Our first couple of weeks in Marathon this season started out as expected. We kind of have to get oriented, catch up on computer work (bills, insurance, misc. stuff), get to Miami for a medical update and chat with old friends. Pickleball started early as did UConn WBB. I also started being a guide at Crane Point after a year's hiatus. November was a top 10 wettest month in Marathon but most of the rain was before we got there and the one day we drove up to Miami. A foot of water was in the dinghy when we got back. Soggy feet 😬. A great stretch of weather ended November and continued into December. 75° in the day, upper 60s at night. Winter had started up north by this time with cold, ice and snow. Ahhh. Oh, sorry, not rubbing it in. Really.
Don't miss it at all.
It occured to me I hadn't written about what a typical week was in paradise. Carol flew north to visit our daughter and her family at the beginning of December. A planned brief visit turned into more than a week due to a pre-school Covid exposure for Cobbe. A week or more away for her was not unusual in the past but since Covid, then her retirement, it had been nearly two years since I had been on my own for a longer stretch. I get up about 0700 most days and only need to put on shorts and a T-shirt. First, an engine gets started to charge the boat batteries. This lasts about an hour while the cat gets fed, her litter box is cleaned and I make my breakfast. The dinghy is put in the water about this time, too. After breakfast and cleaning up, personal cleaning up occurs, too. Then it's time for the net. A net is a VHF radio conversation with a controller or organizer that allows cruisers or liveaboards to find out what is happening in the area, ask for help with boat problems, vent about harbor issues, sell or buy boat items to/from fellow cruisers and to play a round of trivia. A recent trivia question asked about the origin of the word 'trivia'.**
If it is a Tuesday or a Thursday it is then time for a couple of hours of Pickleball. We have four games going at a time at the adjacent City Park. It is a lot of fun, good exercise and injuries are rarer than when I played softball. After that comes a needed rest period back on the boat, lunch, a nap and finally a much, much needed shower. The rest period and nap are similar but not quite the same. One is more to rest the legs.
If it is a Saturday then it's a one mile bike trip up to Crane Point Hammock where I am a volunteer tour guide. For about four hours I talk about the history and the environment of the hammock to visitors. A 'hammock' is an island of trees or a cool, shady place according to the language of the early residents, the Tequesta. I drive up to 7 passengers on a golf-type cart around the 63 acre preserve, taking two groups during my shifts.
The other days of the week call for a couple of one mile (each-way) bike trips for groceries, some boat maintenance and/or repairs and a nearly daily check for mail and packages at our marina lounge/office.
Amazon is the liveaboard's friend it seems. The photo above is from February, not Christmas time. The population of the entire 100-mile island chain that makes up Monroe County (the Keys) is about 60,000, maybe the same as one good sized town/city back in Connecticut. So imagine one town, or very small city, stretched out along 100 miles with all the stores in that town also spread along that length. Oh, and you don't have a car. Makes for limited shopping, hence Amazon and other mail-order shopping. We are actually quite lucky to have two grocery, West Marine, Home Depot and a few boutique-type stores within walking/biking distance. One of the reasons we live here. We also have several very good restaurants (along with some not-so-good ones) nearby, but I digress.
Back to our daily life description.
Some relaxing, basking on the bow in the cool breezes of 75° sunny days happens occassionally. Someone has to do it. Dinner for us happens about 1700-1730, 5-5:30pm, just before the sun sets in December. That is also something different from back home, up north. We are much farther west in the time zone so sunset is around 6pm when we get here and after 6 when we leave. The earliest sunset is around 1730 with sun light always before 0700 in the morning. SAD is less likely here. We are usually in bed by 7pm (I know, early) but there is at least an hour of reading before sleep and don't forget the UConn women's basketball games at 7pm several nights per week. Stay up very late (9pm) for those ;>)
The weather in general is low to mid 70s from November to March. 80ish when we get here with some repeats during December. Rain is mostly in November (once or twice a week) but all day rains are rare. Brief showers are more common. We get maybe 5 or 6 days in January or February (but not both) when temperatures only get up to the low to mid 60s. We break out the long johns then. Brrr. Complaining starts at 65°. As a fundraiser we actually auction off knit scarf and hat sets for a lot of $$$. $50 to $90 for a custom made scarf. They are not in stores down here. So after a nice stretch of weather from mid-November to mid-December, it turned hot and humid. 80s and sticky. Not our favorite but we'll take it over our former winter weather. 80°+ weather continued into the new year and we were swimming without a wetsuit under the boat (for cleaning) 31 December and 2 January. They had a Polar Plunge here New Year's Day but they had to jump in quickly before the scattered bag of ice cubes melted in the 75+° water. Still, they could say they pushed away ice to go swimming. A cold front, what we call a norther, came through on the 3rd with some showers and it dropped the temperature from 82 to 73 that day and the overnight temps finally got back under 70. Some days of only mid-70s were followed by some 80s again but the trend into January was back to normal, low to mid-70s. We like the cold. And by cold I mean low to mid-70s. Below that, as I said, is what we call freezing. Brrr.
