Visits with Other Cruisers in Marathon

Brrrr. It was 52 degrees in the cabin this morning when I woke up to the sound of the generator starting. Chuck got the boat heater working to warm the cabin up before I got out of bed. I waited about 20 minutes before climbing out of my 0 degree sleeping bag. I was toasty in there and wasn't anxious to get up.

I heated water on the stove to wash my hair and take a "bath." You can only run so many things with the generator and I wanted to keep the heat on, so I couldn't turn on the hot water heater. It's amazing how little water you can get away with when you need to conserve.

By the time I was dried off and dressed, I could turn off the heater and use my hair dryer. Then I started breakfast and used the toaster oven and the stovetop and that helped warm up the cabin too.

We had several visits from other cruisers today.

Jim from Marylee stopped by in his dinghy to ask Chuck what he was doing with his sea anchor and kellett.

Our friends we met in Charleston, Lorrie and Pat from S/V Godspeed, stopped by in their dinghy. They are from Wyoming and just decided to buy a boat and travel to the Bahamas for the winter. They bought their boat in Oriental, NC. We've seen them on the water a few times. They also have three kids, the youngest is a sophomore at a community college. He and their daughter are arriving tomorrow to visit for eight days. We chatted for a half hour or so and they invited us to come to their boat at sunset.

We were planning to walk up town to mail stuff home and pick up a few things at Publix.

We started to leave in the dinghy and I forgot Jazzy's leash, so we went back to the boat to pick it up. While there, Don from S/V Sea-Quel stopped by in his dinghy. After going through one of the many bridges on our way to Ft. Lauderdale several weeks ago, we nearly hit a piece of fencing floating in the water. He was right behind us and we tried to radio him but he didn't hear us in time and hit it. So while waiting for the next bridge opening, he circled us a few times and we checked his hull for damage. Today he pulled up and introduced himself. It was good chatting with him.

After Don left, we went to the dinghy dock and walked up to US 1. Chuck decided to walk to West Marine, which was a mile to the south. He took Jazzy because she couldn't go into the grocery store. I walked a mile to the north to Publix. I got a box, bought strapping tape, boxed up the stuff to go home and walked back to the post office to mail it and a few other things. That left me with an empty pull cart for groceries.

Meanwhile, Chuck called and asked me to look for a 5 gal. water container at KMart, because West Marine was out. KMart is just past the Publix. So I walked there and bought a 7 gal. container, which was all they had. I walked back to Publix and he called and said to get another one. That gives us four to carry water to the Bahamas, two 5-gallon and two 7-gallon.

I bought a few groceries at Publix and ran into Patti and Wayne there. Patti offered to take me back to the marina with their friends, Dale and Rodney, who they were spending the day with and they had a van. I gave her the first water container, and said I'd walk back to the marina. I then walked back to KMart and bought the second water jug, then walked back through Publix. They were still in the parking lot, so I hopped a ride back to the marina with them.

We took a bottle of wine in our dinghy to Godspeed's mooring at sunset and visited until 8:30 p.m. or so. We enjoyed some homemade biscuits that Pat made. It's great talking with other cruisers and sharing stories.

This was our view from the dinghy on our way to Godspeed.