Marathon

 

After 3 days of great sailing we got to Marathon Harbor in the Keys and found that all of the harbor moorings were full so, we dropped anchor down in the “low rent district”  instead. The harbor holds hundreds of moorings balls but it still has a bit of room for anchoring off to the west.

The dinghy docks were full

 This was to be a 2 day stop over so out came the bikes and we headed into shore stopping off at a couple of boats first to say hello. They in turn, invited us to a Mardi Gras party that night on their catamaran. What a party, I’m surprised that the harbor police weren’t called. Lots of food, drink, friendship and most of all laughter. A great way to introduce Ralph to life in Marathon (I think that he was a bit over whelmed).

The hosts of the party getting dressed for the night

The gang (Ralph is taking the pictures)

The desert was "slurping" good! (Bananas Foster)

 

Bonnie brought a Pinata and took several good WHACKS at it.

 

Walt got a great hit.

Ralph however, had one too many Margarita's and missed.

 The next day was hard to get up but we did manage to go to shore and bike the entire island.

Biking out to Pigeon Key on the old railroad bridge/converter to a car bridge.

We made it out to Pigeon Key where the Flagler Railroad Museum is located. The island was the main work camp for the building of the overseas railroad that linked the Fl Keys together back in the 1910’s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Railroad  It was a beautiful day up in the upper 70’s ,,, just another typical winter day here in the Keys.

The old bridge was used until the early 1980's and I drove out to Key West on the old bridge... Very scary drive.

One of the original work camp buildings, (now a museum) left on the island

 Tomorrow we start for Key West. Stay tuned for more of  Rich and Ralph’s around Fl trip.