Saturday Night—pre-Ike—"It is beautiful tonite"

Here's what I did today. Upon waking up, I went immediately (pre-con leche) to West Marine to buy 100' of line, and parts for my outboard's gas tank. From there, I hopped on my bike, dropped all the gear off with Cliff the Weaver, and hustled over to Garrison Bight to meet up with the Danger Charter's boats. The Danger boats were being tucked into the channel next to Banana Bay resort. It's a tedious process which involves spider-webbing lines from the boats through the red mangrove trees along the shoreline, and then around the hardwood mangrove tree trunks.

The mangroves can withstand winds as high as 180 mph. This process has protected Danger's (and many other's) boats many times over the years.

There are three Danger boats, all in the 70' range, and the whole thing takes about four hours. As the weather was as good as it can get, it was bright, sunny, and hot. We went through gallons of water. Everyone was soaked with sweat, covered with mangrove tree bark.

Channel 10 Miami local came by and filmed the whole thing for television. Here it is, titled "5AM advisory could change the Keys evacuation order" (type in 5AM into the search).

When that chore was done, I ordered a grouper burrito from Bad Boy Burrito, drank a Coke and ate a quick lunch, and then Cliff and I hucked it out to the boats to work on engines, check lines, batten hatches, dive on the moorings, and attach new chafing gear to all the lines on the boats. It went fast. Then it was done. I shot the video after washing done and changing to head to town for some dinner.

The weather was gorgeous all day. But the sunset tonite was absolutely breathtaking.