Wednesday, January 16 2013

I needed to cool down after working on the boat,

so I jumped in the water off the back of the boat

Another "pot luck" over at Rat Key (Poo Poo) Island

I found out the reason for the name and I wasn't

surprised it was named Rat Key

(also it's where the boaters take their pups).

I guess back in the early 80's the island was infested

with trash which of course invited the rats (which swam

from the mainland).  However, Jim, one of the boaters

here, started cleaning up the island soon afterwards and

because of that,  the rats had to move on elsewhere

(maybe to New York)?

Meet Lori and Bonnie

They are just pups and boy did they have

a good time tonight.  Between the 2 of them,

and Duke, they ran and ran and ran. They

jumped in the water and would run some more ! 

They were a joy to watch!

Here are Buford and Denise.

They live on a monohull named "Manana."

They are from Indiana and they took 7 months

to get down here traversing the Erie Canal,

Hudson River, and ICW.  Their plan is to go up

the west coast of Florida then check out the ICW

on towards Texas.

Meet Bruce, Gunther (introduced earlier), and Jim.

Bruce built a catamaran and sailed her down here !

Jim is from Rock Island, IL

I lived there for 7 years, working at the 911 center.

What a small world !

Me and Janie chillin'

Meet Diana and Tom

They own a 2007 Manta catamaran - their

first "real" boat.  They came from Massachusetts

(but they leave their boat in Marathon for the summer

so they don't have far to come down here)

Ryan and Jim (Jim is the one that cleaned up the island).

Lori (left) belongs to Ryan and Bonnie belongs to Bruce.

Jim goes to Miami tomorrow morning to have

one of his eyes removed.  They will be putting a plastic

ping ball size ball in his socket to replace the eye.  He comes 

home on Friday and then next Thursday he goes back and they

will attach something to the ball to make it look like an 

iris and it will be the same color as his good eye.

Another great day in Key West although I worked a little too hard cleaning the boat up !  Bob did his usual shopping and yakking.  By this time we went to the island we were both exhausted and needed a nap terribly but we survived.

I talked with Mo tonight.  I haven't talked with her for a while so it was great conversing with her!  She just told me she got a full time job at Pinnicle in PA, which is the same as Carefirst in MD.  She's got great benefits and is very excited about it.  I'm so proud of her !  She's been in school for the last two years and just graduated, so needless to say, the education paid off !