A 40 day marathon trip to Marathon

After 40 days we are finally settling down in our temporary winter home. It's wonderful here. Sunny days, warm tempratures, mild breezes and very friendly people. We spent our first full day adjusting to our new life style. We have all of the comforts of home; lights, air conditioning, running water, a half-bath, cooking facilities. Everything except TV but guess what, we don't miss it at all.

Our bicycles are parked right outside our boat along with probably 200 or more other bikes. They are our main method of transportation. What ever we need we use our bikes to go and get. We did have to call a taxi the other day. We finally decided that we needed a refrigrator. Well, Phil just couldn't figure out how to get it from Home Deopt to our boat on his bike. So he rode to Home Depot and had a taxi bring him and the frig and his bike back to our boat. The next day he rode down to another marina to pick-up some medicine that we had mailed to them (we were supposed to stay there but it just wasn't the right place for us). On the way down there he passed a used furniture store and found two old chairs that he thought would work very nicely on our boat. Guess what? He tied the two chairs to his bike and pushed it about a mile or so back to the boat. What a sight that must have been.

Last night we went to a Bible study and then grab a bite to before returning to the boat around nine o'clock. This morning we set out to the grocery store. On the way we stopped at a thrift store. Not much there but we did find a tin box shaped like a NC Tar Heel with the Hatteras light house on it. The guy wanted a dollar for it but all we had was a twenty dollar bill so he just let us have it.

We left there and went to K-Mart to pick up a few things and then on to the grocery store. We ended up with a backpack full of stuff and about five bags of groceries that we managed to put on our bikes and return to the boat about two miles away.

Just as we were getting back on the boat a couple that we met in Ft. Lauderdale came by in their dinghy. They're the ones from California who have a lot in Oriental, NC. They came by later and visited with us for a while. It's nice to see somebody that you've met before. Makes you feel like there's a reason that you keep running into them. Perhaps God has a plan for them that we can help with.

The elderly man in the boat next to us had ask us to bring him a pumpkin pie from the store which we did. We just gave him the pie as a Christmas present. Later in the day he brought us a step ladder that we could use to get on and off our boat and wished us a Merry Christmas. God is good.

We had a steak, corn-on-the-cob and garlic toast for dinner. We are eating very well. A little relaxation and then off to bed. Tomorrow we'll go exploring further and maybe get some pictures of the island. There's a nice nature preserve here that we haven't had time to visit.

Phil doesn't do all of the helming (driving). Occasionally he let's me take the wheel.

This was Monday on the Gulf of Mexico as we were coming into Marathon.
Not sure you can tell much about it from this picture but the water was really choppy.