The Superbowl Pub Crawl by car & dinghy

Nate and his new bride Steph arrived on Superbowl Sunday for a 24 hour visit. Our plan to dink around the mooring field, then to the beach and out to the Atlantic was a bust as mother nature decided it was time to cool us off with clouds and rain. Oh what to do, what to do? How bout a pub crawl? Because Nate had a car we started at the Hurricane bar for lunch, then it was off to the Sunset grill. A Great place with a pool, Tiki hut, island music and a view of the Atlantic. No babes in the pool because of the weather.  From there we did a little sight seeing, driving across the seven mile bridge and back. Phase two of the crawl entailed going back to the boat to reprovision with warm clothes a few chairs and a cooler. Then on to Dockside by dingy for happy hour and some reggae music. All decked out in raincoats we set out across the mooring field to the end of the harbor to dockside bar and grill. the dinghy dock was full so Tom and Nate parked our dinghy behind a friends boat down the dock a bit. The Bob Marley imitater was pretty good and a 29 foot piece of cloth (with a few little holes) dropped down in front of the stage to show the Superbowl on. Our raincoats came in handy as the roof overhead was canvas and definitely not waterproof but it was all apart of the ambiance. The place was packed but no bad seats with a 29 ft screen. At half time we piled in the dinghy, trusty flashlight in hand, to guide us back to the City Marina to watch the second half in the boaters lounge, thus the cooler and chairs.  After the game the mooring field was a highway of Dinghy,s all heading back to our respective boats. A good time was had by all. Monday morning Nate and Steph headed back to Key Largo and we spent the day getting ready to leave in the morning.

                                           Sunset Grill with the 7 mile bridge in the background

                                                           29 foot screen at Dockside Grill

Provisioning the hard way

Three guys standing at a bus stop and a lady comes jogging by with her headset on pushing a grocery cart. The cart is absolutely packed to the top with grocery bags, the bottom failed with 12 packs of pop and beer. First guy remarks;  "is that a homeless lady fleeing the store with stolen goods", Second guy; "naw it's probably one of those work out fanatics, see the headphones and gym shoes", third guy speaks up; your both wrong it's one of those boat people, those crazy people walk 6 blocks to make sure they have a little food and a lotta beer on their boat. They even have those carts at the marina for them to push down here. Who was that lady? Me of course. I'll bet I was a sight to see,power walking and jogging along highway 1to rock and roll music on my IPOD pushing a full grocery cart. What the heck, no one knows me here so no worries.  I really didn't, mean to completely fill the cart but wasn't sure we would see another grocery store before crossing to the Bahamas and so I kept putting more in the cart. When I came out of the grocery dark clouds loomed overhead and it was near sunset. I did not want to drive the dinghy in the dark or have wet boxes so I decided to jog as much as I could back to the marina. Plus, I though it would be good exercise. All was going well until I crossed to first driveway, the cart veered off toward the busy highway inches from hitting a car head on. I let go, ran around to the front corner and used some muscle to stop the forward motion. OK then, that was a little embarrassing. The next driveway I was ahead of the game I ran to the front corner of the cart before the driveway and pushed it across from there. I did this for the next 4. How crazy is that! I now know how many driveways are along the route to Publix. I thought I was home clear when I arrived at the marina. Unfortunately the one last curb must have been the last straw for a 12 pack of pop as it fell off the cart spewing cans in the parking lot. Ah, but no casualties. Not a one broke open. I piled all my goods in the dinghy which left very little room for the driver but  should have been 5 pounds lighter from the jog so weight should not be a problem. All's well that ends well as all of the groceries made it on the boat. Nothing lost to the fish. Why go through all this for beer, pop and water among other things?  I was told certain items were difficult to find or expensive there. Water is expensive and we do not have a water maker. Beer we were told is $45-50.00 a case. Pop about $25.00 a case and wine also very expensive. Rum, my drink of choice, cheap. Yeah for me!

                            I forgot to take a photo of the grocery cart so here I am in the dinghy