May 1-5 Miami to Marathon

We are in the mooring field at Boot Key Harbour City Marina in Marathon, having arrived Sunday afternoon. It was fun to pass by Marathon Marina, where we stayed prior to departure, and have the folks there wave to us. Once we got on the mooring ball, it was great to hear from Matt and Linda Norwood on S/V Worth W8N4, our marina neighbors at Marathon Marina. We had a nice afternoon happy hour aboard their boat and it was great to catch up with them. While we were gone south, they traveled in their boat up the eastern seaboard and then traveled by car/camper to Maine before returning to Marathon.

Matt and Linda were very gracious with their car and the following afternoon, took us on errands to the grocery store and such. The grocery store no longer has a dinghy dock due to construction. The store was a big hit. I remember when I first got here thinking how expensive it was compared to Dallas, and now from this side, it was crazy cheap. Plus, I could find ANYTHING I wanted. With $200, which down island gets you about a week's worth of basic provisions, I bought so much, plus some fun special things, that I could barely get everything tucked away on the boat. We are accustomed to $6 for a six-pack of diet coke. Here, that got us a 20 can case!

We joined Matt and Linda that evening at Dockside, a local watering hole and restaurant to enjoy a nice meal and some tunes. We had had a couple of down days, relaxing on the boat. Today we went to Cruiser's Day at the local cinema. They show old classics and the price of admission is a can of food for the local food bank. Today they showed Rear Window, an old Alfred Hitchcock movie. Excellent! Movie popcorn, fountain cokes and air conditioning...a perfect afternoon! Here are some pictures from the last few days.

Stilt houses and the light house on the way out of Biscayne Bay. The pristine waters of the Florida Keys.

Many of the buildings in Marathon and Key West have murals painted on the exteriors. Incidentally, Boaters World is now out of business but there is a brand new supersized West Marine here in Marathon. Easy enough to understand since we personally financed it with our pre-departure preparations. This is the Tree of Knowledge at Boot Key Marina, a place to swap stories and tell lies.

Hanging out with Matt and Linda at Dockside Bar:

Views of the mooring field at Boot Key Harbour City Marina:

Sunsets are special in the Florida Keys and this was a really good one tonight. A boat returned to the harbour this afternoon, S/V Go Lassie Go. It is the catamaran that appears just below the sun. He stands on his hardtop and plays his bagpipes as the sun sets. When the sun disappears from site, everyone claps, whistles and blows their boat horns.

We are leaving in the morning for Bahia Honda, a beautiful stop on the way to Key West. We will be traveling with S/V Worth W8N4 as they are going to Key West for the month.

We keep a close eye on news of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as it is impacting the transit to Texas. I get off the boat on the 14th to head to Tallahassee, hang out with my parents and make preparations to go back to work. (Houses to buy and such.) Skip and Dave Damm are coming on the 19th to help Craig get the boat across the Gulf. We are already changing plans to leave now from Key West, at a sharper angle to Texas, than the previous route planned from Fort Meyers. Boats stupid enough to try to transit the slick will be prohibited. Plus, one can not take a boat like this through crude oil because the oil would suck into the raw water intake that cools our engine. Imagine oil running through your car's radiator. Not good for combustion engines!

Otherwise, all is well on Hakuna Matata. It is great to be back in the Keys and we are praying that the oil does not get into the Gulf Stream and invade this beautiful part of the country.

April 26-30 Passaging to Miami

With clear skies, we left Nassau on Tuesday for the 60 mile run to Chub Cay. It took us about 10 hours. Upon arrival, we started talking to other boats that were also planning the long run to Gun Cay and decided to travel with them, S/V Journey ( a couple headed to Chesapeake), S/V Bye Polar (Billy, a single-hander headed to Miami, along with two dogs and a cat on board) and S/V Carmella.
We had planned to leave Chub Cay at 0500 but the winds had cranked up to 20 knots with gusts, so we hung around until 0800, listening to weather reports in the interim and waiting for the winds to die down a bit. Despite the earlier winds which quickly died once we got underway, the seas were calm and we had an uneventful motor passage. 75 miles, about 13 hours. It was dark upon our arrival and after all the hooks were down, everyone settled in for a good night’s sleep.
We decided to press on to Miami while the weather was good and left Gun Cay, in the company of Bye Polar, at 0800 for the 50 mile trip to Miami. This trip was also calm and uneventful. It was great fun to see Miami Beach and the USA on the horizon and monitor our cell phone for signal strength on local ATT towers. With great cargo ships in the channel and power boats dashing about, Craig and I began our acclimatization back to the United States.


Leaving Nassau Harbour:

After leaving Nassau, it wasn't long until we were on the fish. Our first wahoo, which is a fine eating fish, and then a dolphin. No telling how many gallons of water we burned cleaning up the cockppit after these two beasts.

Chub Cay. Enjoying our last Bahamian sunsets:

And moon rises....

