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| A smiling manatee, how can you not love them? |
Happy
summertime! Time goes by so quickly that
we have a hard time keeping up with blogs, email, and phone calls. We’re sorry that we haven’t been in more
timely contact lately, but we are really taking advantage of our
retirement. This past winter we decided
that we should go back to Canada and the Georgian Bay for the next few summers
since we enjoyed that part of our cruising trip so much. With this in mind we spent lots of the winter
enjoying the warmth and the fun of the Keys. Bill was more studious than me, and he studied and passed two "ham radio" tests and is now a licensed ham operator. On the radio he has talked to people from all over the United States and several countries in Europe and Asia. He is even able to email people over the radio. What fun!
Last Fall we were late leaving for the Keys because of our late return from our cruise on the Rhine River with Viking River Cruises. Just before leaving Bay Springs Marina, we met a very nice man from Finland.
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| Lasse |
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| Lasse's boat, "Sixteen Tons" |
He has recently moved to the States, but felt his accent would prove to be a problem trying to talk to the Southern lock masters. We suggested he follow us and we would do the necessary lock opening requests. It was fun to travel with such an interesting and adventuresome person. We shared dinners with him and commiserated about the night when there was frost on the boat and the temperature went down to thirty-two degrees F. We all had a good time together. He and Bill shared information about web sites and the use of Active Captain, an excellent source for marinas and anchorages.
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| Bill and Lasse using Active Captain |
We traveled through Florida rather quickly. One night we stopped at the Gulfport Marina in a suburb of St Petersburg. A man who lives by the marina loves to feed the birds at his house at 5:00 pm. They obviously expect to see him every night. It is fun to watch them arrive and fill up his porch trying to get food.
Our
daughter, Beth, came down in January and we all went on a cruise ship to the
Bahamas for five days.
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| Cruise Port in Miami |
Our first stop
was at the cruise line’s private island.
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| The Norwegian Sky, our cruise ship waiting at the beach for the beach goers |
Next we
stopped at Freeport for a few hours of shopping and to enjoy the local activities.
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| Freeport Harbour |
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| Freeport's Straw Market |
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| More Straw Market vendors |
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| The snappy local band |
Our
final stop was in Nassau where Beth and I spent time at the big straw market.
The
cruise was enjoyable, but we decided that cruising with 2000 people was not
nearly as much fun as cruising on our boat with no more than four people. A smaller boat that you control provides an opportunity
to stop whenever you want, for as long as you want, and doesn’t involve long
lines of people waiting for meals. The
Rhine River cruise we did in the fall only had 195 people and the boat stopped
and the guides took us on tours at most of the interesting places. That we will do again. I'm not sure we'll try the large cruises again.
After
talking to lots of friends and listening to weather reports from around the
States, we decided that Marathon, Florida was the perfect place to be for this
past winter. I don’t think it even got
below sixty degrees at night. We spent
many nights enjoying pot luck dinners, progressive dinners, watching movies at
the marina, and socializing with all the people who were avoiding the northern cold.
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| A progressive dinner group - each course on a different boat |
The heated swimming pool was one of our
hangouts almost every day. It felt good
and the scenery was spectacular.
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| A beach swimming pool (just walk in, no steps to go in at this end) |
Many evenings
we joined the sunset watchers, waiting to see the sunset and to see if the
green flash appeared that night. We all
started gathering on the dock fifteen minutes before sunset and stayed talking
for long after.
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| Sunset will be in fifteen minutes, the crowd has started to gather |
It is amazing how
different the sunsets can be and how rarely there is a green flash. The green flash is not just a myth, as some
believe, and the loud cheering that we all did when it happened proved that
more than one person saw it.
Another
enjoyable past time is watching the wildlife. The marina has manatee and dolphins in the
water and many different birds fly by or stop to add to the entertainment.
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| An adult manatee with a Nov. 2013 baby and a 2012 baby, taken right beside our boat |
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| Dolphin love to chase the fish in the marina waters |
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| A regal pelican watching by the pool |
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| The green heron that sat on our stern line nearly every night, catching fish |
Once
spring came, most people prepared to leave for the Bahamas, for home, or for
some other interesting cruising grounds.
We are surprised at how many retired people live aboard their own boat,
some having sold their home and some like us renting their home until they are
ready to go back to “dirt living as “boat people” refer to land dwellers. Many mornings were spent saying good bye to
friends leaving earlier than us.
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| Two friends leaving Marathon for the winter |
We are
heading back to Rhode Island for the winter (if we can weather the cold) and
then will spend part of next year cruising to and in Canada. We are as far as New Bern, NC and will share
some of those pictures with you in the next blog, which I promise will be soon!
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| Another beautiful sunset in Marathon |
