A week in the Keys

We decided to rent a car for a week so we could get all of the Christmas stuff done and not wear ourselves and the bikes out.  It has been really nice to have a car.  Both Michelle and I thought that it would be difficult to drive, but it really was not an issue, it was harder driving coming back from driving for years in Europe than not driving at all for a couple of months.  We took a night and went to Key West, staying at the Westin.  Its right in the heart of old Key West, and could not be nicer. 



View from our Hotel Room

 We had a sloppy joe at Sloppy Joes of Hemmingway fame (just like every other bar in the world).  We saw the sunset at Mallory square, along with all of the street performers.  It is considerably better than the one in Clearwater. 

We then topped off the evening with a nice glass of wine in the hot tub.   We went to the "little white house" which was interesting because I had just completed the Candy Bombers, a book Mary bought me about 5 years ago, about the start of the cold war and the Berlin air lift.  They talked about the little white house several times in the book.

We also toured the Mel Fisher museum, he is the man that hunted down a sunken treasure ship, where he found about $400 million in treasure, which the government promptly claimed as theirs.  He fought them in court, and got it all back, including what he had given to them to preserve.  Good to see the little guy can win.

During one of the windiest and perhaps coldest days on record, the film crew and actors filmed a portion of an episode that I believe will air in January of the Amazing Race.  They came in on speedboats at the fuel dock of the marina we are in, and ran down the dock to the end of the road.  My understanding is that the majority of the episode was filmed on Pigeon Key, which is about 2 miles from here, you can almost see it from our slip.  Michelle and I may be in the background, but we did not have a camera with us to take pictures.  All of the marina staff had to sign secrecy agreements, and could not say a word, not that anyone would have come out in that weather anyway.

We got the engine seal leak fixed and began stocking up for the Bahamas run.  We met up with Texas Dreamer again, they are here in Marathon.  The marina they are in had a big grill, so we bought some ribs and had a cook out.

We were able to get up in the middle of the night and watch the lunar eclipse, I did not have the excuse that I had to work in the morning.  For those of you that did not see it, it was pretty incredible.

We took the new dingy out to the seven mile bridge where I caught a mango snapper and some other very ugly fish that jumped off the hook right as I got it next to the boat.  I'm glad it got loose, I would have hated to try and get the hook out of that thing. 

To Marathon

Marco Island
We had to grab a different mooring for the second day in Fort Meyers Beach, as we were aground in the morning.  We switched to #12 and had plenty of depth.  We took the dingy to the dingy dock, which is under the bridge.  The ride was wet, the wind was coming in and the tide was working against it.  We had some bad Mexican food for lunch, and basically froze our rear ends off walking around town again.  I thought it would be warmer in south Florida.  Need to go further south. 

At first light, we headed out of the harbor, the winds were still pretty strong so we elected to sail with just the jib.  It was a nice day.  The Marco Island inlet was a little funky, the channel appeared to be on the beach, but we navigated through it without incident.  We stayed the night at the Marina at Factory bay, which was very nice (and had FREE laundry).  Condos were going for about 1.5 million in the height of the real estate bubble, and were going for about $800k now.  That's quite a hit if you bought on the high end.   Marco island was very nice, it reminded me of Hilton Head island in SC.  All of the signs for businesses were in a certain format, everything very neat and manicured. 

That's one of the things about cruising I did not envision.  We go from places where the wealthy have million dollar second or third homes, and everything appears perfect to public places where the homeless congregate and collect aluminum cans.  That change takes place within a 24 hour period, a walk through a gate, or a trip to the laundry mat.  We are living a little in both worlds, no car, no washer and dryer, so we walk with the homeless - and dine with the wealthy (some days). 

Last Leg to Marathon
We left Marco Island at 7am, which is about as early as we can and still see the channel markers.  I retraced the path I came in on, and bumped a little coming out of factory bay.  The tide was running out at about 2.5 knots, so it was going to be a little tricky.  We came to the marks that appeared to be on the beach, and I turned back towards the inlet so that I would not be pulled out of the channel.  While I was clearly in the channel, we hit the sand hard enough to bring the back end up about a foot and turn the boat sideways.  I reved up the engine and push hard up current, and managed to free us.  It was the hardest grounding we have taken to date.  Michelle later said that she was certain we would deploy the unlimited tow feature of our Boat US membership. 

