We have been silent for a few days because we have been very busy. When we last blogged, we were heading for Cudjoe Channel and Tarpon Belly Key. We had birds land on us, fish jump off the hook just as they were coming aboard, and lots of wind and rain. On Monday afternoon, in our approach to Tarpon Belly we realized that there would be no shelter from the wind in any anchorage around that key. So we moved on farther down Kemp Channel that happens to be behind the Naval Station Key West Blimp base. We found a very shallow spot to anchor that was tucked up close to land that was almost calm while the top of the masts saw over 30 miles per hour winds. Anchored and rafted together, we made preparations for dinner. Upon completion of dinner, we fired up a movie (STAR TREK).

We awoke to NO wind and No clouds and glorious sun. The water was so clear it looked like a window. Rob and Pete went for a swim and cleaned sides and inspected all underwater gear. After lunch we got underway and Rob broke out his new Spinnaker. With mild winds he demonstrated the operation of his Cruising Spinnaker. Pictures show the product. By hauling down on the tack, the luff can be tightened sufficiently to go to windward, and by easing off, the sail will reach or run---cool. By late afternoon we anchored close to Big Pine Key that was less than 3 hours from our marina in Marathon. Having kept our slips in Marathon, we had the option of running for cover when the weather turned. And Turn it Did.

We awoke on Wednesday morning and with nearly calm winds we motored into the marina. No sooner had we tied up in the slip, the rain and winds started. This storm was to be a 24-36 hour blow of over 35 knots. The whole night was a ride, even at the pier. I cannot imagine what those souls still in the anchorage must have gone through.

This ends our Shallow Water Florida Keys training phase. When we started, last Sunday, we picked our way through 7 and 8 foot depths with concern for sudden changes. However after our education on navigation in the keys and understanding of how to deal with 3 and 4 foot bottoms, we were making short cuts and charting new places to explore. On our exit from Cudjoe Channel, we learned that the Tarpon Belly Key had a glorious beach and would have been a wonderful visit in warmer weather. However, this has been the coldest winter in the keys in 40 years (according to some expert here). We all will depart today for home and when we return, we shall be making plans for our return North.

Stay tuned for the next adventure!

Pete

The Keys - Sailing and Thin Water

I returned to Marathon on Friday evening. Driving to the Keys on a Friday at rush hour is an experience I care not to repeat. I drive too slowly (9 mph above the speed limit) and do not weave between cars (without blinkers) or race other cars. In Miami, everyone else does this.

Saturday was a preparation day. We performed some repair tasks. I went up both masts to do light repairs on Rob's and antenna inspection on my own. Later Saturday evening we attended the going-away party for a couple heading for the Bahamas.

On Sunday, we awoke early to move the boats off the wall slips to honest to God slips (lines on both sides of the boat). Two boats had left on Saturday and we exercised our "first come, first serve" rights. Picture of the boats in their slip shown. Nick DeMai also arrived after a hectic plane and car ride from Kitty Hawk, via Tampa. After loading his gear, a quick lunch, we departed for some sailing and a destination anchorage off Little Spanish Key. Sailing shots pertain to the afternoon. Rob won each race but has offered remedial race training to Pete.

Our sail and navigating to the anchorage was a bit longer than planned and we ended up rafting together in near dark. However, the dinner was excellent.

We had not expected the small rain shower that arrived near our destination to last long. We were wrong. In the Keys, they actually grow storms here. So what was a small squall became a 24 hour rain and wind event.

Monday we left Little Spanish Key and navigated a track through some very thin water reefs to arrive at Cudjoe Key. With 30 knots of wind and rain squalls, we anchored to await the forthcoming clearing to see the reef in sunlight tomorrow. While we were motoring across the top of the reef, Nick caught a fish, or so we thought. After we reeled him closer we saw that it was a Comerant that liked Nick's bait and lure. Nick cut him loose.

Next, we were boarded by a herron who had miscalculated the winds speed off shore and needed a rest. After four and five minutes, he took off to resume his flight to land. Picture provided.

