Marlin Bay, Marathon - AC PLEASE!!!

3/31/2019

The plastic that was plaguing our ac system. Such a little thing, but it wrecked havoc!

This last week at Marlin Bay in Marathon was lovely. It's a new, beautiful little resort/marina and we enjoyed our time there. It is definitely the nicest marina we've stayed in so far. It has some great amenties; pool, workout room, club room, etc. and a great staff. The down side was our air conditioning system was STILL not working. Tom has been working on it for the last month. We had techs working on it for three days this last week. Tom knew we had a blockage somewhere in the pump. He was right and they finally found it day 3. We are now chill'in in the salon and it couldn't have come at a better time as we head up the Keys.

Marlin Bay Pool

Club room at Marlin Bay

The influx of seagrass at Marlin Bay. We thought we'd left it behind at Faro Blanco. It's smelly and can get in our ac system.

Marlin Bay is right beside the Key Fisheries so the complex is surrounded by towers of what else....crab pots!

Just some of the mountains of crab pots in Marathon

Crab boats at Keys Fisheries

Wild life at Marlin Bay

There are lots and lots of midwesterners in the Keys and many are from Minnesota. Our next door slip neighbors, Dave and LIsa were from Michigan and also doing the Loop. They were great. They have already done the East coast and they shared valuable travel info with us.
We also met a lovely couple, Mike and Beth and her daughters staying at the resort from Medina/Minneapolis. We enjoyed our time visiting with them and eventually figured out they live in the same neighborhood as my nephew Paul and his wife Dani. How crazy is that?
It gets better. I was working out in the sunset tower at Marlin Bay and a couple of families staying at the resort wandered to the marina and climbed the tower. The moms (sisters) in the group and I started to chat and they commented on the boat in the marina from Wabasha. They said they were from Minnesota and never expected to see a boat from Wabasha in Marathon. I told them it was our boat. They said they'd both grown up in Byron. I then realized that I'd worked with one of the sisters, Brenda, way back when at Donaldsons. Never expected that one! It was great to see her again, over 30 years later and meet her sister, Gretchen and family.

Brenda, me and her sister, Gretchen

After almost two months, we fondly said good bye to Marathon this morning. It was a winter in the Keys we'll never forget! More later~

Time to move on. Saying goodbye this morning to the Marlin Bay and the sunset tower.

1 Comment

Teresa May | MEW link

6/21/2022 11:36:17 pm

It's amazing to be home back in Minnesota! It's tough to accept that we are done with the Loop. After three years of discussing and scheduling, we generally now have completed it. It's sort of hilarious looking back, when we were in the scheduling stages, when asked, we'd lightly tell folks, when inquired for the route, "Well, you go down the Mississippi River to the Ohio River, then you get the Cumberland to the Tennessee, then the Tenn-Tomm to Mobile Bay where you traverse and get on the Intra-Coastal Waterway until you have to follow the Gulf. We got actually good at articulating the route, but when you indeed acquire underway on the route, it's a completely different story. Every place we observed or stopped was part of the tour, so to select one or even three places is extremely tough. But we can tell you our most-liked part of the Loop was performing this epic adventure with our best buddy. He was an unbelievable captain and friend. It was remarkable doing the Loop with him. It was a great adventure that we'll have memoirs of the rest of our lives and who knows; possibly we'll do it again after some day!

Tom & Sue Slightam

Read along as we circumnavigate the eastern half of the United States and southern Canada on the Great Loop on our boat BELLA, a Cruiser 460 Express.

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