A Day at Marineland???

I came back from the grocery store this morning to find a large crowd milling around the dock at Burnt Store Marina by our boat. The people were expressing great delight as they were gawking at the water around our boat. I worked my way up the finger pier through a group of onlookers to our boat's boarding gate. After depositing my groceries down below I went back up on deck to see what the commotion was about. Manatees! There were several manatees that took up residence in the waters all around our boat. It was pretty cool to see so many manatees romping around our home. Maris saw one that "kissed our boat". The obvious evidence was a smear of red paint that matched our bottom on the manatee's head. I tried in vain to get a good picture as several would surface at once but unfortunately by the time the picture would actually snap the sea cows would be once again submerged. I did get one right next to our boat (see below). Note the red color (Amekaya's bottom paint) on the Manatee's head. He liked to rub against our keel. In fact, at times so much so that he would noticeably rock our boat.  Manatees can grow up to 13 feet long and weigh as much as 13,000 pounds.

While the manatees played right outside the galley I spent most of the day cooking meals to freeze. That's so we'll have good meals to eat on our offshore passages, especially good if it's rocking and rolling out there. It's easy and delicious to heat up a frozen home cooked meal when it's uncomfortable to cook while underway. As they say a well fed crew is a happy crew! While I cooked Maris did some work on our dinghy motors. It was hard to get work done with so many people stopping by our boat asking questions and complimenting us on our beautiful boat.

Tonight we enjoyed a home cooked vegetable Panang curry dinner on board with our friends Cathy Bleakly and Tom McGarry. The weather was warm and beautiful with a full moon shining down on us. We'll miss our friends here as tomorrow we'll begin our sail back to the Keys to finish prepping for our Bahama trip. As much as I really like this part of the world and have enjoyed the company of good friends here I am looking forward to moving on and contining our adventure to new destinations. I can hear the sea calling......