So we await the sun on Tuesday to take in the beauty and consider a full day's sail around Key West.

A Boater's Work Is Never Done

After you hang out at a marina for a while, and are having trouble remembering how long "a while" is, things start to happen that require attention. In our case, and in the words of the three witches in the immortal bard's epic tragedy, MacBeth, "Bubble, bubble, toilet trouble".

Yup, time to run back to WestMarine for the jiffy little Jabsco spare parts kit ($65, or $5,263.99/pound), then gut it up to take the little blighter apart and replace the bits that routinely fail. The normal recommended way to do this is to don a radiation suit with full respirator (quite unlike donning gay apparel at Christmas time, but that's another story, and I'm told I'm not allowed to pursue that line, despite the potential segue into great material for a ribald stand-up comedy routine). Anyway, if you do not have a radiation suit and respirator, and of course I don't, then you get to play the game called "how long can you hold your breath while fumbling around in a cramped space and not dropping the minute parts into some bottomless hole". The answer is 47 seconds unless you drop something, in which case there is a containment breach associated with the utterance of appropriate expletives, and you then turn purple. After you've done this a few times you learn not to pass out.

I'm sure no body wanted to hear about all that, so zipping straight into the breaking news, Pete is on his way back and should be here this evening. We are eagerly awaiting the return of our fearless leader, and all the adventures that he has been plotting. We have been quietly making friends with the cruisers around here, and plan to introduce Pete at a party scheduled for this Saturday in honour of some Bahama-bound cruisers who had planned to leave on Sunday, but now it looks like maybe Tuesday- I think you get the picture. Whatever. If we have to do another party, no problem.

The guy who is the marina manager is a South African named Willem, and the photos are of his set up next to his boat (where he lives aboard). Willem's World has a hot tub complete with rubber duckies, BBQ, tables and chairs, coolers, and party lights on all the tress and some of the mangroves. It is the gather spot for evening parties.

The plan for next week is to head out to Key West and then points north and explore some of the shallow anchorages, do a bit of swimming and dinghy exploration and then return by next Friday for a trip back home to take care of business. We should be returning early March for more exploration, and then start the trip back home once it has warmed up a bit. It is still a tad chilly.

Another Pedestrian Day in Paradise

OK, so being really laid back now, and finding that reading a book is basically unblogworthy, finally something of note has happened. Phyllis rented a car to go to Miami to see Jennifer, get new glasses and go bonkers buying stuff, while I stayed on the boat for the weekend. This suited me fine (since I find shopping as enjoyable as being tortured with boiling oil and rats), and was basically a good move since a big storm blew through with 35 kt winds, which required some adjustments to the moorings of both boats until things calmed down. Everything and everybody survived just fine, although I was cold and wet for a while.

We had to return the car to the Marathon Airport by 12:30, which we did, and then the big blogworthy moment: we said, hey, let's walk back to the marina!! OK, you say, what is the big deal? Well, the walk back is about 6 miles. No biggie, we thought, we will take it easy and browse our way back, checking out all the shops and other establishments of interest (that is politically correct lingo for Tiki Bars). Hey, why not, it's 5 o'clock somewhere, to coin a completely original phrase???

The first thing to note is that Marathon is a really long island and very narrow, so everything is located on the highway that joins Key West to the mainland. By walking down this road, you get to see everything. Lots of old private motels, several of which advertise "the cleanest rooms in paradise", which is probably a clue to the major issue of staying there. Lots of old, non-chain restaurants. We stopped for lunch at Stout's, excellent BLT of 4 bucks. Lots of boarded up ex-businesses. Hard to tell if they'd been that way due to the recession, the last hurricane, or the one before.

