Marathon, FL - 2/26/11 (day 29)

It finally happened .... everyone (except Ricki) has had an experience with the "summer cold" in our looper group. Now she can join the group! Since Ricki was not feeling very good, Skip, Barb & I drove to Islamora, a trip of around 40 miles each way, to check out what was promised to be the biggest nautical flea market in Florida. As we got closer and the traffic got heavier, our desire to attend got less and less. Within a mile or so we started seeing cars parked along the highway and traffic even came to a standstill occasionally. Long story short ... we did a drive by and didn't even attempt to sample the great deals that were supposed to be there. The photos following show some of the scene as we passed by.

I got back to the boat before noon and Ricki was feeling a little better so to let her rest I took the dirty laundry to the laundromat. When I came back she decided that she would like to go to the store with me to start loading up on stuff for the Bahamas. The front cabin is now our pantry!

We have a lot of things to do before leaving here on Tuesday and heading the pointy end of the boat north. Tomorrow we are taking the dinghy about 2 or 3 miles down the harbor to have breakfast on Present Moment (Darel & Sue's boat) along with Skip & Barb. Later in the day we will meet with Dan Langford (Biddi & the Beast) who has offered to lend me charts for the east coast and will point out things they thought was interesting. We still haven't solved the issue of the customs decal so I plan to call Customs in Key West Monday to see what they tell me. It may mean another trip down there to get it taken care of.