Race for the Ortona Lock

3/4/2017

When Clark critiqued my blog entry last night, he scoffed at my last comment that today would be another long day on the water. I refused to amend my comment. "Wait and see", I said, "we have two locks to get through and that by itself can mean a long day.

It was a chilly 56 degrees this morning, as we made the long walk to and from the marina-provided heads some time before 9:00 a.m. Clark pointed out another Krogen Express 52 in the marina named Dakota Lady. We met the owner of that boat in Marathon last year, so I recognized the name instantly.

On our walk, we also passed by Nauti Anchor and spoke to the owner. Up close I could see the word "News" that between the words "Nauti" and "Anchor". This confirmed my suspicion that the boat owner was a news anchor. It made sense given the boat name. As we stopped to thank the owner once again for his navigation support yesterday, we discovered that it is his wife that is the news anchor on WINK.

We left our dock at 9:40 and just as I threw off the last line a couple walked by and said, "You know there is very little water on the other side of the lock now, right?" "How little is little?", I asked. She thought for a minute and said 13 inches. That was totally unexpected! We need at least four feet.

Clark called the dockmaster who told us to walk over and take a look at the lock and the water. We were already untied, but with no better suggestion, Clark started to back up to look for a place to tie up again. As he did that, I noticed a deep-draft boat heading out and yelled to him about the low water situation. He yelled back, "We need four feet, and we've never had a problem."

Ah! A local! Clark and I decided to follow him to the lock. As he passed Sunset Delight, Clark asked him to give us a report on depth from the other side.

Second Chance in lock

Second Chance locked through and as we waited for the green light to signal our turn, Clark got a call on the VHF radio from them telling us that it looked good on the other side. We locked through without incident although the wind did try to push us forward and then backwards in the lock with no room for such movement. After we had safely exited the lock and traveled a short distance, I asked Clark about the depth. "Depth finder says 0.7 feet of water under the boat", he said. That is not much, but it is enough!

When he spoke to the captain of Second Chance at the lock, Clark asked him to give us a report on the water at the entrance to the marina access off the ICW. As we neared this tricky part of the waterway, Clark spoke to our "guide" who told us to keep to port to avoid the extra skinny water. The high winds had blown out a lot of the water, so it was skinnier than usual. We followed his advice and breathed a sigh of relief at 10:20 when we finally got to the deeper waters of the ICW and had channel markers to help guide us along.

Today, like yesterday, we saw wind gusts up to 35 knots. Clark had hoped that since we would be in a river, we would not have spray coming over the boat. No such luck! We even had one come high enough to spray the upper helm. Even with the rough conditions, when we  saw some interesting sights along the ICW, Clark got busy with the camera.

We could make it under most bridges but two we encountered today were impossible for even small boats to navigate through without an opening. The first was a railroad bridge.

Railroad Bridge opened for us to pass through

Later, Clark pointed out some interesting artwork. At first I thought they were dolphins, but Clark said to look at the tell-tale snouts of the manatees. Ahh, right! The sign on the artwork caught my interest, and I later Googled it to learn more of its history. It is the first environmental monument in the world.

Manatee Artwork
"Homage to the Orange River Valley"

I expect the view of the solar-powered monument is breath-taking at night. Just down the river from the monument, we spied the Florida Power and Light power station.

Florida Power & Light

In stark contrast, as we continued on, we passed some private homes in a paradise-like setting.

Houses along the Caloosahatchee River

Clark grabbed the camera, told me to take the helm, and said, "Windmill!"  The sign on the windmill says "Barringer Family". Besides the windmill, they obviously also have some horses hanging around.

"Barringer Family" Windmill

and horse farm

The wind blew and blew today. I am sure their windmill got a good workout. Wearing long pants, jackets, and hats, we traveled against the cold wind while those traveling with the wind waved to us in bikinis, shorts, and t-shirts. Since they looked like they were out for a day trip, I wondered how they would feel in the summer clothes when they had to travel back the way they came.

Due to reduced speeds at slow-speed Manatee zones and delays for bridge openings, we finally arrived at Franklin Lock, our first lock for the day, at 1:15. Unfortunately, our timing was not good. We had to wait for an east-bound lock to complete and then a west-bound lock-through, before we would have our turn. An hour later we locked through.

