Happy Valentine's Day !!

This is the last day for the history lesson.......

DIFFERENT LOCATIONS IN KEY WEST

The USS KEY WEST

HISTORICAL MILITARY MEMORIAL

The woods next to Bob's office this morning. Looks cold doesn't it?

Do you see the deer in the middle of the picture?

The view from Storymaker this morning.  Looks warm & beautiful doesn't it?

Can you feel the warm fresh air in this picture?  :0)

Well here's the rest of the story!!

I'm arriving at Gary & Jayne's boat and Gary is "scolding" me

nicely asking "Why did you come that way?"  When I turned around

and looked I noticed I had been plowing the bottom for quite

a while!  The whole time I'm headed to Gary's I was like 

"Wow now I understand why Gary gets nervous about his 

boat....the water gets pretty shallow here"

Sorry Bob...I didn't realize I was doing it!

Bruce changing the spark plugs in his car

Bonnie laying guard!

Jayne is headed into town

I'm watching the laundry

Pretty good picture of the spin cycle huh?

It's her blankie!

Meet Fred

He greets you with "Hi I'm Fred"

He is the sweetest parrot...he immediately 

got on my hand and started talking to me !

Fred's owner Tom

This lizard is headed to the tree for his mid-morning sun

Jasmine hangin' 

We are at Rat Key Island now

Rob is spraying Denise down with bug spray

and gets her right in the eye...

Needless to say, she was not pleased!

We had dinner and now it's movie time

Audience

This is a movie about a storm that comes through

and the ship goes down but the family makes it through

the storm...Don't remember the name

"How appropriate!!"

A Betty Boop movie

Betty Boop showing off her dancing skills

Uh-oh our screen just blew away that quickly !

This I did not know about....otherwise I would not have been there!!!

Neither would anybody else!!!

But....Denise did tell me she knew a storm was coming but

Rob said it wouldn't be that bad....she said next time she's

going with her gut feeling!

The next several pictures are of us trying to hold 

down the fort !!

This storm came in at 45 mph out of no where 

and we had gusts of 60 mph at the beginning of it!

Rob

Gary, Steve, Jayne, and Ryan

They're not smiling anymore :0(

Tracy & Chris trying to hold their end up

Rob still hanging in there!

Chris & Jim holding their end down

The worst part is....

Denise (with back to us) doesn't like to get wet

and

Cindy (leaning over) was informed a couple of hours ago

her daughter who lives in Minneapolis is

 in labor having twins!  This is the last place she wants to be!

Still hanging in there

Rob is trying to stay positive for Denise's sake

She is a trooper and trying not to bite his head off !

Cliff & Kara 

They are the ones that bring the movies out for us

to watch.  Right now he is putting on some music to try

and keep everyone's spirits high!

Jayne is not looking too happy....

Jasmine is on the boat by herself and Jayne is

worried sick about her and the boat

Tracy, Chris & Jim

Music must be helping !!

Steve & Ryan

I think the music was a good idea!

Carl (the cat) is hangin' out!

This cat is so cute.  The storm did not phase her at all!

It's like 1.5 hours later and we're still hanging in there!

and still.....

Lorrie just wants to play with Carl...

The tarp ripped at the seam....now Rob is trying to keep

the hole from getting bigger !

Jim & Chris

Jim's hat flew right off his head and ended up

in front of him

Carl still hangin'

Lorrie is giving Carl a nudge to play with him!

He's whispering "pretty please"

We learned that if we moved the camp down about 20'

deeper into the woods it would be a lot calmer....

so we cut the lines holding it and walked it down.....

the wind held it to our backs as we moved!

Now we have rehung it and are a little more comfortable.

Lorrie is tired from all the excitement!

We are down to six of us now....

Well this was one hell of a day!  It started out nice and calm but as you can see things changed rather quickly!  As usual, we did our regular trip to the island to hang out for a bit and see a movie.  Prior to the movie we had dinner which consisted of; tuna casserole, beef stroganoff with broccoli, sausages with peppers and onions on rolls, beans & rice, cookies, potato salad...it was all so delicious!

