January 31, 2009 – Marathon, Florida Keys

Wow - it's taken a long time to get this post done! For the longest time there wasn't anything to write about, and then we seemed to get busy and didn't have time! Anyway, here goes....

We had to wait until Thursday Jan 22 for the weather to improve enough that we could leave Cape Coral. In the meantime we continued on with school and regular daily life. On Sunday Jan 18, some new friends, Paul and Roseanne, that have a boat in the marina and a condo in Cape Coral took us to Sanibel Island to explore the Ding Darling Wildlife sanctuary. It was a great place with lots of birds and beautiful mangroves. There is a guided drive through the park and we spent 2 or 3 hours looking at the birds and walking around. We saw Roseated Spoonbills for the first time – like flamingos they turn pink because of the food they eat. After we finished at the park we drove to the north end of Sanibel and watched a spectacular sunset. We finished the day with supper at Doc Ford’s restaurant.
On Thursday Jan 22 we finally said Goodbye to Cape Coral. We left around 10:00 so that the tide had a chance to come up a bit. It was still really shallow going out the channel and we touched bottom, but we didn’t get stuck. We pulled into Glover Bight and Tarpon Springs marina to get some fuel and were on our way again by about 11:00. There was a light wind and it was a lovely day although the wind was chilly. We headed north up Pine Island Sound and were accompanied by lots of dolphins swimming alongside of us and in out bow wave. It was an uneventful trip and we arrived were anchored off Cabbage Key, near Cayo Costa around 4:00. We set off to explore in the dinghy – we’d heard about a neat canal and lagoon on Cayo Costa and we thought we’d see if we could find it. We think we found where it was, but the water was really shallow. There wasn’t even enough water to row the dinghy, let alone use the motor, and around 5:00 we decided to give up and head back to the boat. It was really pretty cold going back in the dinghy. On Friday we headed back to Cayo Costa, but this time we decided to go to the dock. Cayo Costa is a state park and the only way to get there is by boat. There are campsites and cabins on the island, but no power. There is a trolley that takes you about a mile across the island to the beach on a sandy trail. We had a great walk on the beach and found lots and lots of shells and sand dollars. We caught the 12:00 trolley back to the dock and then dinghied back to the boat. The kids had a quick swim while Dave did a couple of things to the engine. The water was really cold! We weighed anchor around 1:30 and headed south again down to Fort Myers Beach. We picked up a mooring in Fort Myers Beach and dinghied to shore with Rudder to watch the sunset. We walked around town a bit and looked for a place to go for supper but in the end we went back to boat instead of eating out. On Saturday we left Fort Myers Beach and went to Naples. It was our first time off shore in months! Fortunately it was a beautiful calm day. The Gulf of Mexico was beautifully smooth. We got to Naples early in the afternoon. The waterway around Naples was really busy with lots of people enjoying a sunny weekend. One boat passed us going way too fast and sent us really rocking. We went to the City Dock in Naples and got tied up. Kristen and I took Rudder for a walk and watched the fishing guides filleting the fish they had caught in the morning charters. They are amazingly quick! The pelicans have a great time catching the scraps the fishermen through away. We had a great walk in Naples and then went for supper at the Dock restaurant right by the marina. On Sunday, Annie and I went for a long walk to the grocery store to get some snacks and something for supper. We had decided that the best way to get to the Florida Key from Naples was to go overnight and arrive in the morning. This whole coast is very shallow and there are very limited placed to anchor. We had a quiet day and pulled away from the dock around 3:00. Once again it was a beautiful day with light winds and calm seas. We had supper as the sun went down and the girls and Dave saw some dolphins jumping in the distance. The overnight went really well. Biggest problem was when we did a shift change at 3:00am I could see all kinds of red lights flashing in the distance. This would have been fine if we had seen red flashing buoys on the chart, but we couldn’t find anything anywhere to indicate what they were. We were still 20 miles or more to shore. It was really strange and very disconcerting Florida Bay is very shallow and subject to shoaling. After watching the lights together for half an hour or so, we decided they weren’t getting any closer and Dave went down for a rest. Eventually we figured out that the lights are towers on the Keys and we were seeing them from over 20 miles away. We arrived at the shallow channel that leads to the high point under the bridge around 6:00am as planned. It was still pretty dark but we were able to find all the channel markers. Good thing too as we were seeing as little as 6’ on the depth sounder. We went under the bridge that put us on the South side of the Florida Keys and then headed a little East to get to Boot Key harbour and the town of Marathon. Marathon is about 50 miles from Key West.
We had to pass under an opening bridge, and the bridge tender was really nice. He wasn’t sure if there would be any moorings available – this was a real surprise to us as we knew there were over 200 moorings in Marathon. We called the marina, and after they checked, they were able to find one for us. We had planned to meet Chris and Penny from Carpe Diem (the folks we crossed from NS to Maine with) in Marathon, and the funny thing was that the mooring they assigned us was right in front of Carpe Diem!
We had a quiet day after a long night. Dave and I walked through Marathon to the grocery store but it was a pretty uneventful day. We had a quick visit from Joe and Mary Beth on Pot of Gold that are from PEI. Hopefully we’ll be able to get together with them again. We took some pictures of Chris and Penny to accompany the article that Chris is having published in Cruising World in May!
On Tuesday it was back to school. Chris and Penny had to take Carpe Diem down to the marina to be taken out of the water as they had hit a rock (quite hard). After school the girls and I dinghied down to the marina to see Chris and Penny and to go to West Marina to exchange the light for the dinghy that wasn’t working. They found a great motel with an efficiency unit and invited us to come down for a swim in the pool.
On Wednesday we spent the morning on school, and in the afternoon we took the dinghy to the beach. It is a great beach and the water was warm enough for swimming. Finally we found a beach where Rudder was welcome and that was great too! The kids found pieces of coral on the beach. Unfortunately the water wasn’t all that clear as it has been quite windy and stirred up a lot of sand. We ran out of time and didn’t make it down to Chris and Penny’ for a swim. There was a potluck at the marina so we went down there for supper and met some more travelers. This is a very busy place!
On Thursday we did school again. Dave finally adjusted the motor mount that has been worrying him since November (some things he did in Cape Coral helped him to figure out how to do it…) In the afternoon we went down to the motel and had a swim.
On Friday it was school again. Dave went snorkeling off the boat to see if there was any damage from the few times we dragged through the mud. Everything is fine including the anodes that protect the boat from electrolysis. Things seem to be a getting a little boring! The weather is always nice, there’s school in the morning and adventure in the afternoon. Today I loaded one of the bikes into the dinghy and took it to shore so I could ride the mile to the grocery store. I bought quite a few groceries, planning to leave some at the store and make two trips back to the dinghy, but when I finished shopping it was pouring out!! Oh my – but "when it rains it pours" must have been written about the rain in Florida. I ended up loading up the bike and making one trip back. I got soaked!
While I was gone, and before the rain started the girls had a great time swimming off the boat. The water was really warm. Now we have to wait for a series of cold fronts to pass through before we can head to the Bahamas.