The lockmaster handed me a brochure on the Okeechobee Waterway locks, and stressed as she did so that the last time for locking for the day would be 4:30. As we continued along the waterway, I leafed through the brochure and found the page on lock data. The distance listed of 27 miles to the next lock on our journey caused me concern. We had reservations at a marina for the night on the far side of that next lock.

The time already approached 2:30. Doing the math, at 9 knots of speed, we would never cover that much territory and make the last passage through the lock. At first Clark did not believe me. He checked the ICW mile markers and told me I had the wrong information. I persisted so he handed me the iPad to check the mile markers for myself. I came up with 23 miles, but since I raised my concern, we had been traveling for a while.

As such, we started reviewing our options. 1 - find an alternate marina on the west side of the lock, 2 - find an anchorage before the lock, or 3 - "floor it". Clark hated the idea of burning so much fuel. I had said he should go 17 knots earlier, and he had replied "17 knots is crazy" as he continued to travel at 9 knots.

Most of the alternative overnight options were located in Port La Belle where Active Captain showed two free docks at parks, a town dock, a couple of marinas, and an anchorage or two. We surveyed all of these choices as we passed through the town. Given the size of the slips (built for 20-footers) and the predictions of strong winds for the night, none of the choices looked too appealing. I thought Clark might go for one option we saw there, but instead he just kept going.

Looking at the remaining distance to the lock compared to the current time and our speed, I told Clark, "We'll never make it by 4:30." With that he started pushing the throttles forward and then some more and then some more. Then, he used the trim tabs to get more speed. Voila! He had Sunset Delight moving at 16 knots. I worried though that it was too late to make the lock.

We normally burn about 2.5 gallons of fuel per hour per engine. At 16 knots, we were burning 17 gallons per hour per engine. "I'm afraid you're just going to burn the fuel and still not make it on time", I said. I did the calculations over and over to look at distance and speed, converting statute miles to nautical miles. It gave me a headache, and every time I came up short of the 4:30 mark.

Clark decided to call the lockmaster at the next lock to see what he had to say. When he talked to him, Clark told him that two vessels were heading his way to make the 4:30 deadline. While we had been discussing our options, another boat, a sport fish, had come upon us and was making headway fast. Clark figured he had the same objective we did - get through that lock. On the phone, Clark told the lock master we would arrive there as close to 4:30 as possible. Unfortunately, the lockmaster offered no guarantees regarding our chances of getting locked through this evening.

Regardless of our time constraints, the waterway has restrictions that cannot be ignored. We lost precious time when we hit several "slow speed" zones and even more when we had to wait for a bridge opening. As we passed through the swing bridge, the tender saw Clark taking her picture and started talking to him. When we exited the other side, she yelled to us to "Have a great day!"

Swing Bridge - bridge tender in center of picture on part that rotates

View down road as we passed through opening of swing bridge

A short while later, we heard the sport fish boat called the Ortona lock master requesting "a ride". We had no idea how far behind that boat we were as he was traveling at faster speeds than we were. With that call, we worried that he would get locked through, and we would not make the locking. I was very glad that Clark had called ahead. At least the lock master knew we were coming.

As soon as feasible, i.e. in hearing range, Clark called the lock master on the VHF radio and said we would be arriving shortly in hopes that he would be motivated to wait for us. We were ever so close now. Even as the terrain flew by, I still worried that we would not make it. With every bend in the waterway we passed, I hoped to see the lock on the other side. Finally we arrived at the lock and saw that the sport fish boat was just entering and finding his position on the lock wall.

Our watches showed 4:25 as we entered the lock. I was amazed! After fighting the wind as we rose up 12 feet in the lock, we exited the lock at 4:50. As we exited the lock, we saw three boats waiting to be locked through in the westerly direction.  It annoyed Clark to see that they would be allowed to lock through "after hours". "I'm confused", he said, "how can they be locking through now?" He did not like burning so much fuel to get there by 4:30 only to find the 4:30 cutoff being ignored for other boaters.

