THE KEYS!

Believe it or not, we were really not big Jimmy Buffet fans until we got our sailboat. Sailing, the ocean, and Jimmy just kind of go together. I was listening to his music and reading his books when I first figured out there was a place called the Florida Keys. After adding a second axle to our trailer I was eager to try it out so in the spring of 1997 we planned a trip to the Keys. Roger Long and I towed the boat down and were going to spend a week on the boat and Johnna and Lanell flew down a week later. The four of us rented a house for a week with a dock. Prior to the girls' arrival Roger and I found a place, basically a vacant lot, to park the boat and slept on it every night. We also spent every night checking out the local bars :) One night before the girls got there we ventured all the way to Key West. Somehow we made our way into Sloppy Joe's Bar and there was an act coming on we had never heard of. The way everyone was acting and with security everywhere we thought it must be someone special...we thought maybe even Jimmy! Low and behold it was Pat Dailey. This was the first time I ever heard Pat Dailey and well, you know the rest of that story!!! He plays at Sloppy Joe's Bar every year about the same time in February and early March. CJM and I have not missed seeing him there since. When the girls arrived we went sailing one day and caught a land breeze, one blowing out from shore, and sailed several miles out, drinking beer and having a great time until we tried to turn around :( We could not sail into the strong wind and the boat was too small to buck the big waves. We dropped the sails and tried to motor in. The waves were engulfing the motor and coming over the transom and onto the floor of the boat. This was our first inclination that we needed a BIGGER boat with BIGGER motors.

We made a second trip down in the fall that year and we booked the same house the next year for a full month in April. Caldwell was in college then and it was the first time in our married life that we were able to take off more than one week! We took off a WHOLE month! CJM had to fly home for a week in the middle of the month and take care of some business and I stayed behind. Worried about what I was going to do I called Bettie Geroff and asked if she had gotten Chris anything for his birthday. She had not so I suggested she give him a few days off to join me in the Keys. She said "ok" so I booked Chris and me some fishing charters. Let the fishing begin!!!! Our first saltwater fishing trip......

Heading to the Bahamas tomorrow morning so will continue this saga later after we return :) Stay tuned for Bahamas 2011!

CTM