What do puzzles and turtles have in common?

 

                                                                   Turtle in REHAB

The Obsession

The weather cooled a bit and turned a little rainy, so we found some diversions to keep us occupied.  I was looking for something to do while Marlene kept up on Coast Guard Auxiliary IS work and I found a puzzle which had just been dumped on the table.  The puzzle was 1000 pieces and all the pieces were irregular shapes.  I started to work on it and after Marlene finished her computer work, she joined in.  What was intended to be a diversion was becoming an obsession.  Suddenly, we discovered the lounge was about to close and it was 6:00pm. We had been working on this all afternoon long.  We returned the next day to spend much of the day working on it, with the exception of a West Marine and Hurricane Grill stop.  Finally, we finished the puzzle on the morning of the third day, before heading off to visit the Keys Turtle Hospital.  The Turtle Hospital is home to 30 turtles, some in recovery and some permanent residents unable to be returned to the wild.  These turtles get to be hundreds of pounds and live longer than humans.  The hospital is the only one in the Keys and turtles injured by boats, sick from ingesting trash, and suffering from disease come here to recover. The facility is amazing and includes an operating room for surgery on turtles up to 500 lbs. Over 80% of the turtles brought here are eventually released back in the wild.  The tour of the facility lasted several hours and we found it fascinating. 

Fun in Marathon and Key West

                                                       The old and new 7 mile bridge

                                                      Marlene riding on the old bridge

                                                     Sombrero Light at Sombrero Reef

                                                  Clear waters at Sombrero Reef

                                               Where we ate on NO NAME KEY

                                             Tarpon and Pelicans waiting for 4:00 feeding

Mike, Polli and Marlene at Harry Truman's Little White House in Key West

 

Marlene and I have been exploring Marathon.  We rode our bikes out on the old 7 mile bridge between Marathon and Big Pine Key.  The old bridge extends out about 2 miles before the section is removed.  The water under the bridge is amazingly clear and shallow.   Another day we took our boat about 4 miles south of Marathon to Sombrero Reef for a snorkeling expedition.  The reef is located closer to the gulf stream, so the water is really clear and blue.  We could easily see down 15 feet to the bottom and we snorkeled over to the reef area which was only a few feet deep.  We saw an amazing abundance of tropical fish species.  The snorkeling rivaled many of our diving trips for seeing fish.  We saw a few barracuda's, prompting us to go back to the boat and remove our wedding rings.  This trip was a realization of a dream for us....to take our boat to clear blue waters.  Our most recent adventure was to rent a car with Polli and Mike, friends we met in Stuart and drive to Key West for the day.   We ate lunch at a Cuban restaurant, stopped at Sloppy Joes for drinks, and toured Harry S Truman's Little White house.  Down at the Marina, we watched 5 to 6 foot tarpon being fed from the dock.  We capped the day off with dinner at the famous NO NAME PUB, located on NO NAME KEY.

The less famous Key....Vaca Key or Marathon

Our Island Mode of Transportation

Key West is the best known island in the Keys.  Vaca Key or Marathon is located half way between Key Largo and Key West. While Key West is the ultimate Keys tourist destination, Marathon is geared for visitors staying longer.  We have had friends from Michigan who come here in their RV annually and spend a month or more.  Marathon has a huge harbor with over 200 mooring balls in addition to anchorage and Marinas with slips space for transient boaters.  For many coming down from the West Coast of Florida, it is the jumping off point to go to the Bahamas or the Caribbean.  For others like us, it is our final destination on our cruise this year.  Discounts are available for mooring for a month or more.  The City Marina and Mooring field has recently built shower and laundry facilities.  They automatically pump your boat out each week at the mooring ball. Within walking distance are many local restaurants, fast food restaurants, Home Depot, K-Mart, and West Marine.  In addition, there are many business geared to support the boating industry if you need repairs....which we did.  Part of the reason for being tardy in posting since arrival is our dinghy and dinghy motor failed upon arrival.  The dinghy was repaired by a local business and I was able, with the help of several helpful boaters, to get the outboard running again.  We have taken advantage of some of the local restaurants, including breakfast at the "Stuffed Pig".  We literally were stuffed after eating an omelet and French toast.  We have also done a lot of walking and bike riding. We were able to fit our "Downtube" collapsible bikes in our lazarette and we have them on the island for transportation.  The island is about 7 miles long by about a quarter mile wide, so most of our travels are in two directions.  On the agenda is relaxing, hitting the beach, taking a bus to Key West, and taking our boat out to several coral reefs for snorkeling

Islamorada and Marathon

We took off from Coconut Grove, just south of Miami and travelled for 10 hours down Biscayne Bay past Key Largo stopping at Islamorada.  This was our first journey across wide expanses of water.  It felt like being on the ocean.  We arrived late in Islamorada because guess what....we were boarded by the Coast Guard off Key Largo.  The placed two crew on board and did a safety check...virtually what we do as vessel examiners for the Coast Guard Auxiliary.  We had a great time talking Coast Guard and they invited us to visit their Coast Guard Station if we had time.  Needless to say we passed with flying colors. 

