Our first Easter text was from Twyla asking who was up for an Easter anchor hunt this morning. We spent no less than five hours looking for "Nauti Nell's" anchor and approximately 80 feet of chain in Tarpon Basin with no success. We tried dragging the bottom, we looked through a lookie bucket, we stuck our head in the water with goggles, we tried positioning it via GPS. Nothing. Therefore we just returned to our boat and enjoyed a delicious feast of prime rib done in our convection oven better than any restaurant we have tried.
Monday morning we said good-bye to "Jeremiah" and "Nauti Nell", leaving them in Tarpon Basin to try to purchase another anchor and continue to look for the lost one. We traveled 37 miles north to Boca Chita Key. We once again were in awe of this tropical island paradise that is so close to Miami, yet seems like a different world. We were joined later by "Destination", a trawler that came over to say hello yesterday in Tarpon Basin. We kept to ourselves and barely got off the boat after a restless night of both of us coughing our heads off. By the time evening rolled around, we called "Nauti Nell" to find out the progress on their anchor search. They found it! They were just about to give up after another three hours of searching, when they were just dragging the grapple hook back and it snagged it!
On Tuesday we left Boca Chita to head for Dinner Key. We need to stop there because that is where we are having a new cell phone shipped for Ray as his died the day after we left Marathon of course. Linda spent at least half of the three hour travel day on the phone trying to get that whole situation worked out. It was supposed to be there today, but now looks like it will be delayed until tomorrow. Good thing we planned to stay at least a couple nights in Coconut Grove anyway since we have never been there. We picked up assigned mooring ball number 69 and shortly thereafter went to shore. The staff was very friendly and helpful. We were surprised to learn that we could even pull into a designated slip, the same one where you can take on fresh water, and wash your boat.
We explored town and had lunch at Duffy's, the same chain we ate at last year in Naples. After lunch we discovered a Burgers and Brew, another establishment we enjoyed in Miami Beach last year. We'll keep that one in mind.
We returned to the boat for the rest of the afternoon, Linda doing a load of laundry while Ray resupplied the water supply ten gallons at a time via dinghy and jerry jugs.
For those of you not aware, we purchased a portable washing machine while we were in Marathon and were able to fit it in the engine room with the extra space available from our smaller engines. We have yet to find a dryer that will fit, and probably won't, so we just look like the Clampets with our undies hanging in the breeze.
"Nauti Nell" and "Jeremiah" were assigned the two mooring balls behind us, and joined us early in the evening. The girls were anxious to step foot on land once again because they haven't since Friday. Twyla was promised to be taken out for dinner last night when finding the anchor interrupted that plan, so she wanted to go out. We all dinghied and walked up to the Sandbar just in time for one round on Happy Hour, and then dinner and more libations to follow. Thank you Mike for footing the bill in appreciation of us helping to search for the anchor.
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