Wed-Thur Jan. 25th-26th A overview of the Marathon City Marina

So calm and secure - ahhhh the pleasures of spending our first night in the harbor off the Atlantic, in a harbor on a mooring ball. Throughout our trip whenever we talked destinations the reaction was the same, we love Marathon and Boot Key Harbor. I now understand the draw. For those of you on land let me describe it this way.  It is a community on the water. You are in your homes and we on our boats. You drive around in your cars, we tootle around in our dinks.  You have your porches to enjoy relaxing and a good book, we have our decks. You visit with neighbors in the yards or at the community center down the street. We visit on our aft decks, or at the boaters lounge or tiki hut. There is nothing lacking here. Yoga and aerobics classes, craft classes, Wednesday night pot luck dinners, Thursday movie night.  A library, a workshop to use to fix your dink, motor, etc. several restaurants and bars within dingy or walking distance. A publix and West Marine down the street and even a Home Depot. Add on to that a daily morning radio show for announcements, buy sell or trade deals and help for anything you need help doing on your boat.  In fact we asked for assistance with the installation of an inverter and immediately had another boater volunteer his help. As in a small community such as the one we live in in Burns Harbor, neighbors are eager to meet and greet, share ideas, recipes, and most importantly friendship!  It will be hard to leave on Friday.

                                                       Chiki - Tiki Hut near the dingy dock

                                                                      The dingy dock

The library in the boater lounge

                                             One of two mini theaters in the boaters lounge
                                            The boaters lounge is a very long pole barn

                                                A photo of the 225 ball mooring field

                                               Also a photo with the other 1/2 of the rainbow
                                                                      Did you notice it?

Sun., 22-Tues., 24 - Can you say Dramamine

We woke up Sunday morning to find a few more boats had come in including another 42 ft Jefferson. We started on a few morning chores. Toms priority was the head, no it was still not working correctly. Although I was trying to be patient I was ready to order the darn pump myself!  It was windy and the boat swayed but it wasn't uncomfortable.  The couple on the Carol Ann, the Jefferson, stopped over for a visit and we had fun comparing the layout of our boats.  We tootled to the marina on the dink to get bait, check on where we were on the waiting list and check out the area.  Sunday evening the wind changed and the water was pretty choppy but we did OK.  Overnight the weather worsened and we did a lot of rocking. Tom and Peanut were having a difficult time on Monday, both having to spend most of their time up on the aft deck to avoid getting sea sick.  Thank goodness I was doing fine so I could be their gopher. We decided to pull up anchor and check out the anchorage on the inside.  Tom found a couple of spots he felt we could squeeze in between sail boats.  I was very uncomfortable with the close proximity of the boats combined with the intensity of the wind.  I really had difficulty getting us far enough forward between boats so when Tom dropped anchor the wind pushed us out into the channel. Not a good thing so we picked up anchor and tried again.  This time Tom at the helm and I was at the anchor. I had never operated the anchor release before and this was probably not the best time to learn. Tom did a nice job of getting us up in between two boats BUT in my nervousness I stepped on the button to engage the anchor as I used the bar to release it at the same time so of course the anchor had no idea what it was supposed to do and I had no idea what was wrong until Tom yelled.  Now he has to maneuver between boats in the wind to get us back out safely to try a third time. But I',m spent, frustrated and tired of being yelled at so I announced I was done. You know the ol saying sometimes you watch the show and sometimes you are the show.  I was tired of being the show.  Back out of the harbor we went to anchor in rough seas.  Tom and peanut ended up sleeping on the Fly Bridge Monday night and Tuesday morning we headed for land first thing in the morning to get off the rocking boat.  Thankfully about noon on Tuesday we got the call that a mooring ball was available. Did we still want it she asked?  Are you kidding me I thought to myself!!  We certainly do I responded!  Now we would have to fight the wind and catch the mooring ball.  Tom had gone over one row to many so we had to approach the mooring ball from the front. Trusty boat hook in hand I stood by as he edged us to the ball. Capture on the first try and we were secure! Woohoo! Our neighbor yelled over "that's no fun you made it look easy", I laughed as I thought to myself, he should have seen us yesterday!

Saturday January 21st. Cruising into Marathon

Approximately 45 miles to go and we would be in Marathon! An exciting day for us.  Three of us left Little Shark River near the same time, all headed for Marathon. It was nice to have a little company on the water to converse with now and then. The waters were a bit choppy today. The little white caps made it difficult to spot the bobbing crab pots until we were closer than I preferred. I felt like I had the binoculars glued to my eyes all day.  Now in the mode to automatically look for the tell tale lines of crab pots to maneuver through I thought we had the configuration down pat. WRONG!  About 20 miles out of Marathon a new configuration appeared!  Crab pot fields; lots of bobbing pots in close proximity, forming a large square and making it extremely difficult to find a passage through!  Our trail wake was beginning to look as if a drunk was at the wheel.  UGH!  We had used the waypoints suggested in skipper Bobs but as we closed in on the 7 mile bridge I was extremely uncomfortable with the idea of passing under the bridge at a point that was not the designated pass.  Other boats were doing it but I was hesitant. Tom called the marina indicated our position and asked for guidance. The gal indicated that she could not advise but if it were her boat she would go on down to Mosier pass and cut back to the marina. That's what we did.  The mooring field at Marathon City Marina in Boot Key Harbor is on a first come first serve basis and we were required to anchor and come to the office in person to get on the waiting list.  There is an anchoring field inside the harbor but Tom suggested we stay on the outside. It was now very calm and  about 10 other boats were anchored here so we figured it was crowded on the inside. Soon after we were anchored we had a visitor. Jim from the boat Blue Angel heard us calling in and came out to greet us.  We had met Jim and his wife in Demopolis. What a nice surprise to meet them again here.  Soon after we jumped in the dingy and headed for the office.  We were 14th on the waiting list for a mooring ball! The sunset was amazing and the Atlantic like glass. We were actually anchored on the Atlantic in the Keys! WOW, I wonder if other first timers thought this was as big a deal as we do?

                                                                   Crab Pot Field

                                                       Sunset on the Atlantic from our boat

                                                                    Another view

                                                   A view after the sun went down

                                             A view of the 7 mile bridge from our boat