Day 136, Year 10: Tom and Detta Arrive
Date: Monday, February 23, 2015
Weather: Sunny and WARM, High in the 70’s F, SE 10
Location: Dinner Key Marina Anchorage, Coconut Grove, FL
Hurray! Our friends Tom and Detta arrived and we enjoyed the afternoon and evening together. Enterprise Car Rental picked us up at the dinghy dock at 9 am and off we went to Fort Lauderdale. We went to Plantation, east of Lauderdale, to the Bahamian Tourist Office to pick up Immigration Arrival Cards for us and for Lee and Lynda. Since Tom and Detta’s flight didn’t come in until 12:30, we had time to kill so we paid a visit to Bluewater Books & Charts. Its always fun to poke around and see what new sailing books are out there. Luckily there was nothing that we don’t already own, so it was on the airport. We picked up Tom and Detta and headed to the beach in Fort Lauderdale to have lunch at Coconuts, drove a mile or so north after lunch to Omaha Steaks to buy some filets for dinner (had a gift card that needed to be used), and then headed back to Coconut Grove. As we were stepping onto the dinghy dock I was explaining to Tom and Detta that we had seen manatees here the other day. Detta was looking around and spotted them right under the dock with their noses jammed into the rocks on the shoreline. It looked like they were stuck in the shallow water and then someone told us what they were doing. There is a bubbler under the dock and they were taking turns sucking on a fresh water drainage hose. It is not known whether or not manatees require fresh water, but they love and will drink out of hose any time they get the chance. Detta and I were tempted to get down in a dinghy that was basically sitting on top of the bigger of the two manatees so we could pet her but commonsense took over and we didn’t. But we sure enjoyed watching them.
We made it out to Windbird in a jam-packed dinghy and enjoyed sunset in the cockpit. We ended up having salmon filets and salad for dinner and will have the steaks on Wednesday night. It was very dark by the time we were ready to grill and we decided to wait so that we can see the steaks while they are grilling. Tomorrow we head over to Key Biscayne to Bill Baggs State Park. We’ll return to the Dinner Key anchorage on Wednesday and Thursday Tom and Detta fly home. We’ll do our very best to enjoy every minute that they are here.
A note about the weather—We listened to Chris Parker’s weather on Saturday on the SSB and he thought we might have fairly benign weather for a few days starting this weekend. There is no SSB weather on Sunday so when we listened this morning we had hoped to have the Saturday report reinforced. No such luck. We will be getting fairly strong north winds again this weekend with no hope of a window for leaving for the Bahamas. His best guess was that it would be the second week of March. That could change, but we will prepare to sit and wait. At least we have having wonderful weather this week for Tom and Detta’s visit. After the cold and snowy New Hampshire winter they have had, this sunshine and warmth is a welcome retreat.
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| 150222 Day 136 Florida, USA–Tom and Detta Arrive |
