It's The Journey, Not The Destination. Bullshit.

As the winds would have it we finally made it to our boat. After multiple injustices done to our backs and psyches by a broken Lincoln (a driver's seat that has a protuberance causing severe back pain, windows that won't roll down, and no available air conditioning), I managed to also lose my entire wallet (two hundred in cash, three credit cards, and the majority of my IDs) down in Lafourche Parish at a high school football game, and many other issues (including the fact the T-Mobile has dropped our phones and they don't work at all in FL) we finally made it down to Islamorada, FL and into our harbor at Lor-e-lie Yacht Club. From Hager City, WI; to Mankato, MN; to New Orleans, LA; and finally we were at the Keys.

Of course all we have had these past two and a half days is excessive winds. We haven't been able to practice reefing the sails or dropping anchor or anything. But the upside is we have had plenty of time to do repairs - lots of repairs. We replaced all the bulbs on the running lights, we pulled out the ceiling above my quarter birth (bed/bedroom) to rebolt an outside stantion, we took out the toilet to rebolt it down (this almost led to a flooding of the boat with salt water as we forgot to throw the "throughfair" otherwise known as "lever to keep water out", we redrilled many screws that were loose, as well as bolted in our safe, and oh god I am sure there is more. The boat is in great condition - but it is a boat - therefore there is always something to fix.

As for the Keys themselves - its a strange place. First it is extremely hard to run errands when you can only go north or south. There is no east or west since we are just on one skinny long island. You can see water from both sides of the highway all the way down from Key Largo to Key West. The people are a mix of everything - from what I have seen Islamorada is made for tourism (obvious) but it is mostly made for big deal fishermen. Our marina's bar is always filled with middle aged big deal fishermen from all over - New York, Idaho, Chicago, New Hampshire - to name a few.

The bars and restaurants are all over priced, but drinks are good and food is great. Of course there is always a way around these sorts of things - bartenders. They are your best friends - learn to love them no matter what. They will turn your $20 bar tab into a $2.50 bar tab. At the Lor-e-lie these bartenders include - Darren, Barb, Jay, and John. Barb actually signed for my Fed Ex packaged wallet when the Lor-e-lie office wouldn't. I would still have no wallet, money, IDs or anything if it were not for Barb (and the Delaunes and Uncle Billy and Miss Laurie - who were shaking the trees looking for my wallet). I will never have enough good things to say about bartenders and Louisianians.

The Lor-e-lie itself is beautiful and, man, there are some monsterous boats here, including two catamarans (one 40 ft and the other 60 ft) which both must have cost over $200,000 as well as a 60 ft powerboat. Overall I believe there is only 10 to 12 boats in our marina - its quaint but obviously full of money - take a look for yourself:

http://www.loreleifloridakeys.com/

As for the boat itself - I will tell you about that tomorrow as my camera does not want to upload pictures and I am about to head to Key West - lovely. But to answer any questions you may be having - we are alive and well in a tropical paradise with booze and food and plenty of boat to fix.