Bye, Bye Aimee

We had a lovely visit with Aimee. She got a pretty good sampler of the cruising life. She, and we for the first time, experienced No Name Harbor at Key Biscayne on a Saturday night. Many boats arrived from Miami and surrounding areas for the day and/or to anchor for the night. It was a party--lots of smokey grills a-blazen, Latin music a-blarin and adult beverages a-"sippin". A couple of these boaters anchored too close to Tide Hiker and most certainly would have collided if the wind or tide changed and one or both of us swung on our anchor lines. Norm had to ask them to move--always an event ripe for hearty discussion, especially when imbibing. Fortunately, they did and everyone had a safe, but a bit noisy night.

The next day, we weighed anchor after our five days at No Name and cruised in calm seas to Rodriguez Key and a calm anchorage. Our next day's cruise to Marathon Key was a bit different. It started out great, then Rick and Lynnie (who were coincidentally about 1.5 hours ahead of us) called and told us they were getting into 3 and 4-foot seas with close intervals. Almost within 15 minutes we began to experience the same seas.

Aimee's stomach got a little queasy for a while on the cruise to Marathon and you can see that she was equipped with a waste basket 'just in case' which, thankfully, wasn't needed. She's going to kill Vicki for publishing this pic, but "nothing is sacred". She spent two nights with us at dock on Marathon (Keys). The first night Rick and Lynnie joined us for dinner. Then yesterday they invited us over to watch the inauguration and for a delicious lunch. They have a very nice satellite TV system aboard. We're jealous.



Unfortunately, Aimee had to head back to the working world in frosty Washington D.C., so she caught the shuttle at "0-dark-hundred" this morning. As you can tell from Vicki's new hat, it was a bit cool here, too. Yesterday was windy, overcast, and cool here -- a perfect day for watching the inaugural doings -- what a thrill! The weather is forcasted to get back to normal in a couple of days.

There are a couple other DeFever cruisers here in Marathon. Bob and Stephanie aboard there brand new 55 ft Signature "September Song" and another couple aboard a 48 DeFever "Witchaway". Bob and Stephanie, whom we know are coming over today for lunch. We're looking forward to meeting the other couple. And, the Gypsies are due in here within the next couple of days. We're all "staging" in the keys before making way for Useppa Island (near Ft Myers) and the annual Defever rendezvous. Actually, we just got word that the rendezvous is "sold out". One hundred thirty cruisers and 43 boats are registered. It'll be an extravaganza with lots of seminars, boat tours, great food and idea-generating tips and hints on our boats and our cruising lifestyle.