think we were on an extreme diet!)  It seemed to help so now he’s trying to find a fix – new gasket?, door?, latch? – he’s still working on it.  In the meantime, we’re using the outside bar fridge for our dairy. 

 

Another long running problem was our water hook up.  Way back in Stuart a piece broke off and we replaced the whole unit.  Ever since then the connection just hasn’t been as secure as we’d like.  By the time we got to Marathon we had a slight leak that has gotten progressively worse.  The upside to the leak is that it attracted manatees.  Manatees like fresh water and would often hang out behind MTB noisily sucking up the water.  It was fun to watch, but feeding manatees fresh water is actually illegal.  We would turn off the water to deter the manatees’ visits.  It took quite awhile, but we finally got the leak fixed.  No more manatee visits, but another project done.

Manatee's snout between MTB & dinghy

Check out the bumpy skin of the manatee

Manatee - about 8-9 feet long

Momma and baby

The most liberating thing we experienced was a CAR.  We had a car for 5 days and it was wonderful.  Although it made grocery shopping easier, the best thing was access to new restaurants, stores, and cities/keys.  We drove 50 miles north to Key Largo and visited a couple towns along the way.  We stopped at cute roadside shops and local farmers’ markets.  We also went 50 miles south/west to Key West.  We hoped to take the Conch Train to see the Christmas lights, but it didn’t work out.  Thanks so much to our dock neighbor Barbara for making this happen.

 

On January 1^st, we changed marinas.  Burdine’s, the marina we stayed at last season and in December, has very few vacationing boaters (like us) and is mostly residents so we decided to move to Marathon Marina – a much larger marina with tons of vacationing boaters.  We were assigned a nice slip at the entrance to the marina and we mentally worked through our docking strategy.  A couple days before our scheduled arrival the marina advised us that our space would not be available; we were put in a temporary spot which was down a long, narrow fairway.  And, by the way, the marina wouldn’t be open to help us with our lines.  Since our last docking wasn’t our best we were already a bit nervous, and all the new changes really added to our anxiety.  But we did a great job.  We have really enjoyed this marina.  There’s a really nice beach-entrance pool, exercise room, Captain’s lounge, Tiki huts, and restaurant.  There are so many people to visit with – it’s been a great move.

The pool at Marathon Marina overlooking the ocean

 

We are looking forward to exploring the Keys in the coming months.  It should be fun!  We are also looking forward to family and friends who will be visiting.  We will send out another update in about a month.  Thanks for reading.