C'est la vie! In the end, we had an expensive ride, but we got to a safe haven for the night in return with appropriately-sized dockage and protection from high winds. Had we stopped in Port La Belle, I expect we would have had a rather sleepless night as we worried about lines tied at too-small piers or anchors dragging in the wind.

We pulled into the marina some time before 5:30. After tying up for the night, Clark pulled out the hose to wash off the worst of the salt spray from today's wild ride. First we had spray from the winds and waves in the river and then we had spray from the speed of our travels.

What a day! Since we spent almost 8 hours traveling today, I think my comment that today would be another long day was "right on the money"! Whenever locks are in the picture, all bets are off regarding travel times. More locks tomorrow! Oh joy!

Windy Marco Island and Gulf Crossing

3/3/2017

We had an extra long day today that started at 3:00 a.m. when Clark was awakened by the movement of the boat due to heavy winds. He checked the anchor position using the phone app “Drag Queen” and concluded that we may be drifting. He came an woke me and said, “I may need your help” as he ran back up to the pilot house to evaluate the situation.

With an allowed range of 200 feet and the current display showing we had moved over 100, Clark expected the anchor alarm to go off momentarily. I watched out the pilot house window waiting for signals to start moving the boat that never came, but after checking the anchor, Clark decided to let out more line because he did not like the “scope” / angle of the line.

We have a lot more chain on Sunset Delight than we ever had on Sea Moss. Clark surmised that when the strong winds pushed us along, the chain piled up on the bottom of the anchorage stretched out thus showing our change in position. Given the “all clear” signal from Clark, I stumbled back into bed.

Knowing the winds would continue to build over the course of the day, we decided we better leave our anchorage as early as we could. Even though we were up at 7:00, we did not get on our way until 8:30. The wave height predictions for crossing open waters today was not good – 4-to-6 feet waves along the shore building to 6-to-8 feet offshore.

Fortunately, Sunset Delight is built to take it. Although this boat has stabilizers to help with beam seas, today’s waves came at us from just off the bow. We had a lot of up-and-down motion as we climbed a wave and dropped into the following trough. The big bell, named Wilhelmina from our boat’s previous name, rang out loudly when we hit a big trough. Clark called them “Bell Ringer” waves.

Once again we found the crab traps obscured by the waves. Consequently, even though we tried to be very diligent in observing the water ahead, occasionally a set would suddenly appear. I got very lucky at one point when one suddenly appeared beside the boat. Thank goodness that was not under the boat and wrapped around a prop!

Rough water did not seem to interrupt the dolphins from coming out to play. I saw several in the distance jumping through the waves, and then later, four of them came near to look us over.  We could not see the other three, but one jumped out of the water beside our boat.

Dolphin Jumping by Boat

Sunset Delight got coated in sea water on this trip. The winds sustained 25 knots with gusts to 30 or 35 knots. Some of the resultant salt spray rose high enough to reach the instruments and us sitting on the flybridge at 20-something feet in the air. I tried to capture a good spray picture but failed miserably. Looking at the picture below, one can see the compass is wet, the windows are covered in salt, and spray is shooting up albeit only on the lower deck in this shot.

Spray on bow while crossing the Gulf

Our first waypoint of the day registered a three-hour leg of the trip. I thought we would never reach it. The next point after that added another hour to the journey. The monotony of the trip and the constant rocking motion of the boat made us sleepy as we watched the waves and looked for elusive trap markers.  However, ducking the salt spray, drying our seat and faces, and hearing the “DING” of another “Bell Ringer” wave brought us back to alertness every time.

For the past several days we had hot and humid weather. Where yesterday I wore shorts and a thin shirt and felt hot, today the cold breeze forced me into long pants and a wind breaker to ward off the chill. Sometimes when I saw the spray coming, I huddled closer to Clark in an attempt to stay warm and dry. When we finally got to the Cape Coral inlet, the temperature rose as our direction changed relative to the wind. The waves and spray quieted and amazingly we found other boats out on the water.

We stripped off our jackets and enjoyed the view.  Immediately, we spotted some interesting vessels on the water.

Odd floating house - covered in mannequins 

Same odd house, different angle

Coast Guard at work on channel markers

Clark planned to anchor again tonight, so we followed the channel markers taking us in to the anchorage. We noted as we made our approach, however, that it was still early afternoon. This made us reevaluate our plan. We could go further although the thought of more time on the water today did not thrill me, we could anchor as planned, or we could find a marina to get electric and work on the generator problem. We decided on the latter.

