We finally got the Certificate of Occupancy for our Keys house at the very end of May, and the builder is just finishing up a few last items on the punch list.  The last big part of the project was installation of the 5-tank aerobic septic system.

We love the Keys because of all the nature and because they're just a little different.  One example of how they're different is the boating season.  Normally this is the time of year when everyone is just launching their boats that were stored up on land for the winter.  In the Keys, many people haul their boats for the summer storm season before they head north.  It's just all backwards.

People in the Keys march to the beat of their own drummer.  On Big Pine, there's a hair cut place in a bar.  You can't make this stuff up.  Read the sign - carefully.

In an odd coincidence, just a few days after Mom's funeral we attended a memorial ceremony at the Harlem Yacht Club.  As part of the annual Going into Commissioning the club honors members who have passed.  Six months ago I arranged for memorial stones for my three ancestors who were also members of the club around the turn of the 20th century.  Jim and I took Dad to see the ceremony - the stones were for his Father, Uncle, and Grandfather. 

Robin's Mom lost her battle with cancer on May 7th.  We were shocked at how fast her condition changed once her doctor told us to start hospice care.  It has been a very hard month for us, but we have a close family and good friends who have been helping us get through this. The blog was written to Mom but many people have asked us to continue, so we will - with broken hearts.

The marina is about half-empty and traffic is a little lighter on the roads.  We had light south winds for the last two weeks, but a front came through yesterday afternoon and now it's like living in a washing machine!  The winds are gusty and the water around the boat is just churning and quite noisy.  Luckily I finished my fiberglass and painting work before the big winds returned, and we got everything all cleaned up and stowed.  We were getting tired of looking at the mess.

We've been continuing our work on the project list, making good progress.  The list is still longer than there will ever be time for, and sometimes we need to remember that and try not to do it all.  Jim got the weather fax installed and working (see photo for a glimpse of the installation process), and now he spends hours looking at weather maps and text data.  It's some of the same data we can get on the Internet, but we cruise to places where we don't always have 'net connectivity and weather is something we pay attention to all day, every day.

A lot of our DeFever friends made it safely over to the Bahamas, but they have been pinned down by wind, which has been the trend this winter.  We hope to get over there, but are still waiting for the house to be finished... so we keep working on projects to keep from pacing.

The end of March signals the end of the winter season for many boats, and the northwards migration is about to begin - TOMORROW!  The winds have been blowing hard for over a week, and the crews are ready to start moving.  The wind changed direction and started to ease yesterday, and continues to clock around this evening and into tomorrow.  The weather is looking pretty good for people to travel, and we've been busy saying good-bye to lots of folks.  It's about to be a ghost town around here, compared to the busy, happy chaos that's normal in season.  This is the dinghy dock for the Marathon City's mooring field on an average morning... dinks almost as far as the eye can see. 

It will be interesting to see what the City dink dock will look like after the Grand Exodus.

We're still waiting for the last items on the house to be finished, and we've been keeping very busy with projects.  Our dock neighbors give us a hard time because we're always working on various things, but it's a great opportunity to accomplish some projects while we're sitting still for a change.

We got a great deal on a waterproof computer monitor for the flying bridge, and the installation turned into a multi-day project for Jim.  All the wire chases are packed tight, and he had "fun" working all the wires down to the pilothouse and under the bridge... plus drilling holes, etc.

Our friend Larry (from ALGONQUIN) came over several times to get some help reassembling the fuel pumps for his generators.  It's a job that requires more hands than one human has, and he and Jim got pretty quick at the reassembly after doing it a few times!

In the meantime I've been working on some fiberglass projects - tackling a few small cracks and repair of one of the outside stair treads.  It's messy work - grinding, then sanding, then filling and fairing with epoxy and more sanding. 

I'm nearly finished with the repairs, and this week I'll start prepping all the areas for repainting.  I have touch-ups to do in each of the three colors on the boat (white, black, and tan on the decks), so that will probably take all week.  The paint is very fussy and I can't skip any steps in preparation, priming, and sanding.  It's not the most fun way to spend a day, but it's gratifying to improve my rudimentary skills and to tackle a big project that's a little scary.  Getting the repair to look cosmetically perfect is very challenging.

It's been too windy to kayak, but tomorrow looks good and I'm definitely going for a nice long paddle for a change.