Once we cleared the furthest the main channel mark we headed due south, to avoid the shoaling in the 1000 island area.  The day was supposed to be 10 knot winds so we put the main up, and part of the jib.  The wind continued to build to about 20, so our leisurely day on the water turned into an aggressive run.  We were doing at least 9 knots for the first five hours of the day, even though the knot meter is not working, presumably due to fouling.  The wind died down later in the day, to the point were we had to motor sail to get to Little Snake River by nightfall.  It was a long day, almost 60 nm, in about 9 hours.  We were concerned about depth in the river here, but at high tide, it was not at all an issue.   The little snake river is "the entrance" to the Everglades, and it is as untouched as I have seen, nothing but mangrove trees line the river, no civilization anywhere close, and the only place to put in between Marco Island and Marathon.  The boat is covered in salt, and somewhat of a wreak, we need some time to recover.  Marathon tomorrow - I think both Michelle and I will have a great feeling of accomplishment when we get there. 

Marathon (not really)
The forecast looked good when we went to bed 10 knot northerly breeze warming temperatures, but in the morning...  The weathernator (as we call the automated weather service over the VHF) Wind at the Dry Tortuga's is 35 knots, Marathon, 20 knots and very gusty, rain small craft advisories for the entire region.  We decided to stay put one more day.  Emily and Hannah had a good day of school, and we will make the final passage tomorrow.....the forecast sounds good.

Marathon.
We set sail out of Little Snake River as soon as the sun came up with a nice fresh breeze at our backs.  Once we rounded the mark due south we were able to set a course for the first mark at Marathons north entrance.  We were able to set the cruising spinnaker for the first time this trip, a beautiful sight.

 I was a little concerned about the depth, which has become a bit of a neurosis, but no problem today.  We went through he section of the bridge where they filmed True Lies, and under the new bridge.  We have a good slip in a nice marina, The Marathon Marina and Boat Yard, and we will be here for the holidays. 

Removed section of the old Seven Mile Bridge

Dolphin Watching

It is a bit of a bike ride to the store, but we can make it.  They had a nice wine tasting Friday night, and we met some other cruisers.  The girls have cable, with all of the stations.  Saturday evening was the boat parade, some really creative designs, after the lead boat went past all of the boats turned down and went past our boat, in the wrong direction.  We watched the remainder of the parade from our cockpit, and the boats were only about 20 feet away.  We decorated the Diamond for Christmas.  We have been watching the weather on the TV, the metro dome in Minneapolis collapsed, I think the keys will be OK for Christmas. 

View from Diamond in Marathon, at the dock

Sarasota to Fort Meyers Beach

Sarasota
The anchorage at Sarasota was very nice.  It was a short dingy ride to the beach, and the Tiki bar, O'leary's, allowed boaters to use their beach and dock, provided you made a purchase.  We got into a routine of dingying in, having a cup of coffee in the morning.  There was a large park surrounding the marina, Marina Jacks.  I must admit, I developed some boat envy.  There are some beautiful boats there.   There is a very nice downtown area, more art shops than I have seen since we were in Venice, Italy.  A nice Whole Foods where we got a few things, kinda expensive, but high quality.

The second day we went to the Ringling Museum, I had been there as a child, but it was a very different experince.  The girls loved the miniature circus, which was an enormous model with about 2" figures of every concievable detail of the traveling show.  It took up at least 4,000 square feet. 

The gardens were beautiful, and we saw banyon trees with roots growing down from the branches.  Most people know these kinds of trees from the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse at Disney, which is constructed from this image. 

