Party Time!

We were in No Name Harbor last Friday night and I decided that its reputation as a party spot was severely over stated. We left Saturday morning for Elliott key, came back a couple of days ago to wait out the weather, and ended up staying long enough to be here for a Saturday. Maybe the reputation wasn't so over stated after all. By mid-morning the sea wall was nose to stern power boats with more still flowing through the inlet. These picked every available spot between the cruising sailboats to drop hooks, jump in the water, and crank up the barbie. It's a big time party after all, Latin music, dogs splashing around, Spanish flowing over the water, (really – none of the boats near us have English being spoken) pretty young women showing skin and young men flexing 6 packs in response, (some things are the same in any language), and little kids doing little kid arm waiving dances to the music. There is some good living going on in these parts.

Blue boat wants pumpout, white boat refuses to move. He actually
got a beer and proceeded to sit there and ignore the young lady.

In the early afternoon a small pod of dolphins dropped in to see what all the hubbub was about. Boat loads of revelers clapped and cheered with every sounding and small jump. Videos were shot, pictures were taken, and everyone was thrilled when they swam within a few feet of one of the guys in the water. You would think none of these people had ever seen a dolphin in the wild before. Oh wait. Until a few weeks ago I'd never ever seen a dolphin in the wild before either. And yes, I stood on the deck and watched as well.

My Lake Carlyle days made for me being a bit concerned whenever this many power boaters are this close, but today has been a fun day with very little stupid on display. Only once did someone drive in throwing a noticeable wake. Words of scorn flew from boats power and sail, and the guilty slowed down immediately. The only other incident involved the sea wall being so crowded that access to the pump out was a problem. No one would move until the Park Ranger showed up, and that was that. Of course, just about any of the larger powerboats here today probably costs as much as every pontoon and sport boat on all of Lake Carlyle, so maybe the relative calm isn't that surprising. Put a dent in one of these things and some one's insurance company is going to be very unhappy.

Really cool boat that pulled in today

Though the party raged all around us today (and still goes on as I type) the crew of Kintala was hard at work. Karma (actually Tony of s/v Petrofella) gifted us with a 50W solar panel. He has a whole rack of new ones on his boat and so he didn't need this one anymore. When he saw we lived by Honda Generator alone he dropped by to see if we wanted to give the 21st century a try. Fifty watts isn't much, but every little bit can help. It will certainly be enough to keep the instruments running when we are under sail and, seeing as it is basically just a trickle charger, installing the thing was pretty straight forward, though still taking all day. (Including breaks to watch people watching dolphins.) The sun was set by the time I was in the battery box hooking up wires, so we will have to wait until tomorrow to see some solar magic.

There were so many boats it took two panoramas to get half of them in.