A little more than a week into January is the Celtic Fest. It is a fund raiser for the community programs of the local Episcopal Church. It is a major event celebrating Irish and Scottish heritage with many musical acts, athletic events, sheep herding demonstrations and more. We volunteer for a couple of 3 hour shifts each to help out even though we have no connection to the church. (I consider myself a lapsed Pastafarian). It is tiring but fun and, in exchange, we get free access to the concerts (great bands!), free T-shirts and all the beer we can drink (because we work as servers). All the beer we can drink doesn't add up to two whole beers over 4 hours. Lightweights. Anyway, great fellowship and a great cause!
Then it is back to our routine and my health checks and maintenance drugs in Miami, including a CT scan this time. All indications from the tests continued to be positive. Remission holds on. We also discussed future treatment scenarios when this indolent period ends. And it will end. Eventually. This is not negativity but reality. The positive is there are several treatments that work well for when the next remission ends. And more for after that. So, all good. Medical advances are moving rapidly in this field. In 1999 this was an awful disease with tough treatments and poor outcomes, often quick outcomes. Now it can be chronic, not acute. So, this will always be with me and may not kill me before old age (or Carol) gets me.
We had another, and much more serious, norther come through in mid-January. Gale winds, heavy rain and 1 foot whitecaps made for a fun couple of hours but the same storm had ice and snow from the mid-Atlantic up to New England. I imagine they were not too worried about us when the temperature here dropped from 76° to 69-70° within 30 minutes. Then after that it seemed once a week we had a cool-down to near 60° for one day with a warm-up to the normal low 70s. This is the effect of the major weather way up north. Upper Florida got freezes, we got very cold, 60s. Sigh.
Got a call from my cancer clinic in Miami offering me Evusheld, a new drug combo that seems to help immunocompromised people like me with protection against Covid and other viruses. It's a pain in the butt to drive 2 1/2 hours to get two pain-in-the-butt (literally) injections but hopefully my resistance will improve. Only the 11th person in the Sylvester system to get this. Still in Phase 3 trials. Minor injection site discomfort from one injection and none from the other. Go figure. Less than 2 hours noticing the IM lump and then no other side effects at all. All good.
The last week of January brought another cold snap, 60° high temps, with strong winds that lasted 2 days before it got back up into the 70s. Seems to be a pattern here. Each one of the cold snaps meant seriously bad weather up north. Can't complain. Oh, yes we can. And do.
The end of January and the beginning of February found us preparing to start north. A little early this year because we plan to stop in Vero Beach, FL for about a month to allow us to fly home to meet a still unborn baby girl. Grandchild #2. We know her name but are not allowed to say. 🤐 It will take about a week to get to what we call 'Velcro Beach' because there doesn't seem to be a very good weather window for an offshore passage. Sigh. Not every year. Not this year. Vero Beach is called Velcro Beach by cruisers because we seem to get stuck there and not move on because it is so nice there. Never been tempted because it is much, much nicer here in Marathon.
I was a morning Net Controller one day a week for about a month and also gave a talk to our fellow cruisers over the VHF radio one evening about Mystic Seaport Museum. That all came to an end as we stocked up on food, water and fuel between rounds of pickleball and guiding tours at Crane Point preparing to get underway. We also say good-bye to as many friends as we come across as we exchange plans for the coming year and discuss coming back to Marathon again. Or not. It is very much our hope to return again. And again. This is the end of our 13th stay but we are planning for more.
My next blog posting will be after we are at Vero Beach and after K...(whoops, almost gave it away) arrives.
** Trivia** Latin root, 'tri via', 3 roads. Or where 3 roads meet. Long story how 3 roads evolved into the current meaning of trivia. I don't get into long stories. No never. Ha! LOL!
