Boot Key Harbor

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

We arrived here on Sunday and have spent the past few days getting to know the lay of the land so to speak.

Boot Key Harbor is run by the Marathon City Marina.  The best word to describe it is “unique”.  It is not “upscale” by any means but it works.  The mooring field alone can handle 180 boats and to that number you can add an untold number at anchor in the area.  That is a lot of cruisers and they come in all ages, shapes, sizes and degrees of personal hygiene.  In fact, people watching has become one of our favorite pastimes.

Every morning we get up and at 9:00 AM turn on VHF channel 68 for the Marathon Boot Key Harbor Cruisers Net.  Different cruisers take turns acting as the net controller.  This net begins with arrivals and departures.  That is when the new arrivals announce themselves and are welcomed by the cruising community. Then, likewise the vessels that will be departing are bid farewell and safe passage.  

Next, they move on to announcements.  Here they announce all the various organized activities that will be taking place the next couple days.  Today, they had a softball game scheduled for 10 AM this morning, a movie double feature on the patio scheduled for Friday evening and there will be a Christmas carol singalong/jam session under the Tiki Hut on Friday night as well in case any of our many readers would like to come down and attend.  It’s BYOB.  

After announcements comes “Treasures from the Bilge” where cruisers can buy, sell or give away unneeded items.  

Then it is on to the fun part of the net - “questions, comments or need help”.  Here cruisers can seek help with any boat issues, mechanical or otherwise they may have, ask questions of the other cruisers about for example; where is a good place to have your hair done, but the comments part is the most fun.  The past couple days, the burning issue has been the man on the un-named boat who has been allegedly feeding seagulls.  Today it was revealed that he is not actually intentionally feeding seagulls but rather removing roaches from his roach infested boat and throwing them overboard which in turn attracts seagulls who eat the evicted roaches. Yuk! 

Today a second issue raised it’s ugly head when a woman expressed her concern about people throwing their kitty litter overboard.  She believes that this is bad for the dolphins and causes them to go permanently insane.  As I said, Boot Key Harbor is unique.

Every day we go into shore in order to access the Internet and get our email.  Hopefully this will no longer be necessary once our WirieAP WiFi booster is returned to us.  (It has been shipped, we should have it next week) The dinghy dock here is huge.  It is divided with sections for both hard and soft dinghies.  There is a large open air building where the marina offices are located as well as the wifi and a couple of TV’s complete with theater seating.  There are laundry facilities and a large number of private restroom/shower rooms in this building.  There are even shop facilities where cruisers can work on whatever piece of equipment they are having trouble with that particular day and the aforementioned patio and Tiki Hut areas are located there as well.

Just up the street from the marina is a Publix, Winn Dixie, Big Kmart, The Home Depot and the cruiser’s holy grail - West Marine.  Add to that a myriad number of other stores and restaurants and there is no lack of ways to spend money.

Loyal readers will recall that we were having trouble with our refrigerator on arrival here.  We were able to diagnose the problem as a bad fan which we replaced from one in our spare parts.  The fridge works like new again which is a good thing because it has been hot and humid here since we arrived and no, we’re not complaining about that.