Groundhog Day in Marathon, FL

COVID-19 Sheltering in place makes everyday seem like Groundhog day.

I thought I would write a little about our days activity. Just like Bill Murray in the movie we wake up every day as the sun pokes his head through our front windows. 1st up a cup of coffee, then its time to catch up on news , weather, emails, Social media.  All via the internet of course. TV reception is terrible in Marathon Key.  Breakfast happens at some point. At 9 am on VHF marine radio channel 68 is something called Boot Key Cruisers Net for local boating related news and activities.  There is a designated moderator and boaters in the are talk about current issues a and if they need help. This lasts for about an hour. While we listen Dorothy and I are doing various projects around the boat. For us boat projects are best undertaken before noon. In the afternoon the sun really heats up with quite a bit of humidity. Projects fall into categories of cleaning, maintenance, improvements and other stuff.  We usually have a light lunch on the boat. I will most often take a short nap after lunch.  In the afternoon if the water in the bay is calm we take the dingy out and run around sightseeing. Other times we head to swimming pool to socialize at a safe distance and cool off.  Then its back to the boat for an evening cocktail and to get ready for sunset. We social distance and catch up with some of the other boaters in the marina. I have become known for blowing a conch shell at sunset. I am getting pretty good at it. For dinner we mostly make a meal on the boat, but once in awhile we will order take out to try and support the local restaurants.

We rarely leave the marina. Sometimes we’ll take an early morning walk or bike ride. We have groceries and liquor delivered on Tuesdays. A laundry service will come to the marina and do pick-up and delivery  all our clean stuff. Amazon delivers just about anything else we might need.

You may noticed by now I skipped a large part of the trip down to Florida. I have been transferring files, photos and videos to a cloud service. Somewhere along the line in the transfer process, I lost about 1000 photos and some other stuff. Most all from this 2019-2020 Loop trip. After going round and round with the cloud company it seems to be a step I did incorrectly. As you can imagine it was a bummer, but not super critical.

Some current projects we are working on.

Dorothy is making new curtains for our aft stateroom

I have been varnishing various teak parts on the boat.

We have been collecting lost crab floats from the shoreline and Mangroves. Dorothy paints them for decoration.

I have also completed a bunch of small engine room projects.

I have become a boat bum these days. The beard and hair are out of control and Dorothy is chasing me with scissors.

Sunset photos

The haze in the photo is from Cuba burning the sugar cane fields to get ready for the next growing season. We could smell the smoke for a day or two.

I will end this one with my sunset serenade.