We turned off to follow the waterway towards some marinas shown on Active Captain. Immediately, the depth starting dropping and pretty soon we were churning up sandy water with our props. Clark maneuvered the boat to backtrack to look for deeper water and get us out of trouble. As we moved ourselves out of harm’s way, I saw a trawler-sized vessel coming our way.

Clark and I both had the same idea – watch where he goes. As he passed by us, he signaled that we should follow him, and that is just what we did. He led us safely through the tricky waters.

Nauti Anchor leading the way

Cape Coral

Cape Coral

Cape Coral

The marina we found that had the best price per foot of boat was back in down what looked like a set of lagoons. We snaked our way in and found the fuel dock and Rumrunner restaurant shown on Active Captain but not the marina. What we found instead was a wee tiny lock – the smallest I have seen.  It appeared that the marina we sought sat on the other side of this small lock.

Clark suggested I ask at the fuel dock if they had a place to tie up for the night. They did not. When Clark called the restaurant to see if they had overnight docking, they said no and gave him a phone number to call. That number led us to the marina on the far side of the lock. We had no choice, if we wanted to stay the night at a marina, we had to traverse the lock.

As we sat talking to the dockmaster about accommodations for the night, a boater asked if we waited for the lock and then snuck past us to enter the lock.

One-boat-at-a-time Little Lock

After he passed through, it was our turn.  As we watched the smaller boat navigate the lock, I wondered if the width of the lock would accommodate Sunset Delight’s 17 foot beam. Approaching the lock when we got the green light, I realized that we would have enough room widthwise.

Although I worried about width, I never thought about length! We just barely fit. I had to tell Clark to pull the boat in further as when he stopped his forward motion, the stern precluded the closing of the gate. I knew he thought he was “in” because he was waiting for me to grab the line while I was waiting for the next one further in.

The rope tied to the lock wall was no more than 4 or 5 feet long. I knew we did not have far to go up or down. I grabbed a line as Clark moved forward enough to squeeze us in.  Immediately after we moved up the few feet required, the gate closed behind us.

Tight fit in the small lock at Cape Coral

When we pulled out of the lock, we had an audience watching us. I directed Clark I could see both sides of the boat easily by scurrying back and forth across the bow of the boat. “Move to port. Move to starboard. Get your port stern away. …” We exited without ever touching the walls once. After we completed our maneuvers, the folks on the dock gave us a round of applause and said, “Well done!”

We found a transient slip with 50 amp power and tied up for the night. Sunset Delight had a coat of salt on her from bow to stern. We saw no point in putting the instrument covers on with salt all over the display screens. I headed for the hose, a bucket, and sponge to start working on salt-removal duty.

After two hours of washing the boat, I had the worst of the salt removed. Since I really only rinsed the boat with fresh water and no soap, the boat needed more serious attention. I met my objective of being able to touch the boat without coming back with a handful of salt, and it looked a whole lot better than it did before I started.

While I hosed the boat down, Clark made reservations for our next stops and took care of other essential duties. When we had completed our self-assigned tasks, Clark decided we should work on the generator since that was part of the reason we stayed at a marina. We had a very early lunch, so we had a cheese-and-crackers snack before starting that work.

What a nasty job it is to reach the part of the generator that needs to be worked on. As thin as he is, Clark had to struggle to wiggle in behind the unit to service it.  I felt like the nurse in the operating room to Clark’s surgeon. He stuck his hand out periodically to hand me items or collect tools from me as he requested them.

Kneeling or squatting down on the engine room floor, my body complained at the various poses I used to try to get more comfortable while I helped Clark. Seeing what he was dealing with though, sitting on the prop shaft while straining to reach the back of the generator, I had no grounds to complain about my situation.

Getting ready to do Generator work

Squeezing in behind the unit

The rest of him is somewhere back there

When he removed the back panel of the generator, he asked me for the camera and took a picture of the mess he found back there. Whoever serviced it last, left rags, tools and loose screws inside. He handed me the camera to see the mess and said, "This is how a professional does the job".

