Day 92 - Remember the Maine

Miles cruised 0, fuel purchased $0, slip fee $133, daily high temperature 81*f feels like 88*f. It is midnight and the temperature is 79*fTony, Taylor and Mark departed Key West on Wednesday morning with no fish. The same King Neptune that trapped the Loopers on the Florida panhandle churned up the lower gulf enough to ruin the fishing. Today the southern gulf is starting to flatten out. You should have been here last week or tomorrow for the best fishing.On their final night in Key West we docktailed on Changing Latitudes. We have the best view of the harbor in the entire marina. The boat next to us has a view of us. Rum and diet Coke is the beverage of choice. However the City of Key West adds a secret ingredient to each cocktail which is chlorine in the water we use to make the ice cubes.  We figured out that the odd after taste in our drinks was the equivalent of adding a shot of Clorox to each cocktail.  Moving forward we will make our ice cubes with bottled water or with water from our new Pur water filter. Instead of throwing the old ice cubes in the sink, we will use them with our white loads of laundry. One Key West chlorinated ice cube provides enough whitening power for an entire load.We were greeted by two manatees tonight. They drifted down our fairway and hung out with us for an hour. We had been on the lookout for  manatees for  several weeks and here they are.Our dingy is 9' long and so is the manatee.Our cruising friends Bev and Dave Fieges who have been liveaboards for over 30 years introduced us to Lori and Richard Yound who have been livaboards for over 15 years.  Lori and Dave have a Hatteras 78'.  They spend the fall and winter in Key West and the Bahamas and the spring and summer cruising the east coast to Maine and back.  The height of their boat is 28' so they are definitely not Loopers.In 1898, the USS Maine sailed from Key West to Havana Harbor where it was destroyed by an explosion. Some of the dead were brought to Key West for burial and the wounded were taken to the Marine Hospital and St. Mary's Convent in Key West. The destruction of the USS Maine led to the Spanish-American War which resulted in a free Cuba with very close ties to Key West. After the war, the Naval Station was expanded to support and protect the new nation of Cuba and to guard the Panama Canal, which was under construction.Bonus photo - Merry ChristmasCarl (Chef) Wooden - quote of the day.If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. -  Lucius Annaeus SenecaLucius Annaeus Seneca c. 4 BC – AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature.He was a tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero. While he was forced to commit suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, some sources state that he may have been innocent. His father was Seneca the Elder, his elder brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, called Gallio in the Bible, and his nephew was the poet Lucan.