After lunch we passed Luanne's Wine and Cheese Bar. Ah, temptation. Remembering that without temptation, there is no virtue, we lingered at the door, smelling the roses so to speak- and virtue was triumphant!! Keep walking, one mile down and 5 to go. After several shop stops, totally unmemorable, more boiling oil and rats, we passed the Brass Monkey. More bloody virtue. I'm beginning to think, if I keep this up, I can probably run for public office, take a bunch of bribes and kickbacks, and retire to the Keys- such are the rewards of virtue. Deja Vu, what is going on here, we are stopping at Barnacle Barney's Tiki Bar on the bay side for a libation.

Now the hard reality sets in. Wearing flip-flops and Crocs (respectively), we had not exactly feathered our walking nest. Once settled into that nice comfy bar stool, cold adult beverage of choice in hand, we realized that the feet were not exactly in shape for the Olympics. Also we realized that despite our advancing years, we were the youngest people there. The Tiki Bar was next to the pool, and the acres of wrinkled flesh and bloated abdomens was a sight that should make the front page of some medical journal on geriatrics. There are a lot of really old people in Florida. They should change the motto from "The Sunshine State", to "The State of Wrinklies: where the young serve the old". One drink, and we are gone.

Luckily Porky's Tiki Bar was just down the road. Hard a-starboard into this delightful step back in time. With the wafting aroma of various pork products being gloriously smoked, we sat down again to sip yet another adult beverage and contemplate how to navigate the last half mile back to the marina. Two problems: 1) the feet did not want to move, and 2) we had to cross the highway to get back to the marina. One and two did not represent a symbiotic relationship, particularly considering that we had about four bags of purchased loot that we were carrying, and several drinks under the belt.

While #1 was not life threatening, #2 definitely was. It was now after 5pm and the traffic was pretty much non-stop going both ways, and of course, there is not a single protected cross walk for miles: you just pick your moment and run like heck hoping to outpace Detroit's finest in threading the needle. Under normal circumstances this would be a stressful event. But after a few key West Lagers, piece of cake. While we actively debated whether it was better to look-and-run, or, not-look-and-run, a very nice gap appeared allowing us to stroll across. Like I said, piece of cake. The good Lord looks after fools and drunks, so I guess we must qualify somewhere in that continuum.

One last note- the weather is still chilly, 50s and 60s, but at least the wind has abated today and it is nice to not be rocking around and getting rained on. Paradise has it's moments. Life has it moments. Great if you can connect the dots.

Dinghy Day

Finally!!! A break in the wind. After days of it blowing, the wind dropped in the wee hours of this morning giving us a respite from being awakened continually during the night to strange sounds. Of course, being semi-comatose, we slept in. Yeah team!!

Even though it was a bit chilly for these parts, everyone emerged and went into busy bee mode, especially all the cruisers readying for the run to the Bahamas tomorrow. This gave us the bright idea of blowing up the dinghy, attaching the outboard, and checking out Boot Key Harbor where about 100 cruisers are located on mooring balls in front of the Marathon City Marina. Putt-putting through the moored fleet is quite an interesting experience. The boats fall into two fairly distinct categories: neat and cluttered. The neat boats are tidy, everything in its place and without an abundance of "stuff" on deck. The cluttered are the antithetis: just about everything you could ever want is piled and lashed on the decks. It starts with multiple 5-gallon jerry cans of fuel, then bicycles (compulsory to qualify in category), a blown up dinghy on the foredeck, and (for extra points) washing pinned to the life lines to dry. We even saw one that appeared to have a canvas out-house cantilevered out over the transom. On closer examination, it appeared to be an enclosure housing a large pet bird. Having a keen observational skill set, it is noted that the really cool old wooden schooners, the boats of unique or custom origin, and the sailboats of less than 30 ft length floating abnormally low to their intended lines invariably qualify as in the cluttered category.

We did find two fairly large dinghy docking areas where one could tie up and go up to the shops and stores. This was good to know in that will save a 2 mile walk each way. On returning from our dinghy adventure, we opined that where we are staying at Marathon marina is probably as nice or nicer than its competition, and from the looks of the competing waterside establishments, we probably have the nicest restaurant on site. So to celebrate, we dined out and captured a really spectacular Keys sunset to cap off a very nice day. Oh yes, and by tomorrow night the wind will be back and many of our cruiser friends will be pulling into the Bahamas.