 Junk found inside the generator unit

Clark disconnected the alternator for the generator, so it cannot charge itself and therefore overcharge itself. He tested to make sure the generator still started and put the covers back on the unit. After we finished the generator job, we enjoyed what Clark called a “fast food” dinner. To him that is leftovers, to the rest of the world, that is McDonald’s!

Somewhere between all the goings on, he still managed to remember to run out for the sunset picture of the day.

Sunset reflected on the buildings of the marina

Harbor at sunset

I finished the day by working on my blog and baking Clark one of his favorite desserts – Applesauce Cake. We have another long day on the water tomorrow as we start our move across Florida to reach the east coast. Instead of making up for lost sleep from last night's anchor "fire drill", here I sit watching the Late Show while I work on my blog. 

Little Shark River to Marco Island

3/2/2017

Although we both got up around 7:00 a.m., we did not leave the anchorage until after 9:30. Clark discovered last night that the generator overcharges the generator battery. This may explain the ruptured battery that had to be replaced. Considering the huge expense and the inconvenience of tracking one down, we do not want another one to rupture! He tried a couple of ideas to address the issue quickly and struck out on all counts.

We had hazy skies and low visibility as we readied to leave the anchorage. With the volume of no-see-ums we experienced the night before, we kept the boat closed. Unfortunately, Clark had to venture out on the bow to remove the chafe guard and monitor the retraction of the anchor line.

He came back in, after raising the anchor, slapping himself to remove the bugs. He sat down to drive; I took one look at his shirt and told him we had to take it off. It was covered in gnats! As I pulled the shirt off over his head, I captured the bugs in the shirt and left it rolled in a ball to one side to deal with later.

Neither of us have ever driven from the lower helm before, so it was a new experience for both of us. Since Clark had some waypoints to put in the chart plotter plus some other miscellaneous tasks to perform, I got the “fun” of driving. With all windows and doors closed and an inability to run the generator for air conditioning, due to the overcharging issue, we had little-to-no air circulation. As the pilot house is directly over the engine room, it gets very hot there. I was not a happy camper.

While piloting the boat, I briefly tried to locate the Auto Pilot on the lower helm station. I did not see it in my brief search. I was not even sure if we had one on the lower helm. With reduced visibility, crab traps appearing at random times, and worrying about course headings and water depths, I had no time to explore the instrument panel to find out.

Clark had gone up top to see about opening the upper helm but came back saying it was covered in bugs. He offered to take the piloting job.  I gladly relinquished it to him and went in search of a fan to move some air. As soon as he sat down he turned on the Auto Pilot that I had been unable to find – right in front of me! Oh well, I know next time.

Since we did have a breeze due to the movement of the boat, I decided to venture up top and see about the bug situation. I found tons of them, but they were not swarming. They just covered every flat surface. I quickly went down below and grabbed an old towel. Then came back up and closed off the boat while I worked swatting them away with the towel. It took a while because they kept settling back down again, but eventually I got rid of 90% of them and gave Clark the “all clear” to move up top.

Once we mastered the gnat problem, we just had the monotony of traversing the Gulf towards our next destination – a Marco Island anchorage at Factory Bay. As with other crossings of the Gulf, it was mostly a bore with random occurrences of crab trap mine fields. Yesterday, we had seagulls and cormorants posing as crab trap buoys. Today, it was a pelican that convinced me I had to turn off Auto Pilot and steer away. I wanted his photo for the blog, but by the time I had the camera ready, the sun blocked the picture.

To pass the time on the long ride today, I piloted the boat; read a nautical, historical novel on my Kindle; and made a list of all the things we discovered, within 24 hours of leaving Faro Blanco, that are still not working correctly with the boat.

            1 – Generator overcharges generator battery

            2 - Chart Plotter randomly decides to reboot itself

            3 – Antifreeze leaks from the overflow on startup

            4 – Anchor winch guide pops out when dropping anchor

            5 – Pilot House air conditioner shows a “high pressure” error and cannot be used

            6 – Battery usage overnight is high – we need LED lights and some ways to reduce usage

Clark thought he had fixed some of these. Well, surprise!

