Living the Dream

Well here we sit in the lovely Mooring Field in Marathon.  We started "living the dream", on Tuesday, January 4th.  We left Naples in a light wind and overcast skies at 7:12 am.  We had a fantastic trip, Florida bay was totally flat, and we got to Shark River in exactly 8 hours getting between 9 & 10 miles per hour most of the way and using 4 gallons of fuel per hour. 

The anchorage at Shark River was without a doubt a sanctuary.  We were with 2 other boats, and only the birds and shoreline to look at but if you want peace that is the place.  The water was like glass (or as we St Clair Flats people call it "piss on a platter").  Later that night when we woke up to check on the anchor the stars were so bright and the water so calm that the stars were twinkling off of the water.....something we had never seen before.

We left Wednesday morning at 8:00 and again the water was POP!  We had an unbelievable trip across Florida Bay, no wind, lots of Dolphin and LOTS of crab pots to navigate.  We arrived at Marathon at 3:00 and grabbed a mooring ball without mishap, then decided to move to another mooring when we were told the dog on the boat directly next to us (pretty close quarters here) barked nonstop.  

Well lets just say things did NOT go smoothly on the next pickup.  The thing about a mooring ball is it has a 4 foot line (if you are lucky) attached that you must pick up off the bow and attach to a line on your boat.  Since our bow is about 10 feet off the water this is not an easy task, so Jann decided that she would once again get it from the swim platform.....NOT a good idea.  Although it had worked well the first time, this time I couldn't get it in time and it got caught in the prop and wrapped around the shaft.  This was not a good way to start our stay other than the laugh it gave to all the boaters around us I'm sure.  To make a longer story short, we had to hire a diver (only $60. when we were expecting at least a couple of hundred) to untangle us and wait to hear from the office as to whether we damaged the line on the ball, if so we would have to replace it.  The divers checked it today and said it looked ok so we have our fingers crossed that the office will say no charges!

BIG lesson learned on that one.  Captain's orders are law and the mate must not offer opinions on anything technically over her head....which pretty much means everything. 

Other than that snafu,we got our bikes ashore and went for a ride, I went to a yoga class yesterday at the tiki hut with 42 other cruisers (wow it is so cool to call yourself a cruiser and actually be one!) and we got through our first cold front last night with wind gusts to about 30 mph.  We were bobbin' and swingin' and doin' a few dos ee dos.If you looked out you felt like you were on the tilt a whirl, so I didn't look out!! :)  Somehow,  I

slept like a baby and woke up to an absolutely beautiful day.  Warm and calm as could be.  We even took a ride out into the Atlantic Ocean in the dink.  Another POP day on the high seas!

Gary's sister Wendy and her husband Carl are in Key West now so we will hook up with them, where still to be determined.  

Hope you all enjoy the pictures.  They don't do the beauty justice and I took way too many.