A Great Visit with Brett and Natalie. Marathon Feb 16-21

So on Monday 2/15 the mechanic finished installing the battery charger...all is good with the charging system now, including redundancy with the inverter charger should we have an issue in the future.  Plus, I will be able to charge the inverter bank with the engines when running now if I switch to the house bank for inverter power.  This will be nice when we won't be going to a marina for charging in the near term.
Tuesday we went to Key West via bus to get our Small Vessel Reporting Cards. These may allow us to pass back into the US from the Bahamas and Canada without physically appearing at a customs office.  The key word is may...it is still a bit of luck of the draw.
Lunch spot at the airport after we signed in with the customs official.

A shot of the airport.

from the bus ride....

 

 

On Wed we had a tech aboard to install new engine zincs as I cannot get to the outboard side of the engines to do it myself.  I can probably wiggle in to do it but I'm not sure I can exit...so I pay for this service. 
I also spent a few hours again with Coastal Explorer technical support to get my Bahamas maps working.  I think we are good with that now too.  And I installed the new Raymarine chip for the Bahamas into our chart plotter as well.  I also cancelled XM weather service as I am not seeing the value for the money versus what one can get on the internet free.  We also received our paper chart books for the Bahamas.  So we should now be set for the trip there in March.
On Thurs morning Brett and Natalie came for a visit aboard.  It was so nice to have them aboard for almost 5 days.  So now all three of our children have visited us aboard!!  We so much enjoyed all of their stays! 

Brett learned about Xfinity wireless.  Here he is seeing it really works!  Yep Dad actually told the youngster about some technology!

The four of us took a dinghy ride over to Burdines for lunch.  We then traveled through Sister Creek and on the Atlantic side all the way over to the next cut north to cross back over to the gulf side for the trip home.  It was probably a 10-12 mile dinghy ride in total and was a nice ride.  Maybe a little wet on the way home though huh Brett and Natalie....?  Sorry about that wind!

 

On Friday we took the bus to Key West and had a great time walking around seeing the sites.  There was standing room only on the bus....I guess Friday is a popular day to go there!

Margaritaville and Willy T's were fun.  Had a nice dinner at Keys Fisheries upon returning.  Not much on atmosphere but the fresh fish is very good!

Sunday we visited the Turtle Hospital.  They have 71 hurt or sick turtles they are currently caring for.  Quite an operation and an interesting tour.  Did you know that sea turtles can live 80+ years?

Brett and Natalie went to Sombrero Beach after that and had a nice afternoon there.  We went to Sunset Grille for a nice sunset view and dinner.

 

 

We also had some manatee visitors on a couple different days.  This is the first encounter with them up close for us on the trip thus far. 

On Sunday we went out for breakfast and then Brett and Natalie took the dinghy for the rest of the day, visiting Sister Creek and Burdines once again.  It was a bit rough coming back for them too.

 

Sunday late afternoon Julie and I went to the 7th annual Marathon Winter AGLCA get together at Banana Bay marina.  There had to be about 150 Loopers there, in progress, completed and planning groups were all well represented.  It was a nice "reunion" type gathering with everyone bringing a dish to pass and beer and wine and a live band provided by some boat brokers and other boating suppliers.  It is amazing how many folks ended up at various marinas in the Keys for a month or more.  It is a nice spot.

  

Monday I cooked breakfast aboard and then we went to Crane Point, a 60+ acre nature preserve with trails through the canopy of trees and lots of Golden Orb spiders!  They can adjust the color of their webs to trap different kinds of prey.  On site is the oldest dwelling on the Key, from the early 1900's.  Also has a butterfly "park",  the Crane home from the 50's, and a bird hospital.  It was a nice place to visit.  The property is now owned by a land trust whose intent is to continue to refurbish and preserve the site. 

 

It has been great having all our friends and family visiting.  We have been pleasantly surprised by how many of you all came to visit.  If you still haven't scheduled a visit, get in touch with us!  Our rough itinerary we sent you before our departure is still pretty well intact, although given we are heading South again next winter season, we may not get too far North on the East coast this summer....we'll see what our wanderlust says to us...
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