A Month in Marathon, and Now it's Time to Move On

We've really enjoyed our month in Marathon at Faro Blanco. We have had tons of fun with a variety of friends, and we'll always remember our time here fondly. Some of our friends have already departed the area, and we will also leave some lagging behind us. As we travel onwards, we know we will meet up with all of them again...we just don't know when and where for certain. But now it is our turn to move on, so tomorrow (Monday) we will depart for points north.

We're excited that our travel plan looks like it will coincide with a regatta in the Miami area that our niece Jenny is competing in this week! She was able to make arrangements for us to stay at the Yacht Club where the regatta is based, and we will have the chance to see and visit with her on Tuesday this week if all goes according to plan. We are really looking forward to this, and are thankful that this worked out so perfectly!

Here is a smattering of the hard work that we have been putting in recently...

We went to the Dolphin Research Center one day. An amazing facility that has 25-30 dolphins that they train and are continually doing research with over many years. This is actually the facility where much of the old TV show "Flipper" was filmed. A number of Flippers' extended family are still here, and help to continue our understanding of these remarkable creatures.

These guys love to cruise in their lagoons and keep an eye on everyone who is there checking them out. An interesting factoid that we learned - Dolphins routinely rest 1/2 of their brain at a time so that they can multi-task whenever necessary. This allows them to concentrate on jumping and swimming and communicating, while still having 1/2 their brain available to be on the lookout for predators. Very interesting.

We saw countless displays of teamwork between dolphins and trainers...and even when you know a jump is coming it is sill hard to get a good pic!

This guy was just hanging out in the bushes at the DRC...they are all over the place here.

Nothing like frozen Key Lime pie on a stick...dipped in chocolate of course. Way too good...

We had a big catamaran sailboat docked next to us for a few days. On this day, young lad Jordon had to do some fussing with some rigging about 30 feet in the air. Sound like fun?

Random shot for Carl...in a Walgreens parking lot on the way to Publix one day.

Yesterday we went to the annual Marathon Seafood Festival. We had a great time...lots of seafood, 100's of vendors selling wares, live bands...the whole works. We lasted about 3 hours, and then the air conditioning on our boat started calling our names!

Our home for the past month...great fun had by all!

So tomorrow we are off. Our rough schedule is to hit an anchorage on Monday, Miami to hook up with Jenny on Tuesday, Ft Lauderdale on Wednesday, and then we'll figure it out from there. We plan to be in Stuart at the boat yard by the weekend, and then who knows??

Stay tuned...