Marathon, FL - 3/4/11

This morning I started thinking of our options about having to leave Sombrero Resort since our slip had been reserved beginning today for the weekend along with 3 condo apartments. I checked with the harbor master to make sure he had not gotten a cancellation since the weather had turned windy as well as a big fire in southern Florida that had closed the Tamiami Trail which would be the route the folks would take from Naples. Hearing nothing and getting a message when trying to contact them we needed to develop a new plan. I called a marina at the edge of the harbor and they agreed to let us stay on the restaurant dock through Sunday night for only $107 per night! So, here we are at Berdine's Marina (N 24 42.4 W 81 06.5). This marina is only about 3 or 4 miles from Sombrero so it only took about 45 minutes of minimum wake traveling through a couple marinas and the large mooring field to get here. It has a restaurant on premise that is supposed to be very good and we called Skip & Barb to see if they wanted to join us for dinner. Barb had just talked with our friends Jim & Cathy (Merried with Her) and John & Barb (Scoperta) and they had invited us over to their marina for docktails and out to dinner. Skip & Barb picked us up at 3:30 and we went over to Harbor Cay and joined everyone at the Tiki Club which was a neat little hatch shelter next to the boats.

That's the back of Skip's shirt with his motto!

In case you have never seen one of these things .... it's a Portuguese Man of War that is very poisonous and very common in these waters.

Dinner was very enjoyable with these folks then we returned to the boat before "boater's midnight" which is 9 p.m.