Bill
and Cathy McArthur on
the Road 2004:
1
We quickly developed a breakfast routine: use boiling water to prepare freshly ground coffee in our coffee press and instant oatmeal, toast bread in the toaster. Katie had arranged for us to go snorkelling on Looe Key with the Looe Key Divers on Friday, January 2. On another beautiful day we headed out to the reef with 38 people divided in about half between scuba divers and snorkellers. It was a bit breezy and the waves varied from 3 to 6 feet out at the reef. The water temperature was 74º, so we wore rented shorty wetsuits. There were an abundance of colorful fish and lots of barracuda to view. Many of the divers and snorkellers became sick from the rough water. Our party didn't succumb to seasickness, but got cold and didn't go back in the water for the third stop. Bill tried his SONY Cybershot underwater digital camera for the first time underwater and came back to the boat with a dead camera. It turned out not to be waterproof after all. At the third and last stop on the reef, we were all treated to an amazing display of frenzied bait fish boiling the water as they were pursued by much bigger predators. This happened very close to the boat, so we could clearly see the bait fish and the bigger fish pursuing them. The bird action above the water was equally frenzied. After the trip and showers, we drove into Key West and parked in the parking garage near the historic seaport. The weather forecast was for clear skies, but we had walked about 3 blocks when it started to rain very hard. We waited under an awning for a while, but the rain was more persistent than we were. Bill went back to the car and was able to fashion 4 sets of rain gear (although Tom ended up with a Publix bag over his head). We walked in the rain to Mangoes Restaurant on Duval Street, where we enjoyed our seafood dinners.
On Saturday, we drove up to Big Pine Key and rented bicycles. We rode to "Blue Hole", a freshwater pond, where we saw two alligators and a big turtle. We continued to the end of Key Deer Boulevard and spotted a few of the endangered Key Deer as we rode around. As we headed for No Name Key, Bill developed a flattening tire. He was working hard trying to keep up with the others and hadn't noticed the pancaked tire. He thought, "Cathy has a better bike, Katie and Tom are young and strong, and I'm out of shape", as he struggled. Finally he noticed the tire. We called the bike shop and they delivered another bike. We proceeded to No Name Pub and had lunch. The food was good and plentiful, but the staff were a bit rude (and they brag about it). Bill called a kayak tour guide and arranged for us to take a tour on Sunday. We completed our ride and drove up to Bahia Honda State Park which claims to have the "Best Beach in America". That beach must have been off duty, because we saw and walked on a very narrow strand littered with Portuguese Men-of-War. It was a below average beach in an above average location. We talked with our son Bill on the cell phone speaker as we drove back to Big Pine Key to shop at the Winn Dixie. Back at the camper, we barbequed veggie burgers and corn on the grill. We had a delightful meal. After dinner, Katie completed her big win in the ongoing game of hearts.
Sunday morning was an early one for us. We had to hustle to eat and drive back to Big Pine Key for our kayaking trip. The tour headquarters was about 50 yards from the No Name Pub, so Bill could have shouted instead of using the cell phone when arranging the trip. Bill Keogh was our guide. He specializes in underwater photography and marine studies and gave us a fun and informative tour of the shore of No Name Key. Near the end of the tour, we paddled and pulled ourselves up a narrow creek through the mangroves. It was another beautiful day. After the tour, we ate lunch at the Big Pine Coffee House and found out why the restaurant is rated highly in the tour books. As we drove back toward Sugarloaf Key, Katie and Tom decided that they wanted to complete our patented circumambulation of Key West. We stopped at the campground to change into sneakers and walking clothes and headed to Key West. We parked at the White Street Pier and started our counterclockwise circuit of the island. When we got to Garrison Bight Marina, Bill and Tom signed up for a fishing trip for Monday. We lingered for a short time in Mallory Square, just after sunset, to observe the large crowd and the street performers who fill the square each evening. We completed the 11 mile walk in about 4 hours. We were all hot and tired, so we stopped at Miami Subs to pick up hoagies for dinner. We all lingered over our hot showers before eating a late meal. Everyone slept soundly.
Bill and Tom went fishing on the Greyhound V on Monday while Cathy and Katie ran some errands and ate lunch at the Schooner Wharf Bar in Key West. The guys had a great fishing trip and caught 40 fish between them. The boat sailed about an hour NNW of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico. The boat was back at the dock at 4 PM. As Tom and Bill waited for the huge pile of fish to be sorted out and cleaned, it became evident that it would take a couple of hours. So they left without bringing home any fish. We had intended to eat out anyway, so the guys didn't cheat us out of dinner. After all of us recounted the day's activities and showered, we drove into Key West for dinner at Blue Heaven. The food was up to par and there was plenty of it. We took our time walking up Duval Street on the way back to the car.
On Tuesday, Katie and Tom packed and finished their engineering consultation on the camper. All during their stay, they discovered and taught us how the different systems on the camper functioned. Tom did some carpentry work on the access doorway for the cassette toilet. When the camper was assembled, a brace was put in the wrong place and had been blocking the flush tank filling tube. Tom and Katie left shortly before noon, setting out into a sparkling blue sky. Cathy and I drove to Big Pine Key and visited the CocoNet Key Internet Café. We were able to connect our laptop to the Internet and process email for the first time in a week. Our spam filter picked up 600 spam messages and left us with 18 real email messages in the inbox. Bill did a bit of work on DCWUSAonline and we sent an email to the dealer that supplied the Cybershot camera explaining the problem. It rained a bit while we were in the Internet café, indicating that Katie and Tom had left the Keys. They always bring great weather with them as evidenced by their visit to Spain last winter. We ate lunch at a deli in the Winn-Dixie shopping plaza and then did some shopping. Bill worked on the programming and photos for our trip reporting website.
Wednesday morning, the wind picked up. Bill got up at 5:15 AM to work on this report and was startled when the awning blew down. Then, the door ripped the awning as Bill went out to put the awning up again. The second time the awning blew down, we stowed it until the wind dies down. We will have to patch the awning and rig better tie-down lines when we deploy it again. As our first week draws to a close, we have learned a lot and have a lot to learn.
Bill
and Cathy