Adventures in Marathon

As soon as the Lighting of the Fleet was over last Friday, we began preparing Ivory Lady for our trip north.  That means, in addition to maintenance activities like generator servicing, we needed to remove all the Christmas lights and also have Rich, the diver, clean the bottom of the boat.

Yesterday while removing lights, we had a guest on the dock who then proceeded to climb up the piling in an attempt to board Bob's boat, docked next to us.

Today, Rich came by to dive the boat, clean the bottom and replace our zincs. We had visitors. Two manatees cruised in and made quick friends with Rich. We had a hose running over the edge of the dock and they both came up to take a drink. It didn't take them long to figure out how to both benefit at the same time. We called it a French Water Kiss. When rich tried to brush them off with his bottom brush, they were skiddish at first, but when he finished our boat and began working on a sailboat at the next dock, they followed him over and wouldn't leave him alone to work.  We all had a great afternoon bonding with these huge creatures.  They're so ugly that they are actually cute.

We plan to leave Marathon aboard Ivory Lady on Saturday, 12/17 for St. Petersburg and Christmas with our many friends there. Some will join us on their boat for a cruise south to Ft. Myers for New Years Eve. Our next installlment will be on the water! Can't wait.