Marathon days

Staying at Marathon Yacht Club has been a great time, the people I have met here I will remember forever.  One thing i learned here is when you are visiting another Yacht Club the club fly’s your yacht club flag while you are visiting, you can see the PYC flag on one of the below pictures,  this sure feels good to see it flying every morning.  Everyone here loves the water so much and its great to be surrounded with like minded people, Marathon Yacht Club is part of the Florida Council of Yacht Clubs the same with PYC Pensacola Yacht Club where i am a member.  Being a member of PYC and PYC being a member of the Council gives me the first night free at any other Yacht Club and the other nights are only 1.75$ a foot. compared to the normal 3$ a foot this is a big savings and i feel very lucky to be part of the Florida Council.  If your going to be cruising a lot i highly recommend joining a yacht club you will save lots of money on slips and it will pay for your membership after your first free night.  This last Sunday i went to a nautical flee market in Islamorada about 50 miles north of Marathon.  Two very nice boaters that were visiting from Virginia on their 36 Monk Trawler Jack and Alois, they offered to split the 75$ cab with me 3 ways and we all went to the show.  It was a good turnout with loads of venders and lots to see and do, the only thing i purchased was a 1/2″ swivel for my Anchor that i have needed to get for quite some time now.  As you are at anchor and your boat slowly rotates with the wind and currant this swivel allows your chain to rotate with the turning of the boat and keeps the anchor firmly planted in the ground.  Otherwise the chain can get looped and turn the anchor upside down and it won’t be holding you anymore.

We decided to take the Keys bus back to Marathon this was only $2.75 a big savings compared to the taxi.  Lots of people from Miami were on this bus riding it to the keys so they could work their jobs at the resorts and businesses down here, the public transportation here is very efficient.  Marathon Yacht Club has been great for getting a few projects done on the boat, their is a West Marine across the street this is good and bad.  Good because you can get your projects done and bad because it burns up all your money lol.

I pulled my Twin Vee out with the Yacht Club lift and applied its new name its now the Twin Vida, which fits well because its a Twin Vee and the dingy to the Pura Vida so i think you get it.  I also had a sign shop here by the name of Signs by Renee make me another name with port of call, so this can be seen by other boaters needing to call me on the VHF.  The problem with my original name is when we installed my dingy on the back it totally covers up the original Pura Vida Pensacola Fl, so to make it legal again i had to make a second name board with 4″ tall letters.  On a federally documented vessel being able to read the name is mandatory.  Marathon Bait and Tackle fixed up my Pen rod and reel, they re spooled it with 60lb test and installed 2 new eyes on the rod.  This will be fun for trolling to my new destinations.  Keys Fisheries is a killer spot to eat here, its probably a 200 yard walk from my marina.  Keys fisheries is where they bring in all the fresh Florida lobster and stone crabs.  you can get stone crab fresh never frozen here and its only 1.70 a claw, most places with stone crab claws on the menu are 40$ + plate.  i can get 10 claws here for under 20$ the Hogfish is also a great meal to.