We were suppose to see an Errol Flynn movie but that didn't happen, needless to say!  We did see a couple of cute short movies prior to the main show.  While watching the Betty Boop movie all of a sudden our screen was ripped out from under us and there was a "storm from hell" that hit us quite suddenly.  The winds came in at about 45 mph, gusting to 60 mph. We did everything we could to keep the tarp over all the equipment and us.  Then the tarp started ripping at the seam that just made things worse. As soon as there was a little bit of a lull in the wind and rain, Gary & Jayne made a run for their boat.  Of course as soon as they got underway the winds and rain started again, the wind was right in their faces and they got soaked, but luckily they made it home safe and sound within a reasonable amount of time. In the meantime, we moved the campsite down the path a bit to get out of the wind.

Rob & Denise are staying at a resort that was close enough Steve could get them home without too much trouble.  When Steve returned he said it wasn't too bad where they were staying but it was still too windy and rough for us to try and make it to the mooring field.  So we all honkered down for a bit at our new campsite.  Now we were all beginning to get really cold so we decided to make a campfire to help warm us up.  Ryan went back to his boat (it was on the other side of the island and only about 10' from the shore) and brought back some blankets.  Three times we thought it had calmed down enough to try and make it out, and three times we came back.  But thankfully four of us made it home safe and sound about an hour and a half after the storm started. Finally about the fourth time, Steve came back and said he felt it had calmed down enough that we should be able to get back to our boats.  Steve & Cindy, me, and Chris & Tracy made a run for our dinghy's with the hopes of going home.  However, when we got to the dinghy's the wind was still blowing really hard and our dinghy's had so much water in them we had to bail them out.  Steve was using a medium size plastic bowl to bail his and once he finished he gave it to me to use.  Chris & Tracy decided it was still to windy and rough to try and make it so they decided they weren't going to chance it.  I told Steve I wasn't leaving yet either, I'm just not experienced enough with the dinghy to try and go in those conditions.  So he left me the bowl and I started bailing.  I took out 58 bowls of water from our dinghy.  

About 30 minutes later Chris & Tracy, me and Jim decided we were going to chance it again.  The winds were blowing at 30 mph at that time.  When I got to the island originally I had to have help bringing the dinghy motor up because it was so heavy, so needless to say, when it was time to leave I couldn't get the thing down!  I had Chris come over and put it down for me and start it too!  Once it was going they shoved me out and told me to start heading towards the boat and they would be right behind me, along with Jim.  Like I said, I'm new at this dinghy thing and with weather like that I was having a minor problem getting anywhere.  The current kept taking me into the mangroves and I'd have to keep backing out of them.  About the third time Ryan yelled to me and told me to hurry up and turn the boat around and then "gun it" so I did...thankfully that worked.  I had another minor issue in that our white light on the back of the dinghy was not working so I wore a light on the back of my collar so people could see me.....NOT!  My hair was covering it up.  So on the way back out all of a sudden I hear Chris & Tracy yelling my name because they couldn't see me anymore....I yelled back and told them I was alright and still headed in the right direction.  By the time I had gotten to the boat Tracy was already on it  there to help me in.  My first attempt at securing the dinghy was a failure but the second one worked.  Thankfully they were there, I would have been able to do it but it was much easier with them helping me. 

By the time I had gotten on the boat there was a text message from Cindy asking if that was me that just got back to the boat.  She said she could see 2 dinghy's with lights but she thought she saw my dinghy also....and Jayne was calling to see if I had made it home OK.  We definitely had some "team building" going on tonight and I was so thankful for all the help!

Now there are three people left on the island and I'm hoping everyone is alright.  I'm hoping Cliff, Kara and Carl went to Ryan's boat to spend the rest of the night.  I don't know the end of the story yet and hopefully will find out tomorrow. I did invite them to stay with me but Cliff didn't want to leave all his equipment behind.  I don't blame him but I sure wish they would have.

Time Frame:  Bob had called me at 1937 hours and I missed the call. I called him back at 1941 hours and told him a storm just rolled in and I would have to call him back. At 2102 hours he called again and I missed the call so I called him back at 2113 hours and told him we were still in the midst of it and I would call him later.  At 2115 hours Gary was back at his boat.  At 2122 hours he called and said there should be a lull in the storm in about an hour and we should try and make it back then; otherwise, we would be in the midst of another one coming through soon afterwards.We weren't able to make it during the lull.  At approximately 2135 hours Steve got Rob and Denise back to their place and came back.  At 2247 hours Steve and Cindy make it back to their boat. At 2314 hours Jayne called to check on us; we were attempting to get our dinghy's ready to start heading back.  At that point the winds were 30 mph.   At 2335 hours we finally made it back to our boats.  So for 4 hours we were stuck in this storm!!