While in Marathon, Sonja and I went to the Miami boat show and experienced the entire realm of boating big time. The size of the boats are unimaginable, from small to Mega yachts that have small power boats poised on top of their decks. It's always interesting to look at all the gadgets the industry has come with since the last boat show we visited in St Pete.

While we were at the boat show we ran into an old friends from Tallahassee that keeps his boat in Panama City at the Marina where we used to live. As usual, he was constantly pre-occupied with business and this is how we left him.

Another side trip with the rental car was a trip to Key Largo to the "Rain Barrel" where a number of local artist and sculptures worked and displayed their creations. Here are some pictures of the work that fascinated us.

Marathon on the ball was very economical and enjoyable but I must say the weather through March was rather cool to say the least. A wise person once said," It's not the boat or location but the people" and I find that very true. Through out our stay in Marathon we met all sorts of interesting people with interesting stories. All of them are enjoying their life's dream of cruising and breaking the ties to life on Terra Firma with its associated stresses at least for six months.

Here are a few people that would let us take their picture. The first picture is Dennis and Betty in "Son of a Sailor", next is Bill who is sailing the seven seas and next is Jim and his wife Connie who were heading to Exumas in their 50' Beneteu and another good cruising friend is Jim and Sharon in a trawler named "My Blue Angel" that is actually heading to Alabama and will be staying temporaryly at our dock in Panama City, where they will have the use of our car and plenty of power to charge their batteries and run their AC.

Spending the winter in Marathon can run you out of things to do without a car. Your world is only a far as your feet will take you. Fortunately for us our feet could take us across the street to a Pig race held in benefit of a needed family. Their must have been 200 people at this pig race not only betting on their favorite pig, but enjoying of all things BBQ pork ribs and all the fixings and beer for $20 @ head.

The end of March Sonja and I headed up Hawk's Channel and anchored once again off of Rodriguez Key, and as before, anchored all by our lonesome on the wrong side as the wind shifted into the SE during the night. Fortunately the winds were 10 kts and only produced a gentle swell from the sea. Many boats we met in Bimini were also anchored in Rodriguez that night but were on the North side (we wondered where everyone one went).

The next morning we sailed to No Name Harbor in Key Biscayne for only one night for really two important reasons. First reason was there was a major tennis tourney, the Sony-Ericsson at Cranton park and the second reason was my raw water pump for our Genset began to leak water from the shaft seal (which is never good).

So the next morning off to Crandon State Park on the Northern tip of Key Biscayne and into a slip that I reserved at their beautiful Marina. After tying up the boat I looked up the closest Westerbeke dealer, Anchor Marine, and asked if they would overhaul the raw water pump. After a short taxi ride into Little Havana in Miami I was talking to the owner of Anchor Marine. i explained my problem and told him my taxi was waiting for me outside. He told me to send the taxi on its way and have a seat, he would overhaul the pump while I waited. That was unbelievable service I received from them folks and I would recommend them to anyone needing fine marine service in the immediate area.

I returned to the boat around four and had the pump installed by five freeing me up for the nights match between Federer and Rodrick. The walk to the tennis facility is not a short walk but winds along a beautiful highway for over a mile and half. For the following three days Sonja and I walked the path each day and enjoyed every minute of the natural beauty that it provided.
Crandon State Park was approximately 6.0 miles from the Key Biscayne channel but was very familiar since I had recently came through and had a track located on my GPS. Since we were leaving the slip on Monday and wanted to be five miles offshore by sunrise, that meant we had to leave Crandon at five in the morning which is pitch black early. I had complete trust in our GPS so I knew it would be reliable and so off we went through the darkness towards No Name where there must have been 10 boats with not visible anchor light anchored outside of the harbor. Sending Sonja to the bow was the solution for successfully navigating around the anchored boats and on to the open sea.

The crossing was uneventful with seas 3-5' and winds from the SE 10-15 kts. The "Stream" had 2' swells from the NE with long wave lengths so it did not pose a problem. What did pose a problem was that I had to offset my compass course more than 40 degrees making the sails useless. So down came the sails and out went the fishing lures with no luck there either since we were only making 5.4 kts motoring.

