8 Mi Dinghy Trip
We got a big surprise when we walked onto our cockpit this morning... a manatee had come to visit. S/he was a big one. The bumps seen on its skin are barnacles.
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| Manatee at Faro Blanco |
After admiring the manatee, we scurried around gathering what we needed to join the dinghy pub crawl at 11:00. Clark suggested that as part of the dinghy outing, we explore Boot Key Harbor, Sisters Creek, and Sombrero Beach. We decided not to eat lunch at the pub and brought food with us to eat on the dinghy when ready.
I am not sure how many people attended the pub crawl event. My guess would be at least 10 dinghies with 2 or more people per dinghy. Some others joined us by car. Clark took his camera and zipped around to other folks' dinghies to get pictures. Several folks left early to get to the first restaurant on the crawl to reserve a large table, so he did not get their dinghy pictures.
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| Faith and Jim |
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| AC and Jim |
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| Mel and Ann |
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| Mike - Getting Looped Patti and Tim - Craic |
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| Yasmine and Roy - Yasmine Ann |
On our way we passed under the 7-Mile Bridge and by Sunset Grille to arrive at Burdines.
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| 7-Mile Bridge |
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| Sunset Grille |
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| Burdines |
Even though we had the fastest motor (40 hp) in the group, we arrived at the restaurant dead last. Faith and Jim had the slowest motor (3.5 hp). We know how that feels as our dinghy on Sea Moss only had a 4 hp engine.
Clark had fun driving our new dinghy. We got as far as the bridge quickly but then decided to go back to join Faith and Jim bringing up the rear. When we got to them, we saw Yasmine and Roy just leaving Faro Blanco and went over to talk to them for a while. Eventually we pointed ourselves in the right direction again and headed for the bridge. Apparently we made a few people nervous with our back-and-forth maneuvering as they asked later if we had trouble and had to turn back.
On our way to the restaurant Clark and I made one fateful diversion. As we passed the Marathon Marina, Clark decided he wanted to find out if our friends on Change of Pace had left yet for the Bahamas as planned. As we came into the marina, we saw the boat we believed to be their's so we continued into the marina to see them.
Low and behold, we found the boat Change of Pace, but when we called out to the owners, two strangers came out on deck. Unbelievably, two boats named Change of Pace with similar designs had docked across from each other at the same marina. When we saw Change of Pace a day or so ago, it was the wrong one. Our friends were long gone, and we never got to see their Kadey-Krogen.
Our slight detour cost us greatly. We have been to Burdines on foot, on bike, by car, and by big boat but never by dinghy. We could not for the life of us find the dinghy dock. Where on earth could at least 10 dinghies by hiding??? It had to be here somewhere. While looking for it, we passed by the restaurant and turned down the waterway beside the restaurant.
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| Side view of Burdines - eating area on upper deck |
As we passed by the restaurant, I looked up and saw Jim from Hour Plan on deck signaling to us with his hands that we needed to turn left. I took that to mean we had traveled down the wrong waterway and needed to go back the way we came. We turned around to go to the other side of the restaurant.
As we looked for the dinghy dock, we got to see a lot of interesting sights.
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| Faro Blanco Oceanside Thank goodness we aren't staying at this location! |
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| Faro Blanco Oceanside Damaged by prior storms; Further impacted by Irma. |
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| Faro Blanco Oceanside - Docks Looking a little "worse for wear" |
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| Sunken fishing boat at Burdines - presumably left over from Hurricane Irma |
On our exploration looking for the dinghy dock, we even got to see the restaurant Castaways. It seemed that every waterway option we selected led to a dead end with no dinghy dock to be found. Finally I called AC on the phone and asked her where they hid the dinghy dock. Her directions pointed us back to where we had started looking. Jim had meant turn left at the end of the waterway - not turn around to go the direction he pointed.
By the time we got into the restaurant, everyone had ordered food and beverages and was happily eating. I ordered a glass of water. Clark had nothing. Fortunately that was by design as we had food waiting for us on our dinghy.
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| Long table of folks at Burdines |
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| View from other end of table at Burdines |
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| On the deck at Burdines |
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| More of our dinghy clan at far end of tables at Burdines |
Had we ordered food, we probably would have been left behind eating it as not soon after we arrived folks decided it was time to head to the next venue. We decided to follow the group to Lazy Days to learn where to find their dinghy dock for future reference.
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| Mandy and Jim approaching Lazy Days |
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| AC and Jim on way to Lazy Days |
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| Jim stowing dinghy after climbing ladder to fixed dock. |
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| AC climbing ladder to fixed dock at Lazy Days |
After watching Jim and AC disembark their dinghy, we waved to them. Jim laughingly decided to give us more directions on where to dock our dinghy. He pointed out of the waterway in jest and said "Go that way!" We did! We turned around and left as our plan for the rest of the day included exploring the local waters instead of hanging in the pub.
Our ultimate destination was Sombrero Beach. To get there we traveled through Boot Key Harbor and Sisters Creek.
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| Approaching Boot Key Harbor |
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| Boot Key Harbor |
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| Approaching Sisters Creek |
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| House on Sisters Creek |
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| Beached Dinghies at Sombrero Beach |
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| Sombrero Beach in Marathon, Florida |
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| Sombrero Beach |
We pulled up to the beach as far as we dared and gently beached our dinghy. With our well-built dinghy and a 40 hp engine, our dinghy is not light, and we did not want to risk getting it stuck on the beach. Initially I declined Clark's invite to disembark for our picnic lunch. Although I love the water, I hate the beach. The idea of lying out, or even sitting, on a towel in the sand is pretty abhorrent to me. It is the mess it makes that I dislike so much. Sand gets everywhere. Wet sand is the worst!
