Captain's Choice blog: Time to leave Marathon

Well we watched the weather all week for a Bahama crossing but it didn't materialize. That enabled us to stay here at Marathon and we will leave tomorrow morning, our scheduled departure date, Feb. 1. It looks like there might be a decent weather window to go to the Bahamas on Sunday so we will go anchor out for 2 nights and position ourselves for the crossing.
We experienced a little more rain this past week, wind (which seems to be the norm) and cooler temperatures (high in the 60's several days), but there are no complaints coming from this crew as the polar vortex is wrecking havoc in the northeast dumping 2-3' of the white stuff at home along with frigid temperatures.

Jim and Mandy from Shell Belle introduced us to our first "Champagne Sunday" on Friday the 25th. Good food, good conversation and we also learned that although it is called "Champagne Sunday" you can partake any day of the week.

Sunday night we dined at Keys Steak & Lobster house with Clark & Ev from Sunset Delight and Jim & Mandy. The restaurants down here have happy hours everyday and early bird specials...I have to chuckle...yes we have become those people that go to the early bird specials to take advantage of the great value! It was Ev's birthday weekend and we aren't sure if we will run into them again once we leave Marathon.

It looked like we were finally going to get another dinghy day in on Wednesday so we spread the word Tuesday night and had 9 dinghies ready to leave at 11am to head over to Key Fisheries for lunch. We had a few dinghies drop off after lunch and 6 dinghies made the trip to Barnacle Barneys. Tom & Sue from Bella just arrived from Ft. Myers on Tuesday and had never been to Marathon so Southern Style (Keith & Gail) and us took them over to Burdines for the final restaurant of this dinghy crawl. When we got back Jim & AC on Hour Plan had just gotten in from Ft. Myers so we headed up to the Lighthouse Grill for happy hour with them. If it seems this past week has been filled with restaurants and happy hours you would be correct! This is a great boater community and we've had a great time meeting up with our friends.

As I sit here today (Thursday), the freezer & refrigerator are full, we have so many canned goods stored in the 2nd stateroom you can hardly move in there, all the laundry is done, boat is clean, boat and dinghy are fueled up and we are ready and hopeful the weather reports are right so that we can cross over to the Bahamas!