It's always nice to see Bimini on the horizon but finding the new Mid-channel was impossible since the channel markers have all been removed. So we had to use the south entrance which is no problem but only added extra time till we were in our slip.

The channel in North Bimini has a very swift moving current and we were coming in on an outgoing tide and making only 3.5 kts. We finally came close enough to the Bluewater resort dock to hear the dockmaster issue our slip assignment. I have been in this slip before and it is very comfortable with a east wind blowing since it blows you away from the finger pier. Nice people work at Bluewater, from the dockmaster right through to the cooks and waitstaff at the marina restaurant. The slip rental is very reasonable at $35 @ night, but the fuel dock was being upgraded when I came in and still was not serviceable when we left three days latter. One other noticeable feature since the last visit to Bluewater was they had replaced all of the docks with new boards and pilings and the fuel dock and subsequent facility looked first class.

One disappointment was that Sonja was not able to connect with the lobster guy that promised her a dozen of fresh lobsters. Lobster season had just closed when we got there but he was still selling them but cash only and we had not made it to the ATM in time to receive our bounty. We'll try to catch him on our return trip.

Pictures of the above will follow.

The Sun comes out in Paradise

Finally the sun is out and it's warming up to an acceptable temperature for us thin skinned folks. Sonja and I have been entertaining our good friends from St Pete for the last week which arrived on the heels of twin cold fronts that plummeted the temps into the 30's and 40's in South Florida. Fortunately for us we were able to salvage the week of outdoor activities with careful planning.

We managed to go sailing one day out to Sombrero reef but as usual the seas were too rough to pickup a mooring ball and snorkel, so we just sat back and enjoyed the sail. Even then with the sky partially covered in clouds it made for a cool afternoon.

The neat thing about Marathon is that all the land and sea activities, restaurants and bars are centered around the Boot Key Harbor and the City Marina and accessible by dinghy. Meaning that you don't necessarily need a car to enjoy the activities you care to pursue. Mike and Sabra play tennis and with the city park with its four tennis courts next door to the Marina, it made tennis a morning ritual. The evenings were spent wearing out the waitstaff at the local pubs during happy hour. Everyone's favorite hangout was Frosty's at the mouth of the Boot Key Harbor where the sunsets are the most spectacular and the service is exceptional. Our special thanks went to Erin and Joey at Frosty's by providing our friends with the most memorably evening of their stay.

On the last day of Mike and Sabra's vacation the weather and temps were warm enough to try and snorkel. So a trip was planned for Sombrero beach and a dinghy ride to Sister Island off shore about a quarter of a mile. Although the first order of the day was to sunbath in the first real warmth of the sun since they had arrived. The temps were around the high 70's but with a 10 kt breeze. I beached the dinghy in the lee of the rock jetty at west end on the beach so we could sunbathe out of the breeze. After about an hour of sun, we all decided to go for the island and check out the water.

The trip out to the Island is tricky and had to watch the water color with the tide being so low. Being there before, I knew we had to follow the channel out to open water before turning towards the island since everything to the west of the channel was shallow sea grass and shoals.

I decide to circumnavigate the Island to anchor the dinghy on the lee side that just had a gentle roll rather than the chop the wind was generating.

Mike and Sabra came prepared with full wet suits and boots for the cold water. Sabra had a hood but Mike did not. Sonja and I after feeling the water decided it was way to cold for us so we sat back and watch our friends enjoy what they have been looking forward to doing since arriving here on their vacation. they happily swam away looking for treasure. Twenty five minutes latter they came back with a beautiful Queen conch shell (no live conch inside) as a wonderful reminder of their trip to Marathon. Sabra was still nice and warm, Mike was freezing, so we packed up and went back to the beach for them to wash down and warm up in the sun.

Today was our sad goodbyes for Mike and Sabra, with the promises of rejoining us again in Marsh Harbor, Abaco in late March or early April for some reef diving.

Cold in the Keys

This morning Sonja and I woke up to 50 degree outside air temperature and 64 degree inside cabin temperature. That observation was quickly followed by "Turn on the heater" from under two layers of blankets. It really didn't seem that bad until I went outside to make sure I had good water flow through my reverse cycle air conditioner and I was met with a 15 kt wind in my face. What happen to the balmy breezes?

