Big Pine Key to Islamorada to Big Pine Key
Yesterday we visited the Sea Turtle Hospital and took lots of pictures of turtles. Turtles get hit by boats, get diseases, are bit by sharks and have a variety of other things that want to destroy them. When turtles are injured and can be acquired this hospital aims to give them their best chance at life.
They often glue weights to their shells to help them balance and be able to descend to eat. They do surgery to cut off tumors or repair prop strikes.
They have like 100 turtles at any one time with an average stay in the hospital of about a week. Some turtles, of course, are injured to the point they can't be released or they will immediately fall victim again...
We stopped at a roadside park today on the way to some other parks that were an hour drive away. We didn't leave until the rain stopped and the storms passed.
The water got really flat once the winds died down. Unfortunately they will start again before morning, this time from the north so we will likely get rocked again....
We woke this morning at 6am when our generator shut down and my CPAP started choking me. That's a quick way to wake up. It also meant I couldn't cook breakfast until it was running again.
Since the generator pumps fuel from the same tanks as the port engine (the one that clogged filters in the middle of the Gulf) I assumed the problem was similar. It was. I had to change the racor filter (a big multi part assembly) along with a spin on generator final fuel filter. It wasn't horrible to change the on generator filter and bleed out the air but the racor in this case is a HORRIBLE design. Three parts held together by multiple o-rings and zero clearance under the filter to set a drain pan or hook up a hose. Stupid.
Worse yet it's positioned such that it's not below the fuel level in the tank so it can't be gravity fed to vent out the air and fill it with fuel. This means I had to crack the fuel valves in one of the main engines and drain out fuel into a jar and then build a funnel and dump fluid into the bleed screw on top of the racor to fill it up. If that is Chinese to you, be glad. What it means in English is that I took a diesel bath, the bilge got a dose of red slime again that I'll have to vacuum up and I became (again) a big slimy smelly human...
Fortunately it worked and I got the generator running so I could cook breakfast. Since it happened early (6am) I could work on the fix for three hours and still eat breakfast at 9. It was pouring rain anyway so we had no desire to dinghy to shore before 11am.
First up we visited the Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park. Lots of historical equipment showing how the limestone formed by coral was mined to make large bricks to build highways, buildings etc for years before there were modern methods.
They would drill lots of parallel holes and then break out (or explode out) blocks of coral limestone.
Those blocks would then be cut square and true with large saws.
Since these methods ceased, nature has taken over and there are some pretty elaborate root systems on these trees as they seek water and nutrients in very hostile soil...
Next we visited the Dive Museum. A collection of almost all the kinds of diving equipment that have been used all over the world to allow humans to explore the great unknown below.
their mailbox is cool....
this would have been an interesting sub to travel in... Incredibly safe made out of wood. Haha
They have diving helmets from all over the world here. It's interesting to see how different nations approached a solution to the same problem.
I think Katie looks great in this one don't you?
Ooh mama.
We had lunch at Wahoos. What a beautiful area with turquoise water... The food was good enough I forgot to take pics of the water. Of course it also rained again so... Not so picturesque...
We finished the days fun activities by going to Robbie's. Here you can pay $2.50 to get in, $5 for a 'bucket of fish' - or: five small dead fish.... And go out on the dock and hang them over the water.
The tarpon will literally jump out of the water and take the fish out of your hand (and often get a few fingers in the process). It doesn't hurt but boy it scares you.
The day ended beautifully with a drive back
to our dinghy hidden in a public park (behind some mangroves). The park closed at dusk so we had to sneak around the gate and go hook up the lights on the dinghy to get home. Fortunately I could drive the boat around to the swimming hole to pick up everyone else.
(Pic from a prior visit to the public swimming hole...)
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