Finally, after hours of travel, we arrived at the entrance to Marco Island.

Entrance to Marco Island

We saw very few boats as we crossed the Gulf, but we found a bunch of them as we approached Marco Island. We followed so many of them in that I asked Clark to take a picture of the "parade".

Parade of boats moving towards marinas and anchorages of Marco Island

We had planned on staying at an anchorage in Factory Bay, but with the heat, humidity, and bug situation, Clark called several marinas to see if we could get in anywhere. No luck! We anchored as originally planned in almost the exact same place we anchored on our way to the Florida Keys. When we had our anchor set, I checked the time. We left the anchorage at Little Shark River at 9:30 and we dropped anchor at Marco Island seven hours later at 4:30.

Exhausted, I stretched out on the couch and played some games on my tablet until dinner time. After dinner I did trip planning to work out details of moving the boat and the car as we head up the east coast. After dinner, since I was several days behind, I sat down to work on the blog. Time for bed!

Flying Crab Trap Markers in the Gulf

3/1/2017 

Before going to bed last night Clark checked the weather and saw the potential for late afternoon thunder storms. That changed our “We’ll leave when we’re ready” plan to “We need to leave as early as possible”. For us that meant around 9:00. Clark canceled his plans to visit a nearby marina and focused on getting the ready-to-move tasks done so we could leave.

I ran down my leaving-port checklist and completed the various tasks shown there. Most of what I do relates to “battening down the hatches” – move items that might fall, lower the dining table to coffee table position, remove the sun shade in the stern, bring in the covers over the wood trim, remove covers in upper helm area, close doors, etc. After finishing, I told Clark I planned to visit Faith on Third Degree to say goodbye. “That could take an hour”, he said as I walked away. Hah – he should “talk”!

After telling Faith we planned to leave shortly, I walked around to see Jeanne and Jo Ann to let her know we had moved up our scheduled departure time.  Stopping by Jo Ann’s boat to collect Jim, I got to see their dog’s new trim, collar, and leash.

Sammy with fur trim and new outfit

Together we walked back to Sunset Delight with a brief stop at Morning Star II where Sammy begged for a biscuit.

Sammy begging for a biscuit

As we walked back to the boat, we collected more and more people who came to wave farewell.  Besides Namaste and Daybreak, folks from Third Degree, Daisy, Morning Star II, and Hour Plan came to wish us well and help with the lines. I joked that others around the marina would think we had gathered for early-morning docktails.

Folks milling around on the dock
A.C., Faith, Jim and Jeanne

Waiting while we get ready
Jim, Faith, Jo Ann, Jim, Jeanne, and Mel

I became choked up as I hugged my friends goodbye. After leaving them last year, I had no expectations of seeing them this year. I am very thankful that fate brought us together again. As we all spend large amounts of our time boating, I am hopeful that we will meet somewhere down the road yet again in the not-too-distant future.

Kenny helping Ev with lines

Send-off Committee
Jim and A.C - Hour Plan; Kenny and Jeanne - Daybreak;
Jim and Jo Ann - Namaste; Jim and Faith - Third Degree;
Mel - Morning Star II; Jim and Rita - Daisy

Yes, we had an incredible number of "Jims" at Faro Blanco this past month!

  

As we pulled out of the slip and traveled through the marina, Jo Ann snapped pictures of Sunset Delight as a thank you for the pictures took the year before of their boat leaving the marina.

Pulling out of slip

Moving through the marina

Waving goodbye

One last wave farewell

We had some “chop” on the water as we crossed the Gulf to our planned anchorage at Little Shark River in the Everglades.

Slight to moderate chop

As per usual, crossing the Gulf waters we encountered numerous crab traps. Clark came up with a continuous-loop algorithm as follows:

     Step 1: set AutoPilot to waypoint heading

     Step 2: spot crab trap and place AutoPilot in standby mode

     Step 3: manually steer until clear of traps

     Step 4: Resume AutoPilot

     Step 5: AutoPilot seeks next available crab trap

     Step 6: Repeat from step 2

We had a long drive with nothing to look at but clouds and crab traps. No other boats traveled north towards the Everglades as we did, so we were on our own. I found the trip monotonous after a very short time with several hours still to go to arrive at the anchorage. 

