January 14 We awoke before our hosts and packed as best we could. After breakfast while Alfeo and Blanche were sitting on the deck down by the boat we were treated to a visit by Barnacle Bill, their resident Manatee. Contrary to the rules protecting this endangered species, we turned on the freshwater hose for a few minutes which attracted the huge creature over for a close up face to face view.  With barnacles and seaweed growing on its back, its slow idling movements appeared very friendly but entirely too dependent on man’s generosity.  Tragically we are its best friend and worst enemy at the same time. Like our bears at home the kindest behavior on our part would be to scare them away to fend for themselves.  If it were not for the propeller wounds on most of their backs, perhaps people here could bring themselves to overcome their sympathy and push them back to the wilds where they might survive. 

 Heather was given a taxi ride to a computer place in Marathon where a very nice fellow helped her by installing a new modem in the laptop and getting her set up with a local internet service so we might be able to send email at last.  I ran a load of laundry and took a walk to see if I could find an internet café or similar service but found none. It is a comment on the changes in our lives brought on by the computer communication age that we have spent so much time in pursuit of connection. It was 1:30 p.m. by the time we finally shoved off saying goodbye to our new friends with invitations to visit us in New Hampshire and promises to stop to see them when we rowed through Southern New Jersey some time in the future.  We were fortunate indeed to meet these friends and our faith in humanity, damaged by one ranger at Bahia Honda, has been restored.

 The row back through the harbor in Marathon was in the opposite direction to our destination but the only way out and well worth the rest we had been given. After exiting through a channel to the ocean side we headed into the wind along the shore and hugged the shore toward Vaca Key on the eastern side of Marathon.  The wind was rather tough as we rounded the point so we stayed right along the shore in very shallow water for about six miles in and out of mangroves and over a bottom littered with upside down jellyfish. As close as this place was to the city of Marathon, I suspect we were its first visitors in a long time.  An Osprey startled us with a loud cry from the tops of a mangrove nearby.  We also saw little blue herons and hundreds of pelicans.  It seemed a long haul to achieve only another three mile markers from where we had spent the preceding night!  We finally found the Anchor Lite motel located near the computer place that Heather had been to in the morning. We approached through a canal and tied up to its dock in the rear.  A nice woman showed us the closest room only twenty feet from where we tied the boat between two posts to spend the night safely suspended out of harm’s way.  This was an ideal spot with the excellent and reasonable Fish Tale restaurant next door where we ate dinner and shared a young couple’s catch of their day. This deep fried grunt was as sweet and mild as Boston Schrod. Writing came hard as I was again tired and sleepy even at 7:30 p.m. Sleep after a shower came easily and the few times I checked the boat all was in order.