The Keys!!!

We had a beautiful day to head for Marathon. Sails out, winds out of the northeast, and finally the beautiful blue-green water (after months of brownish-green). Lots of crab pots were waiting for us, but we managed to avoid them all. The tide was exceptionally low in the Boot Key Harbor mooring field due to the full moon the previous night, so even though it was an area we'd traveled through several times we found a shoal that couldn't accommodate our 6' draft. We were visited by lots of nice dinghies and friendly sailors offering assistance, but ultimately had to wait for higher tides to continue. But we did make it into the marina, hooked up to electricity and water and TV (after a month on the hook), and had a good dinner and happy hour at Dockside. We opted to stay at Dockside Marina for a month, since all the mooring balls are full with a waiting list of 40. Apparently it's a zoo at the city marina (which is in charge of the mooring field), with cold water showers and an actual fist fight over washers/dryers (who likes to do laundry enough to fight over it??). With all the fronts moving through, there's no guarantee anyone will move soon, so we gratefully took the two remaining slips at Dockside.

We're close enough to town to provision on our bikes, which is a good thing since all the soap on the boat has been used to wash out the captain's mouth!

To the Everglades

We left Marco in choppy waters, but it eventually smoothed out and we rolled out the sails! We traveled to a beautiful anchorage in Indian Key (Russell Bay) in the Everglades. Since strong winds were predicted, the captains decided to put out two anchors. While setting anchor #2, we backed over the first anchor line and it wrapped itself thoroughly around the prop. It was a chilly, windy day, but we greased the captain and poked him into his wetsuit (which had shrunk considerably over the past few years). He received a new hookah (sorry, kids, it's for diving) for Christmas, and got a chance to try it out! Thankfully, his dive was successful and no damage was done to either the prop or the line. He did, however, mention a few more new nautical terms.

We went by dinghy into Everglades City the following day, and it was quite an adventure. Since Serendipity's dinghy was incapacitated (floor leaking air), we all rode in Optimystique's dinghy. It's always nice to have a limo and driver, but it makes it a little hard to plane -- we were all drenched by the time we got back from our ride, but still had a good trip (4 miles each way). We walked around the town (which took about 6 minutes), visited the Rod and Gun Club (gorgeous structure), and had lunch in a restaurant that had exactly 2 beers and 4 pieces of Key Lime Pie left. Gotta get there early! Our waitress was very nice, and I bet she would've been even nicer if she'd heard anything we said....

We left Russell Bay to head for Little Shark River (famous for mosquitoes and no-see-ums) to hide from some severe storms. It was another beautiful anchorage, and thankfully it was cold and windy enough to minimize the buggage. We had good protection from the storm, and left after two days for Cape Sable. It was a bumpy day and a pretty bumpy anchorage, but the full moon was absolutely gorgeous and William and POJ saw the green flash at sunset.

Ft. Myers to Marco

The fog finally began to clear when we were offshore, but the day stayed so gray that it was hard to tell the water from the sky (Serendipity is the top photo; Optimystique is the third). But it was smooth and of course good to be moving again.

We encountered a nemesis from an earlier trip, a tiny, innocent-looking crab pot. When we traveled the first time, we snagged a crab pot that resulted in pulling the engine in Marathon and taking it back to TN in a rented truck (because that's where Russ Jones was and he's the diesel genius who rebuilt it for us). This time we snagged the little sucker with the dinghy and it pulled the bridle loose in front, resulting in a dinghy totally full of water (and partially deflated). The captain pulled the dinghy alongside, and got in fully clothed to bail it with a bucket. It would've made a great picture, but the photographer feared being bludgeoned to death with the remaining oar (its mate abandoned ship when a passing yacht who hadn't completed Slow, Courteous Pass Training went by). The Captain used some new nautical terms, but he eventually rigged a new bridle and we towed his little bathtub behind us again.

Off the Mooring Ball, Headed SOUTH!!

We finally had some warm beach weather in Ft. Myers, and got to scamper about in the sand just before we left. We also got to visit with William and POJ's daughter Kathryn, her husband Jim, and their little guys James and Max (the Admiral got a little granny fix).

While we were in Ft. Myers, we of course encountered lots of other boats and lots of other dinghies. One boat was particularly interesting, having been obviously constructed of two boats (complete with a wooden outhouse door with a half-moon). It was named "Freddy Freddy," and we guessed that may have been the wife's response when the Captain showed her his plans. One dinghy in particular caught our interest, because when passengers were aboard, all you could see were passengers with an outboard sticking out the driver's rear. It was hard (make that impossible) not to laugh out loud, especially the time they had FOUR people in it!!

We passed the Matanzas Inn on our way out, where we'd spent many Happy Hours on the top deck overlooking the harbor and using our 2-fer coupons (much to the dismay of our waiter Anthony). It was VERY foggy the morning we left (see Optimystique squinting under the bridge).