However, the more I thought about it, the more I decided that I needed to get out of the dinghy. I urgently needed to go check out the yellow building on shore to see if it housed a restroom. The more I looked, the more convinced I was that I would find what I needed to feel far more comfortable for the rest of our trip if I ventured up there.
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| Sombrero Beach (Yellow building contains nice restrooms) |
Actually, I had eaten my lunch as we traveled down Sisters Creek. When I returned from my walk up to the yellow building, I found Clark munching away on his sandwiches while standing out in the water by the dinghy.
After eating, he decided to transfer gasoline from our extra tank into the dinghy's gas tank. Although we have had the dinghy for a year, we have not given it much use. We had never put gas in the tank before today. The funnel Clark had on board barely served to meet our needs as it needed a longer tube to reach into the tank. We did manage to transfer all the gas from the can to the tank with minimal drips, but it took the two of us and all four hands to do so.
Afterward, I sent Clark up to the yellow building to dispose of the gasoline-smelling paper towel. While he was gone, a gentleman came down the beach with a handmade cart for his kayak. Having carried mine, I found myself drooling with envy over his creation. I told him I admired his work, and he told me it cost him $2. He took two wheels off an old baby carriage, cut a piece of plywood to fit between them, added a strap and he was done.
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| Man pulling his handmade kayak cart back to his house from the beach. |
With food in our bellies and gas in the tank, we launched ourselves off the beach to head back to Faro Blanco. As we pulled away from shore, I heard and felt a ka-thump-thump-thump as the dinghy hit something. My first thought was it would be a long way to paddle our dinghy if the prop was bent. My second thought - who could we call to come collect us?
On the trip out to Sombrero Beach our depth finder suddenly decided that our depth was 0.4 feet everywhere. We knew that to be untrue. At the time we hit Clark had no idea of the true depth. He raised the outboard and felt around with our paddle to see how much water we had under the dinghy. Then he handed me one of the two paddles (a kayak paddle split in two halves) and told me to start paddling!
We paddled the short distance to the edge of the canal where he lowered the outboard. Fortunately no serious damage had occurred with our "bump". Clark said, "I need to measure to figure out just how much water this motor needs! It's way more than our old one." We continued on our way!
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| Tandem Kayaks (joined together) on Sisters Creek (I'd love to be in the second one) |
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| Damaged boat (Irma Victim) in Boot Key Harbor |
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| Nice looking sailboat in Boot Key Harbor Any questions regarding how it got the name "Irma-Geddon"? |
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| Stern of IrmaGeddon shows "Mile O Key West" emblem |
We left the folks at Lazy Days and headed off to explore Sombrero Beach around 2:00. Surprisingly, as we rounded the bend two hours later, what did we find but two of our dinghy group just leaving the restaurant. We had company for the trip back to Faro Blanco including Faith and Jim.
As we passed under the 7-Mile Bridge we were astounded by the amount of current we had to deal with. The water moved very fast, and Clark had to concentrate on steering against the current. Whirlpools formed by the rapidly moving water added to the challenge.
When we came out the other side of the bridge, our boat was practically moving sideways. Clark knew Jim and Faith were behind us with their 3.5 hp engine and wondered if they could make it through. He decided to wait and watch in case we needed to go back for them and throw them a line to help them through.
As we watched them approaching, we suddenly saw Faith's head getting lower and lower and finally disappear into their dinghy. Jim plowed ahead and made it through. When he came out the other side, Faith's head popped up. Jim had told her to get her weight low and to the back to help give him control of the boat. Wild!
We left them then and headed towards Faro Blanco. I thought for sure we were done for the day, but Clark announced that he wanted to fill the dinghy with fresh fuel at the fuel dock. Since we had just added two gallons at the beach, I knew that the fuel fill was located under my seat with a cushion between me and it. I looked around at all the "stuff" we had brought with us including towels, food, life jackets, etc. and wondered where I could possibly move to so Clark could access the fuel cap.
I told him we needed to go back to Sunset Delight to unload some bags and make room. I wished I could be one of the items left behind on SD, but I knew he would like my assistance. Given our plans to refuel and the fact that the dock hands told us we had to go to the far side to pull up to the dock, we surprised Jim and Faith as they saw us once again leaving the marina just as they arrived. I am sure they wondered "now where is that crazy couple going?"
We finally pulled our dinghy up to Sunset Delight with the intent of calling it a day at 4:30. After over 5 hours in the dinghy I could not wait to get out! One would not expect that sitting in a dinghy most of the day would be exhausting, but I was drained. Who knew being retired could be such hard work?!
After "putting the dinghy to bed" Clark headed off to docktails. I refused to move, wished him well, and waved goodbye. He came back after dark with a sunset picture to add to our collection. By the time he got back I had mustered up enough energy to prepare dinner on the boat.
Clark does not tire easily. After dinner he said we should "walk the docks". I somewhat reluctantly decided that I would join him for the walk as I needed exercise after sitting most of the day. On C dock, we found Captain Jen and her cat out exploring the dock. We talked for a long while and eventually called it a day and headed back to the boat.
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