Underway to Gun Cay, on the way out of Chub. S/V Carmella, under sail, quickly dusts the rest of us who have similar hull speeds.

Approaching Gun Cay. The LAST sunset.

The lighthouse leaving Gun Cay:

The government cut and Miami ship channel...Welcome to Miami!!

The wreath on S/V Bye Polar, you ask? Because he really is from the North Pole.

So here we are, in the mooring field of Dinner Key Marina on Biscayne Bay. Getting used to life back in the USA. Many fun things. Having our cell phone ring and receiving calls from friends/family watching the Spot Me and welcoming us back home, the minute we got here, was the best! Wanting to stuff our ears with cotton because everything is so loud. The guy at the marina with a gas-powered leaf-blower. Loud! Get a rake! And my favorite, walking around and trying not to get killed crossing the street because a) the cars here go really fast, and b) they come from a different direction than what we have been used to for the last year.

1200 horses. Huh?? Because I can appreciate that there is no such thing as too much speed...

Ready to cruise????

So, here we are! Heading to Marathon in the AM to see friends and hang out a couple days before moving on to Key West.

April 25 Passage Across the Bank...Not !

We had planned to leave Nassau for Chub Cay on Monday. We expected some squalls across the Bahama Bank but the front arrived, packing far stronger storms than were anticipated. When we woke up, a quick look to the horizon and a double-check of weather had us rethink our decision to leave and we decided to wait a day. We were disappointed to spend a rainy day on the boat. When we got to Chub Cay, though, we had an opportunity to talk on the radio with a south-bound boat that did come across during those storms. Boy-howdy, were we glad we waited!! They got beat up in sixty (that’s 6-0) knot winds and steep twelve foot seas which take on a whole new meaning when the water is only fifteen feet deep to begin with. Once you are on the bank, there is no place to run and no place to hide…you are just in it.
Not us!!

April23-25 Nassau, Bahamas

We pulled into Nassau Harbour Club Marina on Friday after making an appointment with a welder. We were disappointed to find that the pool was drained and under repair but the marina otherwise proved to be a good spot. Nice laundry facility on site and a supermarket right across the street. We took Ken on a dinghy tour of Nassau Harbour on Friday afternoon. It was a little late for us to make it downtown, but as you can see from the cruise ships lined up, we didn't want to run around down there with 10,000 of our close friends.

A trip through the Atlantis Marina is always interesting with the exterior sculptures and architecture.

The super yachts are jammed in there like sardines. Even with twin screws and cheater bow thrusters, it is amazing that they are able to manuever into such tight quarters. We especially liked M/Y Indiscretion with a car stored on its upper deck.

This is a view of the anchorage from the marina. We stopped at a club during our tour and Ken got to try his first Bahama Mama. We watched the bartender carefully but lost count of how many bottles he used to mix this concoction. He also brough us a few complimentary conch fritters. Although I had cooked some conch while we were at Allens Cay so Ken could try them, I was glad that he got an opportunity to taste some that were professionally prepared. I can do a decent job but have never perfected the art of cooking conch since I can't eat them.

This is the M/Y At Last, secured at the end of our dock and preparing for a charter. The crew cleaned and polished on this boat, its two tenders and four jet skis it seemed 24/7. When they weren't cleaning, they were loading on provisions. Boxes and boxes of food and cases and cases of liquor. Thirty bags of ice which we couldn't figure out because surely it has an industrial ice maker. Then came the fresh flower arrangements which were tropical works of art. Curiosity got me and I finally had to Google it. This boat can take ten guests and charters for $150,000/week.

On Saturday we went out for an early lunch before Ken's flight, only to find that the restaurants were not yet open. We consulted with a security guard who informed us of the best spot for a late breakfast. A short hike later and we were there. I do not even know the name of the place but it was clearly a local hang-out. Breakfast is a choice of fish stew and grits, chicken stew and grits, conch stew and grits, or sheep's tongue stew and grits. Pardon me? Yes. Sheep's tongue. The boys make quick business of ordering the conch. I'm tweaked. I can't have conch and don't want fish or chicken. In a moment of daring boldness, I order the sheep's tongue. Scary to look at but delicious to eat.

We came back to the boat. The welder and crew arrived just about the time Ken was to leave. We got him squared away in a cab to the airport. The welder, hanging on to the stern with one hand and welding with the other, made short work of the job, repairing the broken stanchion base, rewelding the other stanchion base on the opposite side of the gate, and also putting in a stainless bar between the two stanchions to provide extra strength. A superb job at about half the rate we expected to pay.

We were sad to see Ken go. It was great fun having him on board with us as we traveled the Exumas. Thanks for everything!

After a fuel stop, we pulled out of the marina this morning and returned to the anchorage. We will leave bright and early tomorrow morning to head to Chub Cay. We will cross the Bahama Bank, spending a night in the middle of it before proceeding to Gun Cay. Weather permitting, we think Miami by Friday.