We have been in Marathon now for 2 weeks. Marathon is referred to as “Paradise” by most of the cruisers who call it home. We’ve found it to be pleasant, although for us, paradise is a stretch. There is a lot available, fishing, diving, cruising, supplies, fuel, a nice beach, all within dinghy travel, so it’s a great place. There are probably over 300 boats here in the harbor, the majority of which are sail, so we’re seriously outnumbered. There are 4 bathrooms that serve those boats, so there is a never-ending line at the bathrooms! Since we prefer our on board facilities, we don’t have to deal with the bathroom situation at the marina. There are new shower house facilities that are completed, but in their infinite wisdom, the planners overlooked a small detail in the construction of how to handle the additional drainage load, and never expanded the capacity of the system to meet the quadrupled load!! Oh yeah, that municipal foresight is EVERYWHERE!!
After weighing the pros & cons of spending more money, we came to the conclusion that having enough dive gear on board for one diver didn’t make much sense, so we completed the procurement process we began some 4 years ago when we got our open water certification. We found a bargain on some used equipment here in Marathon, and had annual service performed on Barb’s regulators. With our dive gear now complete for both of us, yesterday marked our 1st dive adventure! We loaded our gear into the dink, and made the short trip to Sister’s Rock. Shallow water enabled us to get organized and work our way slowly into the water. It was a learning experience, one we’re happy no one witnessed! But we did get to all of about 8 ft. deep, deep enough to accomplish our objectives. We are promised fine weather into the beginning of next week, so we’ll have opportunity to expand our depths!
Tuesday at the marina is propane day! Some of the cruisers were unhappy about schlepping propane tanks to the propane outlet a quarter mile from the marina, especially since they were charging about double that of typical rates. So a supplier from the south end of Seven Mile Bridge agreed to bring a truck to the marina on Tuesday morning. Announcements were made on Cruiser’s net and the driver arrived to a line of folks eagerly awaiting their fill-up. What a convenient service! We’ll likely participate next week, although we are only down about a half on our 1st tank. The marina dinghy docks are always jammed with boats, and dock space is often at a premium!
Cruiser’s Net— is a network likened to a controlled party line that takes place every morning at 0900 on VHF channel 68. Announcements of arriving & departing vessels, information for the harbor population, help, buy/sell/trade, and general information. It’s a controlled net, with each participant calling their boat name and awaiting recognition from the controller before “passing their traffic”. It’s newsy, informative, and sort of fun. There are the typical nannies and whiners who are always concerned with everybody else’s business, but all in all it’s a great source of information.
So life here in Paradise is good! The weather finally broke, and we’re going to enjoy four or five days of the weather we came 1500 miles to experience!
That’s the latest… stay tuned for news of our activities next week as we receive our first visitors aboard!! How exciting!!