When not on crab trap duty, I studied the clouds and the shadows on the water made by the clouds. I mentioned the dark areas of the shadows to Clark, and he pointed out that they “… might be shadows, might be floating sea grass, or they might be rocks below the surface.”

Clouds over Gulf

If I didn’t have my “head in the clouds”, I had my eyes on the crab traps. Sometimes we would see large numbers clustered together and we would seek out the best way to traverse through them. Sometimes, when we got close enough a crab trap would fly away!

Flying crab trap?
No, a seagull that had been pretending to be a crab trap.

The seagulls floating among the crab traps look just like yet another crab trap marker. We had at least four instances where we thought we saw crab traps and instead found seagulls. Additionally, we had instances where black cormorants posed next to black trap markers. 

Crab trap buoys on the Gulf

It took four hours and forty minutes to cross the Gulf to the Little Shark River anchorage. We arrived at 2:15. Right after we got the anchor set in place, the bugs invited themselves onboard for a visit. We could tolerate the few that made their presence known until around 6:00 when the no-see-ums decided to eat Clark and me for dinner. After that Clark closed up the boat, cranked up the generator, and turned on the air conditioning. Unfortunately, more than a couple remained in the cabin after he closed all the doors and windows.

At sunset Clark remarked on the sun going down. I asked if he planned on getting a sunset picture. Referring to the gnats, he said laughingly, "I'm not going out there!" 

Road Trip, Dinner, and Heavy Rain

2/28/2017 

We rose early (for us) and collected the things we would need for the rest of the day on the all-day drive from Marathon to Vero Beach, Florida. To move our car forward along our route, we drive two cars to a future boat destination and one car back to the boat. We left Faro Blanco marina just before 8:30 and arrived at Vero Beach City Marina with no traffic issues around 1:30. After parking the cars, we used the restrooms, transferred everything into the rental car Clark had driven, got in the rental car, and started our long drive back to Marathon.

Clark did stop long enough to take one picture before we headed on our way.

Tree-root Alligator

We started out with Clark driving the two of us back. However, since Clark wanted to do trip planning, it made more sense for me to be the one driving rather than me fighting with his iPad while he drove. I suggested that I drive for a couple of hours until the next rest stop and then he could take it from there.  He found a place to pull over so we could switch drivers. Then, as I drove, he did his navigation research and made his calls to marinas, so that worked out well. The only “fly in the ointment” as it turned out was that we never stopped for a rest stop all the way back to Marathon!

By the time we reached the gas station in Marathon to fuel up before turning in the car, I had some aching joints and a numb bum! I flew out of the car after pulling up to the pumps, ran into the restroom, and then jumped into the passenger side of the car before he could finish filling up! Ten straight hours of driving and I was done.  No way was I driving any further even though the rental car drop off was no more than a mile or so down the road.

Before we set out on our day-long drive, Jo Ann from Namaste asked me if we would be able to have a farewell dinner with them when we got back at the end of the day. With a tentative yes, we gave her periodic updates on our progress since the drive time to Vero Beach depended on traffic around Miami and through the upper and middle Keys. Going to Vero Beach, we made good time at just five hours. Since we would be passing Miami close to rush hour, we had no way to estimate the length of the return trip.

On the way back to Marathon, we hit some traffic as anticipated, but it could have been a lot worse. With time on his hands in the unusual role of passenger, Clark guided me through the traffic-congested area with a blow-by-blow readout of the traffic per the Google Maps display. “The road bends to the left and then the right and then there is a yellow section. You are entering the yellow section. You are in the yellow section. Around the next bend is a red section. You are half-way through the yellow section. Now there is a blue section. You are near the red section. Now you are in a new yellow section …”  

The time to travel around Miami could not pass quickly enough for me.  I particularly found it “interesting” to get the continuous readout when Google Maps said we traveled in yellow sections, and I had the car moving at 65 mph. Since the speed limit was 70, I guess we did experience a slowdown of sorts. Then later, when we were not moving at all in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Clark announced that we had hit a “yellow” section per Google Maps. Sooooo informative! I asked Clark if this level of detail is what he would prefer when I am the passenger and he is driving, and he replied, “I like to know how long a slowdown will last.” I will take that as a yes and will have to try to remember to accommodate him next time we move cars.

