We are settling into our temporary life living in Boot Key Harbor. Every day we have been doing work projects on our boat. The things we have worked on so far include major structural improvements such as reinforcing the mast beam and the forestay chain plate, which is a weak point on the Vega and needed improving before we felt comfortable heading out onto the open ocean. K. has been working hard with all kinds of complicated and frustrating details of that and it is a whole story in and of itself. We have also been making new hatch boards and cockpit locker covers out of wood, and I’ve been busy in the workshop every day giving the boards 8 coats of varnish. And we’ve also been doing gross stuff like cleaning out the storage lockers and getting rid of months worth of gunk that had accumulated in there. Whoo Hoo, so much fun!
But we have been also managing to have some fun here and there with some new friends that we have met in Marathon. In an earlier post we mentioned the sailors that we towed out of a difficult situation when their engine died at the marina dock. These two Minnesotans, R.J. and Mel, have become great friends, and we’ve really enjoyed hanging out with them.

A few days ago the four of us took our dinghy out to a tiny little island and explored, and we’ve also been enjoying making dinner together and playing cards. They left this morning to visit some other areas of the Keys, but we hope to meet up with them again in Feb. and possibly travel together.
We’ve also made a new friend who is not a sailor! In fact, we took her out on her first ever sailing trip on Tuesday. Kelsie works as a manager at a local restaurant and has been overworked for months, so she wanted to have a day off to do something fun. So we showed her a good time aboard Wee Happy! It was also the FIRST time on our entire voyage that we just went out sailing for the day, and returned to the same spot we started out from. We went a few miles out into the ocean to a reef and sailed around in circles just for the fun of it. Despite a near bout of seasickness from the rolling waves, she managed to enjoy herself just fine. The highlight of the day was when a pod of 6 large dolphins swam around our boat, following us and playing around the bow of the boat. They were so close we could have reached out and touched them! It was truly a visit from the dolphin world, and we were grateful for the gift! And check out the color of the water!! It was the most amazing shade of turquoise I have ever seen.
And, there’s been some fun nights here at the marina tiki hut with wonderful live music, food, and drink going late into the evening. Our social life is so much more active since we have moved aboard our boat! Who knew?