Our ten days together just FLEW by, we traveled a lot of miles and ate a lot of great meals aboard Osprey (mostly when Winnie and Jack took their turn in the galley- watch for the opening of their new restaurant in Ashland).
We met in Marathon on March 6th ( the weather did not co-operate for meeting in Key West) and all trooped down to Key West so Winnie and Jack could turn in their rental car, we then had a great dinner in Key West. Our return to Marathon was by city bus, a bit slow but we made it work.
We then wended our way through the Lower Keys for about three days, trying to find travel routes that kept us in sheltered waters, away from the wind waves- for most every day W and J were with us, the winds managed to stay up in the 15-20 knot range. Because of the windy conditions (and cooler temperatures, one night we saw temps in the 50's) we didn't get any snorkeling or scuba diving time, but we did a lot of boating.
Winnie or Jack were at the helm almost 100% of the time, applying all of that "book learnin" they have been doing since November. They did a GREAT job. Not only did we miss every boat that came close to us, we never got close to the bottom, either. Not even a near grounding (Patty and I have a few of those on our record already) ! We made them sweat a few times but they handled everything like pros.
Since they were ticketed to fly out from Fort Lauderdale, we started north about mid-week so that we would arrive in Ft Lauderdale in time for their flight. The trip north was windy, but the temperatures were pleasant and everything went according to plan.
We are looking forward to their return to Osprey in early May in the Chesapeake.