Once we got past Miami and onto Route 1 heading through the Keys, we had no more traffic to discuss. Thank goodness! Clark turned his focus to the setting sun, and he pulled out his camera to get some pictures.

He wanted a picture of the unique “Welcome to Marathon” signpost. Unfortunately, the lighting with the sun behind the sign rendered the picture unusable for the blog.

Through text negotiations, we had set 8:00 as our target dinner with the folks from Namaste and Daybreak. As we approached the final leg of our journey, however, it became clear that we would get to the car rental place at 7:00. Since we were returning the car after business hours, we had our folding bicycles with us to facilitate our return to the marina. 

We would pass the restaurant where we planned to eat on our way back to Faro Blanco. That being the case, the group decided to meet at the restaurant, instead of the marina, and move the meeting time to 7:15. We biked east and they walked west. We beat them to the restaurant by a whole two minutes! When seating, the couples scrambled themselves. Guys at one end; Girls at the other. No husband sat next to his own wife. Totally random seating and unplanned.

Clark, Jim, Jeanne, Evelyn, Jo Ann, and Kenny

Restaurant Art

Outside the restaurant after dinner
Jo Ann, Jeanne, Ev, Clark and Kenny
(Jim took the picture)

 We had a nice time at the restaurant and sat just a little too long after we finished our meals talking at the table. Had we left earlier, we would not have gotten caught in a downpour that hit the area shortly after we exited the restaurant. As the first fine mist hit me, I thought “Hmmm, it’s raining”. Since it was only a mist and no one else had noticed it yet, I brushed it off as no big deal.

Pretty soon though, the rain started coming a little bit faster and harder. Clark and I decided we should take off to try to protect the bikes from getting wet. We took off down the bike trail as the walkers headed over to stand under a nearby awning to wait for the rain to stop. A failure on Clark’s and my part to outrun the storm resulted in us also taking shelter under an awning further down the road. Unfortunately, it was a little like closing the barn door after the horse escaped. As I pulled my bike up under the leaky awning, I already had a soaked shirt. Standing there watching the rain come down, I felt chilled by the cold breeze blowing around the corner of the building.

I told Clark my plight, and he moved over so I could get out of the wind. Then we just stood and watched the rain come down in torrents. At one point the rains slowed almost to a stop, and I thought we could leave, but Clark said we should stay put a while longer. I am glad I did not argue as shortly thereafter we had yet another downpour. After that we finally had a break in the weather, per the Rainy Days app,  long enough to allow us to get back to the marina.

I have trouble seeing in the dark, so biking at night is not on my Top Ten list of things to do especially since my headlight is one of the items that did not get packed in the rush to drive down to collect our new boat. The creation of miniature lakes on bike path due to the passing storm certainly did not add to my enjoyment of the situation. I biked slower than I do in the daytime from the rental car place to the restaurant and traveled about half that slow speed on the final leg of the bike ride from the restaurant to the marina. Clark said he lifted his feet as the bike went through the miniature lakes to keep them dry. Had I done that my shoes and socks might not have been soggy messes at the end of the trip.

The fun did not end when we got back on board our boat. First, Clark found the day’s wind-blown newspaper soaked through, spread all around, and spilling black ink all over the wooden deck of our cockpit. He collected the pages and placed them in a neat stack. He wasted his time though because I just grabbed the stack, much to his dismay, and dumped the lot in the garbage can on the dock. That mess was not coming on the boat with us!

Finding the wet newspaper pages triggered Clark’s memory that we had left windows open on board. I came inside and found a section of the sofa in the salon drenched. Moving on to the galley, I found everything on the stove wet. Checking the guest stateroom, I found the bed there had received a good dousing of water as had the floor nearby. Lastly, in the master stateroom, both the top of the closet and the floor showed signs of rainwater. Thankfully, our bed itself was dry.

As I went through the boat, I dried what I could with an old towel and pulled things like seat cushions out to get air to finish the drying job. Once done, I found it hard to find a place to sit and had no desire whatsoever to work on my blog. We left everything torn up overnight to be put away, hopefully dry, in the morning.  What a day!