Fat Tuesday

Below is what I will describe as the three musketeers ....Joann, Marge, and Alice . I am not sure what has gotten into them or whether they have been in the sun too long or what, but they and others decided to celebrate Mardi Gras by having a parade. Beads candy and good "strange" fun.




Its interesting the things these retiree's find to do with their time!

Nautical Flea Market and Show

Every year Islamorada, which is up closer to Miami from where we are, has an annual Nautical Flea Market and Show. We went this year and enjoyed ourselves as they had everything including new boats on display.....

This being the one I picked....and its on sale, only $139,000.00 before taxes and without the trailer!!!! New boats along with everything else have become quite expensive and when you consider dockage or storage its a tad much for the use it would get unless you lived on the water down here. This one would be perfect for fishing!

The Flea Market section was another story as rods and reels were really quite a bargain and there was quite a selection of other marine items beyond the usual T-shirts and "stuff". Lots of people!

We stopped briefly for lunch and spotted this skindiving shark that the grandkids would get a kick out of.
There was also a rental and school for the newest craze down here....Kite Boarding. These guys get going and fly into the air up to twenty feet. They control the kite with two hand controls, but they are attached directly to the kite. We were told that as part of the training they have you fly a small kite that is controlable with two hands. The large kites are quite simple....you inflate a couple of tubes to provide structure then attach it to a harness you wear like a life preserver.
Not for the faint of heart.

Incidentally, I don't think I saw anyone over 30 participating.

General goings on.

The last few days have found us doing a couple interesting things….. one is participating with the rest of the campground at “happy hour” which was hor’derves and drinks and general BS but it was fun. Below are our friends from Alabama New York and Wisconsin.

Marge attended the ladies luncheon and shopping day that involves a lunch and then every shopping center available and spend a long enough time to have us take them out for dinner. At least this time the “boys” were able to have a nice lunch and a few beers while we watched the boats come and go from Marathon Harbor. The ladies are shown below:

All this past week, the annual trek of the amateur astronomers called the “Stargazers” met at the Boy Scout Camp located on the small Key towards big pine to view the heavens. They start lining up on the highway a day or so before they were allowed into the site and then as many as 500 or 600 stay up and watch the sky all night. They really have some unusual equipment, but is usually covered during the day. The most prominent example was this large telescope that looked more like a human cannon than anything else. Their equipment is so valuable that the police really do quite a job relative to the security of the group. Unless you have a pass you do not get in (which is why I only have the one picture).

By the way, I heard today from my good friends in Michigan (Dave & Dave) who were calling from one of our favorite campgrounds along the Manistee River near Grayling. They were snowmobiling and there was at least 30” of snow on the ground and they were in the middle of a blizzard dropping another 6-8” of fresh snow. We on the other hand have a temperature today of 79-80 degrees the sun is shining and there is a lite breeze….oh and I have an ice cold beer in my hand as I type this. Here’s to you Dave and Dave.

Bahia Honda State Park Redux

We've talked before about Bahia Honda State Park which is truly a beautiful place and it has what was considered one of the top 10 beaches in the United States a few years ago, but as beautiful a beach as it has, the bridges are really what are as picturesque as anything. It seems that everytime we go by we take a few more pictures of the old Flagler Railroad Bridge.


Look closely and you can see the newer bridge built in the late 70's. We actually drove our first motorhome across the old bridge which is just a tad too narrow for my comfort (I actually took the step off).

The beaches where you swim and that follow along the camping area and even on the backside have water that is so clear you would think that it was a backyard pool.




We road our bikes over to this park (6 miles roundtrip!)as our campground is on Ohio Key adjacent to one end of the park. We have in the past just taken our boat out and beached it or anchored off shore in the shallows to swim in what is reasonably warm water.

As I said before, we have shown this place before but its such a neat place that we had to recommend visiting it to anyone in the area. Even better if your lucky enough to get a reservation to camp there the campgrounds are nice.

Valentines Day

Well, Marge comes over to me and says were going to a party Tuesday with two other couples we have made friends with.....now I realized it was Valentines day, but I'm a bit of a bah humbug for these types of events and I have to say I was not really looking forward to it, but as it turns out, it was fun! Good food, dancing and I mean everyone was dancing and singing along to Dion and Franky Avalon, Beach Boys...all stuff from the 50's and 60's.

