Well, we have done the Key West "sunset thing" down at the wharf near Mallory Square. There was a cast of thousands there including numerous street performers juggling, playing musical instruments, and doing "performance art." The people who have been here many years back recall it as a local sort of tradition without all the hoopla, but that is clearly a thing of the past. Mary was miffed that there were no conch horns blown, and I would have admired a cannon shot. The crowd here at our marina wanders down to our end of the pier for the view and somebody somewhere in the marina has blown a conch every night we have been here for sunset.We have accomplished several more sightseeing events including the Hemingway House, the lighthouse, and watching Michael McCloud sing at the Schooner Wharf Bar (my chief goal here in KW).
The sailboat next door, crewed by John and Helen Caffrey of Gulf Breeze, had a minor plumbing leak today and ended up needing a crow's foot wrench and a extensions to get at the offending fitting. We trawler guys are known for tool stashes. We were rewarded with carrot cake from them Helen -yum.
In Helen, I have finally found somebody with a DSC radio who has not conducted a DSC-to-DSC call wherein the radios link up and nobody else can understand the conversation. We ran a test, and where we also requested each other's position. The Zepherina's position came back displayed on my radio as well as on the Garmin 4208 chart plotter. Kewl!
On board the Calypso, I replaced the engine room blower today and had to order another one for the lazarette which had also burned out - will be here at a local store on Tuesday. Our kind neighbor, Autry Hazzard will be FEDEXing the relay for the now-silent air horns to me tomorrow along with a sack full of mail. Then we will spend the rest of the week catching up on admin - ugh!
Vance Nelson is being very patient in an effort to coach me in the process of wiring up the laptop to be able to talk to the new Garmin chart plotter so i can plan routes on the computer and send them to the plotter. After numerous configurations, I still have no connection. I am beginning to wonder if the piece of software I ordered from Garmin where the route is saved to an SD chip and then uploaded into the plotter is the only way I'll be able to accomplish this task.
For those who may think we are stuck here forever, I can report some favorable weather forecasts for next weekend. So far, Saturday and Sunday look OK, and if we can just get that weather to carry over into the following week for a couple of days, we can at least get out to the Dry Tortugas and back to Key West, if we can't move on to the Peninsula at Naples from the Dry Tortugas. In any event, we have to have some decent weather to get back to the mainland.
