2023: Everglades FL

 17 March 2023

Depart: Port of the Islands Marina, Naples, FL 1:00

Arrive: Little Shark River anchorage, Everglade, FL 7:30 (at sunset)

Distance: ~ 50 nm

Conditions: "in our face wind" on the Gulf from the south @ 15 knots, light spray from waves, sunny, cool wind and long sleeved shirts required

We could not attempt our getaway  from Port of the Islands until 1:00 due to shallow water on the way out to the Gulf of Mexico. With time to kill, Clark pulled the dinghy down to look at the engine problem. Talking to the dockmaster, Clark discovered that there was a possibility that the only issue was dirt clogging the tell tail of the engine. Clark took a thin piece of wire and was able to clear the clog. When he saw water come out, he tried the engine and found all was well. Phew! We have a working dinghy with minimal effort!

Knowing that we would be watching for shallow water as we traveled, I made sure we had lunch before we took off.  The map pictured below shows the location of the marina buried deep in the mangroves.

Making our escape through the mangroves ...

We saw two of the contraptions shown below as we navigated the mangroves.  They appear to be used for geographical surveys of the water depths.

We targeted to reach the shallowest point around 2:00 when the tides would give us the most water. The dockmaster left around noon to meet boaters coming into the marina so that he could show them the way in. We passed them on our way out.

They waited until we had a wide area to pass. Suddenly  what was a quiet waterway became Grand Central Station! Apparently, the catamaran required 4.5' of water depth. They asked what we had seen at the lowest point which was 5'4" of water. They were happy to hear that.

Clark gave me a choice for anchorage tonight - a) possibility of bugs or b) possibility of rocking. I chose B without hesitation. We anchored in the Gulf of Mexico about one mile offshore. 

Anchored one mile off shore in Gulf of Mexico

I saw no bugs, but I did see a pretty interesting sunset. I thought the clouds looked like animals in front of the sun.

Looks like a lion to me!

18 March 2023

Depart: Shark River anchorage 9:00 and 10:10

Arrive: Buttonwood Sound anchorage, Key Largo, FL 6:00

Distance: ~ 65 nm

Conditions: calm and sunny

I made the right choice for the anchorage. We had light rocking only and minimal signs of bugs. 

We pulled up anchor as per usual and started on our way. Unfortunately, shortly after we started moving, the autopilot gave an error message that said "drive". Clark played around with it but said it was not behaving properly, so he rebooted the system. That did not help, so we were without autopilot for our travels. 

As Clark tried to diagnose the autopilot issue, he heard a clicking sound coming from the props and decided he better dive into the water to take a look. He shut down the engines to let us drift while he checked things out. 

Just as he was ready to get in the water, I saw a fin in the water. I hoped it was a dolphin, but it was not shaped correctly and the behavior was rather frenzied. I called out to Clark to hold up on getting in the water. He came to have a look and agreed that we were looking at a shark in a feeding frenzy.

As we watched (I could not get a good picture), we saw the shark dive repeatedly and finally something blood red was floating on the water beside the shark. Then the red object and the shark disappeared together and all was calm. 

Brave soul that he is, Clark then climbed into the water to look at the props. I was on high alert and told him I would start banging on the hull if I saw anything of concern. 

He managed to check both props and come up with an "all looks normal" diagnosis. As he stepped on the swim ladder to climb out, one of the bolt holding the ladder together broke and disappeared into the water. 

Our list of things to fix increased by two today: autopilot and swim ladder. What else could go wrong today?

We drifted for an hour while we first watched the shark and then as Clark checked out the props. By the time we were ready to go, we had drifted back almost to our starting point an hour earlier.

Yellow line shows our path from drifting

Clark has been spoiled with the autopilot capability. For all of our years boating prior to "Sunset Delight", we did not have an autopilot. Today he complained about watching depth, reading the chart, and steering simultaneously. Something he did for years. I was not sympathetic because I begged him to get autopilot before we did the Loop on "Sea Moss", and he refused. 

We arrived back in the Keys close to Marathon, but we are heading home and used a route that placed us in a more northeasterly position.

We saw the typical "birds on the marker" as we navigated the skinny waters of the ICW.

Expecting rain tomorrow, Clark went until 6:00 to anchor near Key Largo. 

The map below shows our anchorage selection for tonight. We looked for a place with lots of space, protection from weather, but open with a cool breeze. Clark found what we were hoping for in Buttonwood Sound, Key Largo, Florida.

Clark took a sunset picture of Key Largo.