"THE GROUP"

Quite a crowd

Here are a few of our group...notice the wine which some of us polished off with no problem!!


The refreshments quickly resolved the humbug issue and a good time was had by all.

New State Park

Curry Hammock State Park is not really new, but they have just built a campground there that opened in November 2005. Situated at mile marker 56 just up from Marathon Florida, this small camground is in the middle of the most uninhabitated part of the middle to lower keys. Lots of mangrove and low areas, but a series of islands with some thatch palms as well as some hardwoods in the high elevations. The facilities at the campground are obviously all new, but its nice that the state of Florida is continuing to provide another small area to camp at down here in the keys.
The campground itself is relatively small with only 28 sites, but half of those sites are right on the ocean just up from the beach. It really is quite nice. Litlle or no shade but given some time to develop it should be a pleasant place to stop.
As you can see, it really is right on the ocean and if the wind were blowing it could be uncomfortable. Obviously, word has gotten out already as the place was full and in checking it out on the web pretty much booked for the prime months.
They have also provide a play ground for kids just up from the beach. Great for Grandkids!


This area shown just below is a small harbor in the park that doesn't have any launching facilities for large boats, but it provides an area to fish and gives access to those that may have a small inflatable boat like we do.

The beach is sandy and shallow with seagrass and shallows just right for exploring for shells and starfish and such. It really would be great place to take kids as long as the wind wasn't blowing too hard.

Even though its new, the park is booked solid and somewhat so for next year already. If your interested, www.ReserveAmerica.com does an excellent job of providing reservations.

Sinking Boat

While it may not look like much, the picture below shows the only part of a 26' Pursuit fishing boat that had a problem at the marina here at Sunshine Key. The marina harbor is about 35' deep and this boat had just been put in the water by a family camped here. Unbeknownst to them the automatic bailing plug had warped open. The owners used the boat one day, then left the campground, but left the boat for use later in the week. Unfortunately, they did not leave a contact number and while the boat was noticed to be taking on water, there wasn't anything anyone could do and without permission, nothing could be done.Once the owners showed up the salvage started with a skin diver placing air bladders around and under the boat to lift it.


After two or three hours of floating the boat it was escorted to the ramp and its trailer to be pulled out of the water. The boat pulling out is one of the commercial fishing guys helping out.
As you can see in this shot below the boat was safely recovered, and at this time is being worked on to repair the salt water damage.

One last note, there were no less than 4 government agency people here to oversee the recovery of the boat and to see that no major or any damage was done to the environment. The cost of recovery just to bring the boat up and out of the water was $2,500. Rumor has it that the owner was ticketed by the agency's that were doing the inspection, but that there would probably not be any fines.

Shark Dinner

Tuesday, Jim and Ronalee our neighbors, caught a 100# plus shark. Ronalee caught it but was a bit overwhelmed trying to bring it in so Jim ended up bringing it into the boat. All this on 15# line with a wire leader. Needless to say there was quite a bit of excitement and it was decided we would have a major feast.

Everyone participated from the cleaning of the shark which is no mean trick because of its size and weight. There was a tremendous amount of meat, so we decided to cook it three different ways..... broiling on the grill, deep frying, and smoking. Quite a group was invited to partake from around the campsite and aside from the shark everyone contributed to the potluck dinner.

There was a lot of discussion about the catching of the fish and, of course, some mild libation


Once all the cooking was done we really had quite a feast. Even people taking an evening walk tried some of the shark and it couldn't have tasted any better than it did. We had a great time

Houseboat special

Sounds pretty good doesn't it!

Some years ago while exploring some of the marina areas we came across one area where the marina owner decided to build a series of houseboats to rent for the winter season or for that matter tried to provide some less expensive housing. There were 12 units built with each one having two apartments. It was really a neat concept and with the pricing going sky high down here, somewhat economical. Hurricane Andrew came through and they survived that storm ok sustaining repairable damage, but this time WoW!!!


By the way, of all the units there, only two were "floating" and they were damaged as well. I assume you would probably have to move the units somewhere else if you were really interested in them.
Marge and I have noticed that the more we move around the more we become aware of the damage that this last years storms have caused. A great deal of the public areas have been cleaned up and gave us the impression of less damage when we first arrived but in shopping and exploring we have seen substantial more damage. By the way that add attached is from this weeks Keynoter Classified secction if anyone is interested.