Wind, Wind and more Wind

Greetings from your idle to semi-comotose intrepid cruisers at Marathon Marina. Life here has been very relaxing except for the wind. Correction: the very strong wind. It has been blowing now for two days, whistling in the rigging, healing the boat under bare poles and grinding the fender boards against the dock pilings. Both boats are tied up along side a sea wall with wooden pilings at regular intervals and are oriented basically north-south. The wind last night was gusting over 35 kts out of the west, and after several sleepless hours and journeys on deck to check the boats, it mercifully rounded to the north so that the battering against the pilings was finally relieved.

With the dawn, the wind did not abate and with the evening actually started backing to the west again, so back to the grinding again. The one interesting note was that the people here who are waiting for their weather window to make the crossing to the Bahamas are getting excited. The idea is that once this storm blows through, they will have their long awaited weather window to make the crossing. The normally quiet docks thus transformed into people on a mission. Provisioning, trips to Costco for frozen stuff, canvas work and all the stuff that had been blown off now becomes a priority. Hey!!! What happened to that rule about it being illegal to be in a hurry when you are in the Keys????

The lift off window will be this Friday, so it will be very interesting to patrol the docks and see who goes and who stays. The Passage Weather website predicts a very narrow corridor between the current storm, and the one that follows. Still, these people have been here for a while (2 months), and it seems to be getting personal. More on the drama as it unfolds.

Pete is off on a family vacation skiing in the Rockies, although going to Maryland could be a similar experience. We had planned to head back around this time to close on the property we are trying to purchase, but the record snow falls have made it impossible for all the inspections to be completed, so we are delayed, and remain here in the wind and relative warmth. Normally the Keys at this time of year enjoy temperatures around 75. At the moment it is in the 50's and 60's, so, like I say, it is all relative.

Lazy Weekend and Road Trip

We spiffed up the boat in preparation for our daughter Jennifer and her boyfriend Bruno (who live and work in Miami) to come and spend the weekend with us. From the marina it is hard to know what Marathon actually looks like, so we took their car and did a tour. Actually, Marathon looks quite historic, which is a politically correct way of saying that its kind of run down and in need of paint, polish and general repair. There are several tiki bars and stores, but life along the main street looks considerably inferior to the waterfront at the many marinas. Still very laid back, so that is a consistency. Our "laid-back" meter transitioned from low to idle sometime yesterday, indicating that this place does have an effect on you. I am wondering when comatose starts?

Since it was fairly cold (50's and 60's) and very windy, with 4-6 ft seas outside due to a front passing through the night before, we cancelled sailing plans in favor of land exploration. On Sunday we headed off to Key West, about 45 miles, to stroll Duval Street which is the main attraction there. Key West is also home to the most southerly point in the US, a thriving cigar industry, more bars than you can count, lots of touristy shops with risque T-shirts, and a modern cruise ship dock area. The place was bustling and we enjoyed a nice lunch in one of the many cafes that compete for space with the bars (losing battle).

Marina Life in Marathon- Friday February 5th

Pete left early this morning to check out the rain and snow that is hammering the northeast at the moment. Rob and Phyllis completed their first day flying solo by logging some serious leisure time, catching up on emails, reading and generally goofing off.

The marina is populated with about 100 boats with many as transient cruisers like us. They all stop to chat and exchange boat stories, where they are from, and how (like us) they stopped here for an overnight and elected to stay a while. One guy has been here two years!!! That is not the norm however, most stay about 3 months. Everyone is very friendly and the cruisers all connect via VHF Channel 68 at 9am each morning to announce activities, organize parties, and swap stories.

So far we have been told in no uncertain terms that it is illegal in the Keys to be in a hurry. I was walking down to the shower and it took about an hour to get there due to all the stops for random conversation. Sunday is the Super Bowl, and everyone has been invited to Banana Bay to hang out and have a watching party.

