Key West wasn’t the only adventure of March, 2017. We can’t forget about St. Patty’s Day and Spring Break! One of our marina’s long-time dock hands, held a St. Patty’s Day bash at his house, which is just a short bike ride away from the marina.
Lucky for us, St. Patty’s Day was on a Friday, so we could go “turn up” after work. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at 6:00pm, everyone was already 4 to 8 hours-deep into their St. Patty’s Day festivities.
Pasta vs. Bike vs. Tiff
We had some catching up to do by the time we added our plate to the massive potluck dinner spread. Corned beef and Cabbage, green veggies, green Rice-Krispie treats, mystery green seafood salad… there was an assortment of St. Patty inspired treats.
We brought pesto pasta salad in a large tin foil tray since it was quick and easy… aside from the 10 minutes it took to strap the pasta to the back of the bike. But it made it to the party safely! There was so much food, we even took some home… which only took 20 minutes to strap on the bike after a couple glasses of Jameson Whiskey Sour each.
The party didn’t stop on the ride home however, we always ride bikes with reggae music playing on our portable speaker and of course our bike lights at night (safety first).
Apparently I thought it was such a picturesque moment that I decide to whip out my phone and try to record an Instagram story of us riding home. Before I knew it, I was on the ground, hanging onto my phone and the handles bars, laughing hysterically while trying to gather myself and the bike back up-right.
That didn’t stop me, I was determined to get the video!… And, down I went for a second time, luckily I didn’t have the food strapped to my bike or that would have been a real messy situation. Finally, I gave up on the video and we made our way back to the boat with a nice knee-scrap as a souvenir for the next morning.
Scrubbing Bilges
We took it easy the rest of the weekend, but had one major task ahead of us… clean the bilges. For those that don’t know, the bilge is the inside of a boat’s haul, below the waterline – almost like a basement in a house. Dry bilges can be used as storage, and “wet bilges” often have a seacock that lets water into the boat for things that require water intake, such as air conditioners, engines and generators, etc.
Wiffersnapper’s wet bilges reeked of old dirt and grim that probably hadn’t been cleaned in years. Pew-wee! So we rolled up our sleeves, pulled on our rubber gloves, and started scrubbing and vacuuming out the bilge areas under our floor hatches in the cabin.
About ten minutes into it, our shop vac gets super loud and steam starts coming out of the top. Yup. We successfully killed the shop vac.
After a not-so-quick trip off island to HomeDepot, we returned to finish the dirty job. We opened all the windows and doors to vent out the smell, as we sat in awe of how clean the space was! Who knew the haul was actually a white-ish color??
Work Hard Play Hard
Cleaning bilges was not fun. So the next weekend we decided to do “Spring Break things.” Fort Myers Beach is a popular Spring Break destination, with thousands of college students flooding the beach each year.
Lani Kai is the local gathering spot for the festivities, which include a week of “performances” from a group of firefighters that come down from Cincinnati each year. In fact, this year was the 50th Anniversary of their appearance on the beach, and, yes, I got the t-shirt to prove it.
Will and I had fun watching the show and laughing at all of the women going crazy for the firefighters (okay, I might have been one of those women, but who cares about the fine print).
It was like the Spring Break atmosphere neither of us really had, with Will being in the Marine Corps, and me attending a very modest Christian college.
Believe it or not, my favorite part was not the actual performances, but a bold college kid roaming the crowd with his neon-green thong overalls that had less material than most of the girls swim suits… which is saying a lot!
So Long March
Needless to say, March was a lot of fun. We enjoyed good times with the marina snowbirds who would be heading back north in the next month or two. And, we prepared for the month of April, which would include Wiffersnapper’s first haul out! Dun. Dun. Dunnn…
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