Living Simply in Paradise

As reported in my last entry to this blog, we've arrived in Marathon and have now spent the past three

Great spot to spend the winter months

weeks getting organized for living on the mooring. We've also managed to get back to Vero Beach to retrieve our car with a stop in West Palm Beach to visit my sister Mary Jo and her family. So at this point, we're pretty well settled and ready to enjoy our time here.

Of course projects never seem to end. Our latest was the decision to purchase a new stove. The old one, after 17 years of pretty steady use, was showing an increased number of issues. We knew we'd have to replace it at some point. So I figured why not sooner rather than later, so we could enjoy it more. I got it installed without a great deal of trouble. In most ways, it's much like the one it replaced, but it does have a few features that will make Sandra's cooking more pleasant.

Speaking of things being more pleasant, our life here in the Keys would fit that category in several ways. As most readers of this blog might surmise, life aboard in the tropics has lots of attractions. Some might even say that boat life is a simpler life, lacking the complications of life on land – no lawns to mow or snow to shovel; in fact there's no “yard work” at all. We don't have the high tax rate or the high heating bills of winter or cooling bills in the warm weather. We always enjoy the advantages of “waterfront property” without the high costs that usually accompany those locations. And if for some crazy reason you get tired of the view, you can move to another location to get a totally new one. I feel sorry for the vacationers who come to the Keys for several days or a week and pay so much for that brief stay. The cost to us for staying on this mooring for six months is probably equal to renting a cottage for a week or two. We truly recognize how fortunate we are.

That said, I'd be remiss if I left the topic at this point. Many may say, “Wow, if it's all that good, why don't I do the same. It sounds like an easy, simple way to spend the winter.” We live more simply when compared to those who live a land-based life, but it's certainly not simple. For starters, we are not at a dock where electricity and water are handy. I cart water to the boat in six gallon jugs (weighing 50 lbs apiece) to fill our tanks so we have drinking water and can wash dishes and ourselves. Our vehicle for getting to shore and back is an 8 foot dinghy. Think of it as a convertible that doesn't convert, so we must watch the weather whenever we go ashore. We find it important that all our groceries make it back from shore without getting rained on. For electricity, we depend on the sun and the breeze. If those two are insufficient, we have to run the boat's engine to recharge the batteries. In order to make that all work for us, we've changed our lighting to LED. We don't leave the TV plugged in when it's not being used, since it still draws power.

In mentioning the TV, I should also add that we don't get any TV stations this far from Miami. In order to get them, we'd have to be tied to a dock for cable or add satellite equipment (at significant cost and high electricity use to keep the antenna pointed at the satellite.) We do like movies and have a sizable collection. We also are able to get movies from the library as well as at Redbox.

So the LED lights, the TV, our water pump, (Yes, we need to pump it out of the tank each time we use the faucet.) and our refrigeration draw off those batteries charged up by the sun and breeze. It works because we are set up to be efficient. All of those items listed here together each day consume less than two hundred watt light bulbs would consume in your home in six hours. We are careful and efficient, and we feel good about that. If we can avoid using the engine, we don't add any greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. But this too takes an extra effort.

The baby was nursing while they waited for me to share the water.

Then there is our project list. But getting to all the items there will surely get you to stop reading the

rest of this entry, so I'll quit here. Instead I'll go back to sharing a few of the interesting and exotic aspects of our life here. As I suggested in the last entry, upon arrival we got reacquainted with the local inhabitants that you aren't likely to find in other parts of the country. Going in for water one afternoon, I found a mother and baby manatee hoping to get some fresh water while I filled my jugs. I didn't oblige them for a few reasons: it's against the law with steep fines, the water containing chlorine is not good for them and providing the water there encourages them to hang out by the docks with boats engines nearby that could do them serious harm. But it was great to see them.

There are lots of iguanas here in the keys. Some of them are small and others, like the one pictured here, are pretty good size. They are generally shy of people, so getting this photo was a treat.

As some of you may recall, I volunteered last spring at the Dolphin Research Center. Now back here, I've picked that up again. It's great fun to learn about the dolphins and see them interact with their trainers. This photo was an early holiday shot I was fortunate to be a part of. I'm the one with the Santa hat. Rainbow is the other participant in the photo.

I'll end this here but pick it up again soon with more of our life aboard in Boot Key Harbor. A cold front has hit us, and the temperature is down to 68 degrees this evening. But don't fret for us. Tomorrow we'll be back up in the 70s and even warmer by the weekend.

Captain Bob

Carpe Diem