Juan Iguana swam up to wish us a Buenos dias.  My Iguana spanish is very limited but I believe he was requesting breakfast.  We were preparing to put our (still nameless) dinghy up on deck before heading out of Marathon.  I knew that iguanas were land and sea creatures but I have never seen one in the sea before.  He was a funny and awkward swimmer.  Juan made it very difficult for me to focus on my tasks, but so does breathing.

Did you know Iguanas were great divers and swimmers?  Iguanas can stay submerged for up to an hour but usually do so for five to ten minutes.  They are mostly herbivores and eat leaves, algae and seaweed.   They are cold blooded so they love to sunbathe.  There was an article in the local paper this week reporting that iguanas, like me, can’t handle the cold. They were falling forty feet from their tree houses during this last cold snap.  The article said, It is raining iguanas!  It has warmed up now.  I hope the poor fellas thawed out.

We motored into the wind on the atlantic side of the coast for a beautiful ride to Fiesta Key after a diesel and water stop that went medium well .  It was warm, sunny and unexciting, just the way I like it.  It continued to be transformational as Echoes worked her magic on me.  In fact, a lot of magic had already occured since our cosmic elevator ride to the sea in the cold Everglades.  Echoes is a twenty year old boat and her few mirrors are a bit tinted and slightly warped.  Even wind whipped and disheveled, I have never looked better.  Echoes has graciously shaved fifteen pounds and fifteen years from me.  I wink at myself in the mirror while smiling coquettishly and turn from side to side.  Magic on the sea is very powerful but it is slow to transfer on land.  I went to the restroom in a restaurant last night and their mirrors lied like the scum on the sea.  Apparently it will take a little while longer for the mermaid magic show on the hard.

My new mermaid mystique has its drawbacks.  It is either that or Captain I’mtwelveyearsold’s humor, or the common Bored Man in a Boat syndrome.  But I’m pretty sure it is because I am entirely irresistible that I have suffered through Captain Needsanewjoke’s endless pestering.   He never tires of his same old jokes, or in this case, bets.  He said, I’ll bet you (fill in the blank a certain intimate act) that we will be at that marker in twenty five minutes.  What fill in the blank do you want to bet?  To which I replied, John, your continuous betting jokes stopped being remotely funny well over a week ago.  He answered, I bet you (fill in the blank) you will have wine tonight.  Annoying.  And.  Not.  Funny.  At.  All, said I.  And he came back with, I bet you (fill in an extremely raunchy and wildly imaginative blank) it is, which cracked me up.  Then he declared, I win! and chased me around the boat.

We anchored in the middle of crab/lobster pots as far as the eye could see after another long day of dodging them.  The fisherman sink wooden boxes with a one way door for crabs or lobsters to wander into.  They tie these boxes to a line with a little styrofoam floating ball on top.  The ball is the marker and the line what they use to retrieve the trap.

We have past probably hundreds of thousands of these. They set them willy nilly so it interrupts sailing in a straight line and my ability to use autopilot.  This is frustrating to no end because I can not set Echoes on autopilot, sit on my princess’ perch and do what I do best, daydream.  Instead, I have to stand at the helm and drive in zig zags.  I am an expert and proficient daydreamer and have the grades to prove it.  I am usually the helmsman because Captain Onit is charting plots, plotting charts, or fixing things.  If you run over a crab pot it can do serious damage to your engine if it wraps around your propeller or gets your sailing parts in a tangle.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset in Fiesta Key after a warm and wonderful day.  The following day we cruised the intracoastal to Tarpon Bay.

I am uploading my photos and came across a strange one.  John, come ‘ere a sec.  Ya? he says.  What is this?  I point at my screen.  I took a picture of my meat for you, he said as he wiggled his eyebrows at me and then went back to his project.