2/18/16        Thursday           Boot Key/Marathon, FL


YIPPEE! A day on the boat. Same as a day at home. No commitments. No visitors. No schedule. Well, not exactly. But close enough for excellence. Felt great to hang out with David and Amelia. Amelia followed us from one of our few rooms to the other, where ever her humans congregated, she was there, too...sometimes sleeping but if she woke up and we were missing. Meow! Meow! Where are you??? Meow! It may be time for her to write another post soon. Her bout with throwing up seems to have subsided. I'm going with the too much food too fast and excitement and stress. Will try to ameliorate all. Just now she's walked across my computer AND the galley table and has settled at my thigh, her favorite resting place.

So, a day at home on the boat. Did some clean up tasks to prepare for Coast Guard inspection that didn't happen....today, at least. So we have a Boat Beautiful. We read aloud from the book we're reading together, Playing With Fire, which is pretty good....not the Dragon Girl series. I read the first one but there was way too much gratuitous violence in that for my tolerance. In this book the playing is a violin and the fire is an unpublished piece of music that is too filled with passion.

So, clean-up, reading aloud, David cut my hair (a little too short on top but my fault for instructing him. I didn't get to the library as I'd planned. We did get off the boat around 3:30, heading for the marina for shower (David) and computer juice(me). I'd also thought to go to the basket making class today but hair cut and reading aloud interfered. But I did see some of the beautiful baskets and trays that women have make from long pine needles and beads. I'm in next week! Thursday at 1:00 PM 1300 hrs). Had a great conversation w/Capt. Jack, the 94 year old resident, lives on his boat. He paints on sea shells and gave me one. That will be the "base" of my first pine needle basket! Capt Jack is a delight, can't hear well, loves to flirt, only a few bottom teeth. Sometime I'll find out about his family and past work.

We met Dick & Nora for a trip to Islamorada to go to an Art Walk. It turned out to be as much a craft fair as art walk and many of the vendors from the Pigeon Key Art Fair I attended a couple of weeks ago. Cool. AND I found the clothing designer whose clothes I LOVED and I bought a dress that David thought was a shirt. It could be either and I'll wear it as both...not at the same time. It is turquoise and looks great w/my eyes and hair. I've never spent so much money on one piece of clothing! And I found a pair of earrings that I bought in Beaufort, SC so I don't feel the need to buy more earrings. Phew.

Had a lovely time and got back to the boat around 9:00 PM to content Amelia. We had dragged our anchor, one of our anchors, so we set another. The newest neighbors are close and we don't want to become intimate w/then. There are strong northerly winds tonight which are broadside to us. Sooo, more anchors!  Three anchors. Five lines into the mangroves. We ought to be alright. Maybe a couple times awake for each of us tonight for anchor watch. Or maybe the wind will subside. That would be lovely.