The resultant weather conditions were caused by a pair of cold fronts that swept the Keys Monday and Tuesday with high winds and rain. On the dark side of this is the fact that I packed up all of our winter clothes and sent them home, but on the bright side of this is that Orlando had 38 degree temps and back home in Panama City they had 30 degree temperatures, so 50 degrees doesn't seem all that bad, besides it will warm up to 68 degrees today and 74 degrees tomorrow.

Well lets talk about projects; The current project is the Lofrans windlass that decided to eat up the two foot switches that were its source of life. So we have not been able to go outside of the harbor and anchor up to clean the bottom because I'm too lazy to gather the anchor rode back on the boat by hand.

So far I've replaced the old plunger type foot switches that incorporated their own solenoids with one control box and two separate foot switches. After lying on my back with my head stuck in the chain locker staring at the under side of the deck I finally finished installing the control box which is the heart of the components. Back on deck in 15 kts of chilly wind I was able to fish the switch wires from below deck (with the help of the admiral and mechanical fingers) and attach them to the foot switch.

I summoned the admiral and ask her to endure one more task; the "Burn test." Reluctantly she agreed to operate the main windlass switch if it wouldn't be too much trouble to fetch her a fire extinguisher to protect her from the flames. Needless to say, I was not impressed with her sarcasm.

Throwing caution to the wind, the admiral turned on the main breaker switch for the windlass and surprisingly, there was no smoke. Next came the important part; to see if the foot switch actually brought the windlass to life. So carefully and without regard for my life, I engaged the foot switch while I held it in my hand. The windlass jumped for joy with no serious burns note. One problem, the windlass was turning the wrong direction for which I had intended since I was pressing the up switch and the windlass was rotating down.

The admiral was summoned with great coxing and promises of gold and perfume at the next topical oasis we visit, to once again go down and fetch me the "Other" wire that I had so keenly marked "Down" so I can connect it to the "Up" foot switch. I explained to the Admiral that a small error on the part of the manufacture lead to the mislabeling of the wiring diagram.

With the wires corrected, the main switch was thrown open again and as I pressed smartly on the foot switch the windlass jump to my command rotating in the proper direction , much to the admiral's surprise. As I called for a celebration on the foredeck and ordered an extra ration of rum for the entire crew, all that I could muster from the admiral (doubling as the rum mister)was a scathing "Whatever."

I was so happy I left the chain locker with wires hanging in every direction and proceeded with my victory "Sundowner" even though it was only 4:00 PM. But Mon, who would care if sundown comes early?

Coming soon will be the scoop on my next project: Red instrument night lights for the pedestal.

Happy Holidays

Christmas holidays in Marathon, Florida. The harbor is getting full of cruisers making their way down for some settled weather from up north. About half from New England and the half from Canada. All of them are very nice people to met and listen to their story. I love stories.

We are fortunate to have guests from St Pete join Sonja and I for the week preceding Christmas. Mike and Sabra spent their first night on our boat (on any boat) Saturday December 20th. We had a great time taking them to all of the dockside restaurants and evening night spots. Mike and Sabra were great guests and we are looking for them to re-join us in late January for our next leg to Miami.

Speaking of experiences, today is my third day of recovering from food poisoning I received when Sonja and I went to a Christmas day dinner at a restaurant across from the Marina. I had grouper and Sonja had Shrimp. When the waitstaff brought the food to the table I smelled something fishy. The rule is if it smells fishy don't eat it. I had the chance to avoid the displeasure of being poisoned, but somehow I forgot the rule and ate the grouper and two hours latter I was sick, sick, sick.

This morning is the first time I could come up topsides and smell the fresh air. Sonja along with Buddy have been on the boat caring for me for three days now, This afternoon I was finally able to board the dink and get them to shore so Buddy could properly relieve himself and Sonja take a shower and wash her hair. That was an experience I really did not need and a lesson I will not forget. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

The weather has been beautiful but very windy (20-25 kts ESE) and not many boats are coming or going. Today is very pleasant and not so windy although there still is a breeze of 15 kts blowing through the harbor, just enough to keep you cool.