We're conscious of the approach of spring as we see the sun marching steadily northwards - we have an unobstructed view of the sunset so it's something we notice every day.  A few snowbirds have left the marina to begin the northwards migration already, and a few eager folks think they're leaving for the Bahamas any day now - though the strong north winds say otherwise.  The divers are busy in the marina cleaning boats that will leave at the end of the month...  but the idea of staying on here a bit longer (to wait for the house to be completed) is nice.  We have tons of projects that we won't be able to finish even if we had all the time in the world, so we've been keeping uber-busy and hope we cross more jobs off the list than we add.  The weather is beautiful, and things will start to quiet down a bit.

On Mondays one of the marina guys works the length of the dock with the pump-out cart.  It's not a glamorous job, but it's not as bad as it sounds either.  Every boat has a holding tank for human waste, and Monday is the day to get the tank pumped out... an all-day affair for the fellow running the cart.  The cart has a motor that drives a vacuum pump (yes - the job sucks!) and fills the cart's tank.  Then he connects the hose to a dock fitting and pushes the contents into the main wastewater system... then on to the next boat.  In Paradise!

This has been one of those messy weeks.  Jim ordered new membranes for our watermaker, and he had to take a ton of stuff out of the lazarette (large storage area under the cockpit) just to get to the membrane vessels. 

The watermaker is a reverse osmosis system, and it uses a high pressure (800 psi) pump to push sea water through a membrane to produce potable fresh water.  The membranes are so fine that viruses and bacteria can not pass through.  The long tubes in the photo above are the pressure vessels that contain the membranes, and the photo below shows the old membranes (15 years old) and one of the new ones.

Jim also got the chest freezer up and running, after a little re-wiring.  He's still monitoring it, so all the crates and boxes from the freezer cabinet are piled on the floor.  We'll use that freezer for secondary storage, and only dig into it every few weeks to refill the main freezer.

To escape the mess, I took the kayak out to see my bird friends.  The tide was very low, and some abandoned lobster pots were visible.

I watched a beautiful snowy egret fishing in the shallows.  Egrets have black legs, but the snowy has bright yellow feet, which he shuffles to flush out prey.

We've been going down to see the house construction two or three times a week now.  All the closet shelving is up, and the interior and closet doors have all been hung.  The sinks and plumbing fixtures are installed and should be hooked up this week, and the lights and ceiling fans should also go up next week.  The knobs and pulls were put on the kitchen cabinets, and the appliances were ordered a week ago, and should be in any time now.

The gap on the left is for the refrigerator, and gap on the right will be for the stove.

And here's the dining room as seen from the kitchen...  the hole is for the dishwasher.

Because we depend on the boat to provide us with safe, reliable transportation and all the comforts of home, we spend a lot of time doing maintenance on various systems.  We need to be self sufficient in remote places because parts and repairs can be impossible, difficult, or just very expensive... so we try to stay on top of things.  Remember that when we're cruising we are like a floating city - we have to supply all our own water, power, and handle waste - so those systems need care and attention as well.

Fortunately we like working on the boat - it's challenging, we're always learning, and it's gratifying to enjoy the fruits of a hard day's work.  In other words, we're not sitting around here sipping fru-fru drinks and working on our tans!

Yesterday was a good example of a typical day.  Jim was working on his own long project list, and I try to take care of simpler things so he can do the complex electrical and mechanical things that I'm not good at.  We were out of bread, and we make our own aboard - it's easy to run to the store here in Marathon, but not when we're cruising.  Bread takes up a lot of valuable space in the freezer, and the bulk of a bread machine is a small price to pay for the variety of fresh bread anytime we need it.  So, I got the bread machine fired up with some nice ricotta cheese bread...

We stopped by the house on Monday to see how things are progressing, and were delighted to see that the exterior railings had been installed.  They even painted the concrete stair treads - they look really nice. 

The screening for the porch was also finished, and that looks great too.

The furnace and hot water heater are installed, and all the interior painting has been finished - we just kept it simple with warm white walls and crisp white trim.  As we were walking out of the house I noticed the sticker on the front door...

I'm not sure what "large missile" refers to, but the fine print lists a Florida statute that probably describes the missile in gory detail.  Comforting to know we'll be so safe!  The house is really starting to come together, and the builder estimates completion around the end of this month.  All the appliances should be ordered by tomorrow, and we need to circle back with the landscaping folks about the palm trees.