Wednesday, April 19, 2017

April 7-18, 2017 The windswept Keys promote land exploration; forays on the water will have to wait.




Elegant dinner with other Manatee owners at Key Colony Inn

Dollar bills cover the walls and ceiling at No Name Pub and Pizza on Big Pine Key
Long before daybreak, the bantam roosters across US Rt 1, the Overseas Highway, sound the reminder that another day is about due. It’s grown to be a comforting sound that I’m going to miss when we leave the Keys. Not far across Pip’s Bay, the whine of a chop saw and the tat-tat of a nail gun are proof that the Cuban men who fabricate lobster traps are on the job. It’s barely light. Snatches of their conversations drift across the water as their pile of flat sections gets higher and higher. Trucks begin to roll up and down the highway; the Cuban drivers sounding their horn in a greeting as they pass by the nearby Cuban Cafe and its many patrons. Cafe con leche, flan, menudo, and sandwiches of fish, pork and beef head the list of preferred specialties. As you can tell, it has become one of our favorite eateries.  In the canal between us and the Fanny Keys Condominium, a work barge and a personal pontoon boat putt and purr by as they deliver workers and materials to the luxury island home being built on the small island just off shore.

La Nina Cuban Cafe





Harbour Cay Clubhouse

Our boat bikes waiting for an adventure


We had two days to dinghy around before the 15-20 mph winds swept in and stayed. It’s been 13 days and no end of the blow in sight for another 5 or 6 days. We are hoping to have a trip out to the Sombrero Lighthouse Reef for swimming and snorkeling before we depart. In the meantime, we are enjoying the slivers of land around us. The first time we visited Key West was 2009. We cruised the length of the Keys on our Harley, camping for 4 nights on Sugarloaf Key at a KOA Kampground... $60.00/night for a tent site with no power or water hook-ups! I still wear my Key West Hog’s Breath Saloon shirt that proclaims “Hog’s breath is better than no breath at all!” Last week we were chauffeured the 48 miles from Marathon to Key West by Dotty and Mike Brady, owners of a slip here at Harbour Cay Club and owners of another Kady-Krogen Manatee Cool Beans. Our first stop was at the Key West Garden Club’s lush flora tucked inside and around the historic oceanside Fort West Martello Tower. Surprisingly, in place of an admission fee was a donation box. We made sure that we supported the outstanding work in progress.  Lunch was at Eaton Street Seafood Market... grouper and crab cake sandwiches... simple, fresh and fabulous! By early afternoon we were at the NOAA ECO Discovery Center.  It featured a 3-D video of the Dry Tortugas coral reef and ship wreck dive sites, and an aquarium of local reef specimens. Later, at Key West’s historic seaport, we visited the Dry Tortugas National Park/ Fort Jefferson Museum. We hope to visit that area 70 miles west of Key West someday, either on our boat or an a day-cruise tour boat.  All of these spots of interest were free of charge and very family friendly.



















Loved the sentiment on the apron 



There is a saying among Kadey-Krogen Manatee owners, “If you’ve seen one Manatee, you’ve seen one Manatee.” Built between 1984 and the early “90’s, each of the 99 trawlers was tailored to the desires of the original owner. They were assembled by several different boat-building families along a stretch of Taiwan’s shoreline. To appreciate the variations on a theme, we two Manatee owners here at Harbour Cay Club decided to have an Engine Room Soiree, complete with hors d’eourves and dinner on board. Cool Beans was the host on Tuesday night; Summertime on Thursday with the Key West trip in between. It was quite surprising to see how differently the space under our salon and galley floors had been put to use. Engine, transmission, fuel filters and gauges, water system, battery banks, generator, air conditioner system... all there but in very different configuations. Would any other trawler owners other than the Manatee owners be thrilled to revel over each other’s power plant set-up?!? 





Easter Sunday found us celebrating Our Lord’s Resurrection at Marathon’s Sombrero Beach. We arrived around 6:30 and by sunrise at 7:01, several hundred worshippers had gathered. Three local pastors presented the Good News with music and scripture.

We returned to Harbour Cay Club for an Easter egg hunt, followed by a scrumptious brunch festively decorated by the co-op members. The leftover traditional ham went into a ham and bean soup and ham sandwiches. In fact, there was so much food left from the Sunday brunch, we continued to visit the club house for three more meals before the food was gone!  


