Jan 22nd -Jan 26th: - News from Marathon’s Boot Key Harbor (Marathon, Fl. Keys)

The new engine on our hard bottom dinghy is proving its worth.  The dinghy is our taxi from our mooring buoy in Boot Key Harbor into the City dinghy dock.  The fiberglass bottom and inflatable sides of this dinghy that came with the boat purchase is a big step up from the all-inflatable that we used with our other boats in the past.  The only drawback is that we are exposed to the weather and must plan our travel to dry land accordingly.  We routinely carry foul weather gear with us just in case of rain.   Unlike NC, if you leave home in clear skies here, you might encounter rain 20 minutes later, and it might stop in five minutes – or not.  There is a large community room ashore with tables, Wi-Fi, TVs, bath house, laundry room and restrooms.   The City of Marathon has done this up right and caters to the traveling boaters.  Actually, they want our money!  Water is 5 cents a gallon.

Our water taxi to shore and restaurants

Tuesday morning the water was the calmest since we arrived last Thursday so we took a dinghy ride for 2 miles to Knights Key at the foot of the 7-mile bridge.  This is where our friends, Marla and Al from Cocoa, FL., will be staying next week in their motorhome.  The ride entailed going out into open water to the Atlantic Ocean and became rough before we made landfall at Knights Key.  The wind and seas were coming up for the day so I thought it prudent to turn back to protected water several hundred yards short of our destination.  We had been going with the waves and we knew that the return ride was not going to be a totally dry experience.  On the way back to the boat we checked out several marinas in case we tired of buoy life.  All were full for January.  We did stop at Burdines Marina for lunch at their tiki bar/restaurant because we heard that they have the best burger in town.  The scuttle was right – they did.

200 sailboats and only 25 to 30 powerboats



Caught napping on the first calm and warm afternoon



Wednesday morning we ventured to the other end of the harbor in the dinghy and made it to Publix, a thirty-two minute walk by foot once we get to dry land.  Unfortunately, there is no place to tie up the dinghy at the Publix site.  Too bad - only a 10 minute dinghy ride.

A cold front came through last night.  We had forewarning via the VHF radio on the weather service channels that said we would be hit after midnight.  Sure enough, at 12:15 high winds; I mean really high winds, came up.  Our boat weaves and wanders all over in high winds when at anchor or on a buoy.  The high canvas and flybridge act like a 17 foot high sail in the wind gusts.  Actually we move all over even in light winds.  We have gotten used to the constant gyrations.  When we go ashore and focus on one spot on a wall, the wall looks like it is rotating.  So we just don’t focus on stationary objects when ashore.  Anyway, along with the wind came heavy rain and lightning.  We watched the storm from the flybridge until lightning hit close and we scooted for the aft cabin.  The storm didn’t seem so severe from our cozy cabin.  

What the weather did next you don't want to know.

It seems that the cool weather and high winds have followed us south for 800 miles.  I have only been in shorts and a t-shirt 6 or 7 days in our 2 ½ months of travel.  The next several days will only be in the mid-sixties here.  That is 12 degrees below the norm for the Keys.  I spoke with our friend Sam in Charlotte today and he said that it is the coldest there in all his 15 or so years of living in the area.  So, we will accept the chilly 60’s with pleasure and feel sorry for our friends at home.

There is culture here.  We walked about a half mile to a small live community theatre Sunday afternoon and watched the play “A Bad Year for Tomatoes”.  Although we enjoyed the play, we were very aware that Davidson Players and The Warehouse provide pretty exceptional community theater back home, compared to the Marathon selection.   Next door to that is a movie theatre and we plan to go see “True Grit” tomorrow evening as the weather is supposed to improve by then, i.e. No rain.  We also bought tickets for a music fest that will take place this weekend.  We hope we can dinghy to that.  The local library is having a used book sale and Colleen hit the jackpot there today.  For two dollars you can fill a bag they give you with books from their back room.  Fun!  Fun!  Fun!

We have had a catastrophic failure of our inverter/ charger!  This is a 200 watt inverter that runs from two high power golf cart batteries.  With it we can run the TV (if we could pick up anything other than TV Marti, the US broadcast to Cuba), Colleen’s sewing machine, the microwave, and anything else that plugs into an outlet on the boat.  No sound, no generator running.  It recharges the batteries when we do run the generator to cook or to just recharge.   We smelled a burning electrical smell early Saturday as the batteries were re-charging.  Later when running the generator again, the inverter blew out with a loud bang and a lot of awful smelling smoke. Colleen was out the door in a flash – then realized there was nowhere to go unless she planned to dive off the back of the boat.  On Monday we spoke with Xantrex, the manufacturer, and several hours later the 65 pound inverter was placed in  our big laundry bag, loaded into the dinghy, unloaded from the dinghy at the dock,  placed into a taxi and was shipped UPS to Elkhart, IN. for evaluation.  We surely miss it!

We are living in a community of anchored out boaters.  On shore they are conspicuous for their back packs and bicycles.  We’ve walked about two miles east and two miles west over the past five days along highway US1.  During one of Wayne’s walks both directions in the same afternoon he passed by a junk store on his way to West Marine.  There were several bikes out front, one of which looked to be in good condition.  After a test ride and some negotiation, Wayne rode on to West Marine on his new, old $30 bike.  On his way back, one pedal broke, so Wayne stopped at the same shop and negotiated for a new set of pedals.  I, Wayne say that the bike is red.  However, no man is going to steal this bike as it has faded and looks quite pink (fuchsia) now.  With a cable and lock from the boat and a couple of plastic bags over the foam padded seat, it sits ashore with the other 700 bikes in the bike racks at the City docks.

Wayne on his newest Corvette!