Day 310-312 - Our last days in Marathon, FL
Day 310-312 Thursday-Saturday, March 2-4th: Thursday, March 2nd (Day 310) Bill spent an unhappy several hours today totaling all the receipts we had gotten during our Loop. We had tossed them all in a shoebox (a LARGE one).
While this task was underway, we heard a loud "BOOM" and went out to the parking lot to see what was happening.
First, we noticed this broken utility pole:
This 18-wheeler had been using the lot to turn around and caught some low-hanging wires. The wires broke the pole, ripping other wires loose from the transformer, and plunging the neighborhood into darkness - well, making them lose power:
First, the workers extricated the truck from the wires:
…then they put up another pole (concrete) and began transferring the wires to it:
Next, they sawed the old pole off and removed it:
After a few hours, they had power back and the telephone company started hooking their wires back. The whole thing took most of the afternoon.
John and Kathy on Rosetta had invited us for supper and we walked over. It was a pretty evening. John grilled a London broil and some Spanish mackerel, and we ate until we barely had room for the brownies Ruth had made. Ummm!
Friday, March 3rd (Day 311) Steve on Mystery had to move his boat to the "north marina" today like we had done a few days ago. We helped him do it, and then Bill helped him repair a broken fuel connection for his dinghy outboard. It was nice to return the favor of his helping us.
When Henry Flagler built the railroad between Miami and Key West ("Flagler's Folly"), he used Pigeon Key for a base of operations. They built a village there and today the little island is preserved as a museum and park. Pigeon Key is a couple of miles south of Vaca Key and a trolley train runs from Vaca Key (Marathon) to the Preserve. We drove Steve's car down to the start of the Seven Mile Bridge where the Preserve headquarters is. Sadly, it was too late to get the trolley as the last tour had already started. So we missed it.
Anyway, we got a picture of the "engine" of the trolley train:
Back at the boat, Ruth did several loads of laundry in anticipation of our leaving the marina in a couple of days. Meanwhile, Bill worked on these logs.
Saturday, March 4th (Day 312) We spent today doing things in preparation for our departure tomorrow. We shopped for groceries and booze, returned books to the library, loaded the bikes aboard, lifted the dinghy onto its davits, filled the water tank, etc.
Later in the afternoon we were afforded a tour of Chateau de Mer, a 41-foot Hershine trawler belonging to Barb and Bob whom we met at Publix a few days back. The boat is for sale, and is the sundeck style trawler we like. This is not the best of pictures, but this is the boat:
We returned to our boat and had a quiet happy hour and supper. We were looking forward to being on the move again, in spite of a not-so-good weather forecast.
Position tonight: N24 42.651 W081 04.912
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