John Ringlings house overlooks Sarasota Bay (where we passed the day before).  It was unbelievable, it was the envy of everyone in the day.  He donated it in death to the city, along with his art collection.  The circus was the entrertaiment of the day, about 15,000 people traveling from one destination to another by train.  The charge was a dollar, which meant he grossed about $25,000 a day, or $9 million a year, Not bad in the early 1900's. 

He ammassed a huge collection of primarily 17th century European art, and most of the works were more vibrant that what we saw when we lived in Europe.  There was also a large exibit of tapestries on loan from an Italian museum, and we got a detailed explaination of Reamus and Romulos, whose story was woven into the works, no pictures.

After we got back to the boat, we put on one of our favorate CD's, Natalie Cole, doing remakes of songs her father, Nat King Cole sang.  We got a glass of wine and began to wind down.  She got to a line I had not paid much attention to before in Paper Moon.  "It's a Barnum & Bailey world, just a phony as it can be".  It may have been phony, but he did well by it. 

Venice
There was a front coming through the day we wanted to leave, but we were going to be in the ditch all day, so we did not think it would be an issue.  We weighed anchor, well almost, and the hose from the washdown pump knocked the chain off the windlass at the same time the wind picked up to about 35 knots, so we were not anchored, and not freed.  Michelle took the wheel, and I hoisted the anchor manually.  We could not be even in the intercoastal with these winds without an anchor.  We head for $2.25/foot/night, Marina Jack, and tied up.  Just one little scratch from the 35 knot cross winds. 
Venice (really this time)

We left in the morning from Marina Jacks, and headed to Venice.  It was a very nice trip.  The bridge tenders are significantly better here than what we had been dealing with.  They answer on the radio, and give clear, good instruction.  We had dolphins swimming so close to the boat we had to lean over the rail to see them.  We tied up at the Crows nest, and walked to the beach.  Our cruising guide said there were sharks teeth on the beach here, but we did not see them.  Edisto Beach, South Carolina its not.  The girls had cable again, so we told them we were going to the pub for a drink.  They had two guitarists playing who were really good, and we struck up a conversation with some of the locals.  They insisted on buying us some key lime pie, which was excellent.  We had a very enjoyable evening.

To Pelican Bay (Not really)
We headed out with Second Wind, to Pelican Bay.  We had some leftover seas to contend with, but it was a good day sailing.  We went through the pass, and entered Pelican Bay.   We got pretty deep into the bay before we hit ground, I managed to get the boat turned around and tried to retrace my steps, but I must have been perfect on the way in, and I could not find that water again.  I decided to employ full horse power prior to using the unlimited tow feature of my Boat US membership, it was enough to get us out of there.   We left Second Wind behind.

Plan B, was Cabbage Key, a small island which a couple of slips,  They lied about the approach depths, so we bumped along to the slip, but with low tide in the morning, we were not going anywhere early.  They had a nice hiking trail and a little pub that doubled as the dockmasters office.  About $50k in one dollar bills on the walls.

They had a sign prohibiting almost everything but spending money. No Pets, No unfolding of T shirts unless you are buying it, No refunds, No trash, No etc.  There was one I could agree with in principal.

 St. James City
We set out for a short trip at about noon to St. James City.  The trip was uneventful, and there was tons of room in deep water to anchor.  With three boats in a two mile stretch, one of the local power boats made it very clear they did not want us there, by passing all three boats including ours within about 5 feet throwing a huge wake.  Apparenty this gentelmen felt that he owns that patch of water.  I was prepared for another pass with a jug of sour milk, but he did not come back.  There were a lot of dolphins all around, even at night you could hear them breathing and splashing about. 
Staying put (Not Really)

The plan was to stay put for a day or two and wait for a cold front to blow through, we had a significant debate about going on to Marco Island.  There was no wind, and it was only about 36 miles.  We decide to go, we could always stop at Fort Meyers beach which is what we decide to do.  We got assigned a mooring inside the harbor, and went for a nice walk downtown.  The current here is even more than the Riglots, so I am glad we have a mooring rather than anchoring.  When the front passes, we will be heading to Marco Island, the Little Snake River, and then Marathon for the holidays.