Our first sunset in Marathon

 

TIKA on the OCEAN

 

The next day we got up at 5:00 AM due to a sleepless night at anchor off Islamorada.  High winds from the north created some rocking and rolling in the anchorage we chose and Admiral Marlene was hard to convince that we weren't dragging our anchor.  Because of the breezy north wind we decided to cross over the to the south side of the Keys at Channel 5 (a really huge bridge) and head to open ocean for the final leg  The water was crystal clear and when we passed over white patches of sand the color of the water looked like clear pool water.  There was no problem seeing 20 feet or more to the bottom. We arrived early into Marathon to find the mooring field full, but we managed to find TIKA a slot in the anchorage next to the mooring field.  We are on a waiting list and we will be here until a mooring ball opens up

Miami Beach and Coconut Grove

 

Approaching Miami  

                Coconut Grove and the Dinner Key Mooring Field                       

Another beautiful sunset

TIKA proudly cruised past some of the hottest real estate in the US as we made our way down through West Palm Beach to Miami.  The ICW is lined with amazing real estate and yachts in Miami. We decided to anchor in the bay between South Beach and Star Island "home of the rich and famous".  We were entertained by a beautiful Miami night city skyline which included the Intercontinental Hotel building which becomes a color jumbotron at night.  The water was a little rocky due to the breadth of the bay, so we decided to move south to Coconut Grove and Dinner Key Marina......yes...we are officially in the Keys.  Just to the east of us is Key Biscayne.  Coconut Grove is supposed to be an example of the Florida of old, but we just saw high end boutiques and shopping.  We did stop for lunch at "Johnny Rockets" for burgers and the best malts on the planet. When we cruise on the larger Royal Caribbean ships, they usually have a Johnny Rockets, so making this stop helped make our adventure and official "cruise". From here, its south through Biscayne Bay.

I woke up this morning and there was a Princess Cruise ship in my back yard.

Sunset in Lake Sylvia

                                     Top of Princess Cruise ship just to the right of the tower

                                          Captain Kevin on Ft. Lauderdales "Miracle Mile"

Admiral Marlene checking out the recycled water bottle sculpture of two fish

 

We woke up in the heart of Ft. Lauderdale this morning right next to Port Everglades, the third busiest cruise ship terminal in the world. A Princess Cruise ship must have arrived early this morning and we could see the top of it over the trees lining Lake Sylvia.   Last evening, we arrived into Lake Sylvia, wedged between the intracoastal waterway and the ocean.  This has to be one of the nicest anchorages in a metropolitan setting you could ask for.  Lake Sylvia is about a 1/4 mile in diameter, surrounded by multimillion dollar homes, yachts and is totally protected by wind from any direction....and it's free.....almost.  While the anchorage is free, you have to pay something to land your dinghy almost anywhere in the Fort Lauderdale area.  We decided to head to the Beach.  We dinghy'ed in to the Los Olas marina and paid for dinghy dock usage which included full use of the marina amenities.  We grabbed some lunch at an Italian restaurant on Fl. Lauderdale's "Miracle Mile" and headed to the Ft. Lauderdale Beach. After catching some "rays". We shopped and walked the waterfront before returning to the marina to shower and take our dinghy ride home.  The mile dinghy ride took us past at least 4 Mega Yachts tied up on face docks along the ICW at Bahia Mar Beach Resort.  Our 3.5 horsepower 9.5 ft dinghy looked mighty tiny next to the Mega Yachts as we passed.  In Ft. Lauderdale, virtually every home on the water seems to have a large yacht in front of it. Virtually every Mega Yacht we see is registered in Georgetown, Caymen Islands. Sounds like wealthy people have creative ways of avoiding paying taxes.

What is a duckbill valve?

Old Port Cove Marina

 PRIVACY                 

 

 

My boat neighbor Patrick at our beautiful home port of the Marina at Ortega Landing told me that the definition of "cruising" is working on your boat in exotic places.  For cruising novices like Admiral Marlene and Captain Kevin, being in Palm Beach in the same Marina as Tiger Wood's Yacht "PRIVACY" qualifies as exotic.  We took the two days at the marina to thoroughly clean the exterior of TIKA and do some maintenance.  Now comes the "not so exotic repair".  One of the best features of TIKA is the freshwater Vacuflush toilet or "head" in nautical terms.  This little work of magic makes our restroom like a cruise ship toilet....for those of you who have been on a cruise ship!.   If not, when you flush, a rush of vacuum just sweeps everything magically away.   The only downside is the vacuum pump then runs for about 3 minutes going ca chunk, ca chunk, ca chunk...to store enough vacuum for the next round of "magic".  Not a big deal unless the head is used in the middle of the night.  It kind of wakes you up.   Suddenly, after performing its magic flawlessly since we bought the boat, the vacuum pump started coming on for no reason...meaning the vacuum tank had lost its ability to hold a vacuum. Luckily, the internet provides information on how to fix this.  You just need to replace the "duckbill" valves.  The repair is not difficult and we were able to obtain new "duckbills" at the West Marine about two blocks from the marina.   The repair, while not difficult, is let's say the type of job that might be for "Mike" from the TV show"Dirty Jobs".  Lets just say the repair is complete, Admiral Marlene was totally grossed out, and the "magic" has returned to our lives.  With the hard work done on Saturday, we took the opportunity work a little less on Sunday, ride our bikes to the local "Duffy's", yes the same restaurant with the great specials we were introduced to in Stuart. We then provisioned at the Publix supermarket and rode our "goodies" back to TIKA on our folding DOWNTUBE bikes.  We then took a walk on the docks to see "PRIVACY" aka Tiger Woods boat.  I couldn't help but wonder whether Tiger knew what a "duckbill" valve was.  Your not a real Captain, I thought, if you don't know how to replace one of those.

North Palm Beach Break

After 3 days anchoring, cold nights , and high winds we decided to go into a marina for the weekend.  The captain had several maintenance projects to complete and the Old Cove Marina in North Palm Beach is a beautiful facility with a West Marine only blocks away. Today was a beautiful day and the winds calmed down.  I even did a dive on the boat at the slip and changed a zinc for the first time myself.  The water in southern Florida is much clearer than the St. Johns River.  I could actually see what I was doing under water. The photo is the sunset  overlooking the North Palm Beach anchorage where we stayed two nights prior to heading in to the nearby Marina.  The Marina is where Tiger Woods Yacht "Privacy" is currently berthed.