Sundown is a ritual occasion. Several very gnarly dudes (they all look like retired members of the Grateful Dead) congregate at the end of the dock and blow conch trumpets as the golden orb descends and extinguishes in a green flash. The rest of us sit in the open air bar and toast the occasion with Key West lagers- very like the local Yeungling we enjoy in Maryland.

Saying this place is laid back does not do it justice- if time stopped these people would never know it. Our remark was, "so this is what retirement is all about!!" As they say, the problem with doing nothing is figuring out when you are done.

Moored Marathon, FL

After a quiet night at the Marina in Marathon, we took stock of our plans. Considering the time we had available, the costs of docking in Key West, and the relative idillic conditions here in Marathon, we have decided to moor the boat here for our home trips.

We met the Marina owner. He is a retired Coast Guard Officer who has just purchased the place and is renovating as fast as he can.

So we will make our homeleave trips and this will be our point of origin for our trip up the west coast of Florida when Jan comes back with me on the 19th of Feb.

I close for now and Rob will start recounting about life in the Keys living in and operating out of a marina.

The pictures above are of the Manatee who lives in the marina, our boats, and the Sunset View of the Marina Restaurant.

Miami to Key Largo

We now can see the bottom. We have left the brown water and mirk for clear salt water.

Today's cruise from Miami to Key Largo was great. Wind was light and the Biscayne Bay was glass. We stopped at what was going to be our overnight, but decided to move on down the road as it was in need of a bit of repair. We settled on an anchorage in "Sunset Cove" off Key Largo.

It was very nice. This is photo of sunset from Sunset Cove.

During the night a cold front moved on thru and we found ourselves in a bouncy condition at daybreak. But underway the conditions got much better and by noon the wind had moderated to about 10 knots.

Today is the day we cross into the Atlantic to make the run to Marathon. This four hour run was punctuated by hundreds of crab pots. We thought that after the Albermarle we were done with crabpots. But, not to be.

We arrived in Marathon in early afternoon and began to clean off the boat in preparation for the last run Key West.

But we had to admit, this was a very nice stop....

Miami to the Florida Keys

It's Tuesday morning and the weather is wonderful. Water temp and air temp are 72 degrees.

At 7:07 we got underway into Biscane Bay and are enroute to Jewfish Creek for our first stop heading for Key West. Everything is spectacular, but we could use some wind. Maybe tomorrow.

DelRay Beach, FL to Miami, FL

We made it to Miami. An amazing day.

We left the ICW side dock "marina" - more like a fuel stop. When we arrived at 4:45 Sunday, the help had already closed up. A fellow sailor helped us tie up. Tides were almost 7 feet. Our batter boards were invaluable to protect the hull. We waited until 7:15 and the operators still did not show up. We left phone numbers for them to call to get paid for the docking fee.

Our early morning bridge openings were difficult and not timely. Our first bridge was four minutes late (I think he was on the phone and forgot us) and because of that we missed the next bridge time. We changed tactics and had Phyllis make the calls for us. That seemed to get a much better response and we started getting a little more consideration on our arrival times. This meant that we would make an opening even if we were one or two minutes behind. That helped.

As we left Fort Lauderdale, I noted a red cell of rain approaching on XM Weather. Then I heard on the radio about 6 inches per hour rain in Miami and flash flooding. Just as we began crossing Miami harbor, the violent cell struck. It was the hardest rain I have ever seen. A complete fresh water "boat wash". No more salt onboard now.

We capped the day by passing under the Julia Tuttle 56 foot high bridge. This is a strange bridge because almost all ICW bridges were built to the 65 foot standard. But not this one.

With a two knot current pushing me thru, I crawled under the bridge with one foot clearance.

With that done, we passed thru the Venetian Bridge which was the last of the 37 bridges on the ICW Florida route.

In the rain we docked at Miami's Miamarina in downtown Miami.