1 of 81 Easter eggs hidden on the property


Created by Darcy O. Campbell



Friday, April 07, 2017

March 29-April 6, 2017 Our first week in The Florida Keys

7-Mile Bridge painted 2 yrs ago from our anchorage outside of Boot Key Harbor




Snuggled in an inner slip at the Harbour Cay Club Dockaminium Complex, we have enjoyed our 1st week in Marathon, FL. The weather has been a very predictable: daytime 85, nighttime 75. Our car is back at Safe Cove, Inc Boat Yard in Charlotte Harbor on Florida’s west coast, awaiting our return in mid-May. There Summertime will come out of the water and be tucked under an enclosure until we return from Maine in mid-October. In the meantime, we are “hoofing it”, peddling or borrowing a car from friends to get around. The only roadway connecting this part of the world is US Rte 1, also known as the Overseas Highway. Interestingly enough, it begins at Mile Marker 0 at Key West, Florida and ends at Mile Marker 2369 at Fort Kent, Maine! We are at MM 47 at the east and MM 61 at the west as the City of Marathon straddles 7 keys. 

Safe Cove canal dock

Safe Cove storage....Summertimes summer home



After a 4 mile bike ride, we had a delightful visit at the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) Museum located at the local airport. We were EAA members through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, flying our own plane from New England to Oshkosh, Wisconsin several times for EAA’s late July/early August Annual Fly-In Convention. It was fun to sit with the two gentlemen on duty at the local museum and reminisce about those days gone by. Both the Winn-Dixie and Publix Markets are within 2 miles of our dockaminium marina. Growing humidity has pushed us to make our biking forays there early in the morning when it's cooler.

Our alternative means of transportation is our dinghy... a 10 foot RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat)... with an 8 HP Yamaha motor. When we arrived here, the motor was barely operational, too much down-time allowing the fuel to foul the carburetor and spark plugs. The folks at Shelter Bay Marine Repair had us back in business within a day...sweet!  Our first dinghy ride took us from the bayside, under the 7-Mile Bridge to the oceanside, into Boot Key Harbor. Along with several marinas, this harbor offers 235 mooring balls and a great club house for gatherings. When we arrived here two years ago, we were listed as #40 on a waiting list for a mooring ball in mid-February...quite discouraging. We’ve discovered that April is a better time to visit The Keys in a boat. The Canadians head home, the cruisers head for the Bahamas and spaces open up here. Another day we scooted over to nearby Faro Blanco Marina to visit fellow Loopers and then on to Banana Bay Marina to introduce ourselves to fellow Kadey-Krogen Manatee owners. The turquoise water which allows for great visibility is just what the tropics are supposed to be like.




Fellow Loopers at Faro Blanco Marina next door


We learned about this 25-slip marina from Dotty and Mike Grady on another Manatee called Cool Beans. They are owners in this co-op marina and they helped us become renters for a month. They treated us to a scrumptious dinner on our arrival day; we welcomed them back from a four-day road trip with dinner aboard Summertime. Every day they go out of their way to make us feel very welcome. Got to love that cruiser hospitality! Co-op responsibilities include up-keep and maintenance of grounds, docks, clubhouse/kitchen/laundry/restrooms with showers, rental apartment above clubhouse, etc. The city garden tour included this marina because the professional arrangement of tropical plants, ceramic pots and resting nooks are so well-tended and inviting. 300 people reveled to see what co-op participation can do.
Mike and Dotty and dinner! 









Restaurants abound along this sliver of land mid-way down The Keys. Burdines can be reached by land or by sea. We saw a happy crowd there when we were 30 minutes into our Boot Key Harbor dinghy trip; we were delighted to find that Burdines is only a 10 minute stroll from our boat...but you can put your life in jeopardy just crossing US Rte 1! That walk offered the bonus of seeing colorful bantam roosters, chickens and chicks scratching for tasty morsels along the edge of the street. We also were treated to the pungent salty/fishy odors emanating from the stacks of wooden lobster traps that had just been pulled from the nearby waters. Florida lobster season ended March 31. Burdines is famous for their plump burgers, hand-cut fries and ice-cold beer... so that’s what we had. No disappointments there!  Yesterday we started the day with breakfast at the the Sunset Grill overlooking the 7-Mile Bridge with 5 other Krogen couples. We had lots of fun comparing notes. Tomorrow our plan is to join friends at The Key Colony Inn for an evening of fine food and fellowship.






Krogen owners' breakfast at Sunset Grill



We departed Fort Myers a week earlier than originally planned due to a severe weather front making its way across the country. Well, it’s here. Tornadoes and hail have already pummeled the southern states. We, in south Florida, are currently hunkered down for a 20 mph blow which could last for up to a week. With our bow facing into the bay, we have 4 heavy lines holding us securely in a side-tie position on a cement wall. Six big fenders hang along our port side to keep the hull of our boat from rubbing against the cement. We even have an additional anchor line off our starboard midships to minimize rockin’ and rollin’. Yes, our dinghy is back on the deck of our boat with the motor run dry of fuel. No trip back to the repair shop for us! 

Created by Darcy O Campbell