Key West Day 23

Miles Traveled 0

Total Miles Traveled 2181

Days 160-164

We’ve been busy since our last blog update, riding bikes, putin around in the dinghy, and going to town for some great entertainment.  You just never know what you’re going to see here.  This Elvis impersonator painted himself gold and tried to get people to give him money to take his picture and a string of cheap beads, he did have a few takers.

This is called an eyebrow house, the roof drops down past the top of the second floor windows providing shade and increasing air circulation through the house.

I think this truck has been here for awhile.

We visited this Catholic Church, the Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea.  It is one of the oldest Catholic 

parishes in the state of Florida and the oldest parish in the Archdiocese of Miami.

We met our friends from our home port at Green Turtle Bay, Mike and Jan, at Turtle Kraals on my birthday.  Mike and Jan live on their boat at Key West during the winter, and return to Kentucky in the summer.  Turtle Kraals have turtle races three days a week, there are four box turtles with numbers one through four taped to their shell.  Each customer gets a number, and the race begins.  If you hold the number of the winning turtle, you get a key to try to unlock a treasure chest.  If know ones key opens the chest, the chest grows by $50 for the next race.

As luck would have it, someone opened the chest after the previous race, so the treasure chest only had $50 in it for our race.  Turtle number 3 won the race and I held a number 3 ticket…….along with 15 other people.  My key didn’t open the treasure chest, but nobody else’s did either. It was a fun night and we had a great visit with Mike and Jan.

Back at our marina, Walter the Manatee appeared in the slip next to ours one morning.

It’s not all been fun and games, yesterday was laundry day.

Today we drove to Marathon and stopped at Big Pine Key on the way. Big Pine Key is noted for its Key Deer population.  The Key deer is an endangered deer that lives only in the Florida Keys.  It is a subspecies of the white-tailed deer.  This deer can be recognized by its characteristic size, smaller than all other white-tailed deer.  Adult males usually weigh only 55-75 lbs and stand about 30 inches tall.

Another stop along the way was the No Name Pub located on No Name Key, which lies about a half mile west of Big Pine Key.

As you can see, it’s popular in the South to line the walls and ceilings with $1 bills.

Our final stop was Marathon to attend the 7^th annual sunshine celebration. This Great Loop Cruisers Association event provides an opportunity for all members in the area to meet and exchange stories of current and past looping experiences.  More than 170 people attended this year’s event.

We are very fortunate to have stumbled across this great organization and the wonderful people we have met along the way.