Marathon, FL

Well here we are in the Middle Keys of Florida. Marathon is a cruiser's hot spot. The mooring field of the City Marina is packed with sail boats, cats, cruisers and trawlers. The marina has free wireless and their facilities looks like an Internet Cafe (except with laundry instead of coffee). There are laptops plugged in all over the place. Each morning on the radio, they have a cruisers' net. First new boats introduce themselves and then people who are leaving. After that there is a comments and questions session. Following that is the buy, sell, trade session and then trivia. New boats get a welcome bag (a canvas tote), but I'm not sure what's in it as ours has not arrived yet. Cruisers who come here tend to stay a while. And that is the case with us. We took the mooring for 1 month! We are going to decide during that time our next move - finish the keys and then the Dry Tortugas or Bahamas. There is a buddy list posted with other boats and their plans to head over to Bahamas if anyone wants to join them and stay in radio contact on the way.

Mail can sent to us here at:

Steve and Michele Papile
800 35th Street, Ocean
Marathon, FL 33050

(no bills please!)

We were happy to see Leighia, Cameron and the kids when we got here. We haven't seen them since Annapolis. They joined us for an impromptu dinner on Tuesday night. Last night there was a meet and greet pot luck dinner at the marina and it was very well attended -tons of food.

The laundry and showers are in need of work - which they are doing as we speak. A new shower and laundry building has been built, but not yet open. Maybe before we leave????? As of now, there are only 3 showers, UGH! And the laundry has a queue all day long.

This morning Leighia picked Michele up for her very first Yoga class ever! I think there is Yoga class every other day. It wasn't bad for stretching, but I think I need a more aerobic workout. There is also a beautiful park right next door with bocci courts, a roller hockey rink (yeah we brought our roller blades), a softball field (games twice a week with equipment included :), a skateboard park, shuffle board, and much more. The grocery store is a mile away so we will probably start to use the fold up bike we brought. There is also a huge bike parking lot that we can lock our bike up to. Let's see what else, oh free pump out once a week. The diving and snorkeling here is also supposed to be really good too.

So, if anyone wants to book a flight and come and stay on the boat for a week - now is a good time to do it!!! (Beth, you can always drive.) It's pretty cold here today (60's), but supposed to warm up after this front moves on by Sunday. I hear it's in the teens in Boston though, so I'm not complaining. Pat and Bill, are you sure you don't want to come down? I think Jenni has an extra room??? Signing off for now, but will post again when there is something interesting to write about.