Sailors are here.

Today is our first cloudy and misty day.  We want the sun to break through because we have visitors coming tomorrow from Atlanta. They have suffered with cold and grey, and we want them to rejoice in the sun and breeze that is Key West.

Today we cleaned out their room.  We keep lots of things in there, stuff we don't use everyday:  shopping bags, computer bags, gift bags, soft cooler, blankets, and gifts for Asa, our new grandbaby.  Today we acquired a storage box out on the dock and moved all of those items off the boat.  Yahoo!  You wouldn't believe how clean and ready our guest room is now.  Clean sheets, dusted walls, newly bought coat hangers - it's all ready.  I also did laundry with everyone else at the marina.  Why was this the day everyone decided to haul a bag of dirty clothes over to the laundry room?  I waited for a washer til after lunch; however, by 3:00 pm it was all done, and the room was empty.

We walked over to buy fish from a fisherman located behind a bar.  We were told to walk through the Rusty Anchor, and the seller would be behind the bar.  So we walked in, saw the exit sign on the back wall, and walked out.  We were greeted by a young man with a Spanish (?) accent and boxes of beautiful yellow tail snapper.  He pulled one out and asked if we wanted it filleted or whole.  We asked him to fillet it, and he did it in zippy fashion.  First, we took his photo.

I'm sorry he has his hand over the fish's eye, but one photo was all we could request.

A striking part of being at this marina is the number of real sailors.  They own their boats, and they are off on adventures.  This is their jumping off point.  We are meeting so many fascinating people.  We meet them as they walk by our boat or on the shuttle to Publix.  First, we met grandparents who live in Portland, Maine.  They left Maine in July and arrived at Key West two weeks ago.  Now their twin four year old grandchildren are here too.  The parents are on a sail from Miami to here.  

Next, we met a young woman telling about a scary trip to Key West with 40 mph winds last week.  Her mother stood quietly beside her.  I was so curious about the mother.  What did she think?  Did she enjoy sailing with this young couple?  They are leaving here for the Bahamas tomorrow.  

Today we met a couple older than we (!) who are part of the Blue Planet Odyssey led by Jimmy Cornell.  Five sailboats from that group left here on Saturday.  They are headed to Panama and around the world.  Today this couple was on our shuttle because their crew abandoned them after six months of planning.  They are here, looking for new crew with ocean sailing experience.  They want to go to Panama, through the canal and then on to Tahiti, which they expect to be a 50 day passage.  But they have to hire crew first. The entire fleet of 14 boats will meet in Tahiti.  They said they were advised not to hire a couple.  They recently were told that couples have a 95% chance of leaving the ship before the voyage is complete.  Otherwise, we would so be on that trip.  :)