Offshore Passage to Marathon in the Florida Keys

 After getting back to Vero Beach from our very rushed time in Missouri for Thanksgiving, we settled in and started getting ready for our move down to Marathon. We had arrived back in Vero on November 24th. I started watching the weather and saw a great opportunity on December 3-6.

The plan was to motor south on the ICW on Sunday, December 3rd to the Fort Pierce Inlet and anchor there for the night. I was a bit shaken by the problem with the truck that I wrote about in my previous entry, but I really had no choice, but to head south when the weather allowed. This time of year the windows are few and far between. As I am writing this, we were right. There was not another window until after Christmas that would be at all comfortable. 

We were eager to go on Sunday morning. We dropped the mooring lines and said goodbye to Kurt and Libee. We went to the marina and filled our freshwater tank and then made the easy trip down to Fort Pierce.  We then had a pleasant afternoon watching the boats coming in and out of the inlet and the families playing on the beach. After dark the boat traffic stopped and so did the wind. We had a quiet night. 

A nice sunset at the Fort Pierce Inlet

Many other boats around waiting for their time to go. Little did we know that another boat was near us that we would later meet in Marathon. 

My calculations showed that we could make it to Marathon before dark on Tuesday if we could leave by around 5 am and then maintain 6 knots. So, we were up before 5 and got the boat ready to go. I raised the mainsail at anchor, so that I would not have to do that in the ocean swell offshore. The wind was light, so that was no big deal except it was very dark with no moon. We had current behind us as we headed out the inlet and quickly were moving more than 7 knots over ground. This is when I almost made a big mistake. When going out to sea, you should keep the red bouys to port and the green to starboard. There were two bright green lights that confused me. I was standing at the helm and not watching my chart plotter closely enough because it was too bright and was hurting my night vision. Those green lights were actually on range finders and they were on the north side of the inlet. Luckily I check my chart plotter and saw my mistake and did not run aground on the rocks. Those lights should be red, I have no idea why they are green. 

Fort Pierce inlet is notorious for rough conditions on the ebbing tide, but with the light swell and no wind it was a fairly smooth. Before long we made the turn south and we were on our way. We put up full sails, but only had about 6 knots of breeze, so we motor sailed at a little over 6 knots. 

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean

This is my favorite time of day to be at sea. 

A bit later we could start to see the nice sea state that we were just feeling up to that point. 

As we headed south the wind just kept getting lighter and lighter. By midafternoon, we passed the West Palm Beach Inlet. This meant that we needed to make a turn due south. This also meant that we needed to stay closer to shore. The Gulf Stream runs very close to shore from West Palm to Maimi. We did slow down to around 5.5 knots because of the opposing current. I found that staying about a mile offshore in 80 to 100 feet of water was the best we could do without getting uncomfortably close to land. We just set the auto pilot and motor sailed all day. At times the water was glassy. 

Sunrise over the Atlantic

We saw a number of Super Yachts during the day. Most were coming or going at the West Palm Beach inlet. This one is well over 100 feet long.

This was sunset along the Florida Coast. I think we were about Boca Raton.

We passed by Ft. Lauderdale in the dark. I have never seen the Atlantic Ocean that calm.

Here is Miami at night about 2 miles offshore.

After we passed Miami it got pretty dark on this moonless night. We had Biscayne Bay to our starboard, but there were very few lights to give us perspective. We could have gone into Biscayne Bay, but we were concerned about crab traps. We did not want to get caught up in one in the dark, so we stayed offshore. 

This is what a cruise ship looks like at night. We saw a number of large ships around Miami, but had no issue getting by them with plenty of space.

As we cruised south the wind started to pick up. I also now knew that we had not maintained the average we needed to make Marathon by dark the next day. We decided to make a stop at Rodriguez Key about 40 miles east of Marathon. I chose a place that I thought we could make it through the reef and into Hawk Channel that runs along the Keys. The problem is that we were going to arrive there before daylight. I decided to shut the engine off and just sail along at about 4 knots and wait for daylight. 

My plan worked perfectly. We arrived just after the sun gave us full light and I could see the channel markers and the crab pots. The only issue was the wind was now blowing at about 20 knots. It took us about an hour to weave our way through the reef and into Hawk Channel. We then turned and headed parallel to the keys. The wind lasted for about another hour and then died completely. We motored the rest of the way to Rodriguez Key. We got anchored and then I took a much needed nap. I did sleep for a couple of hours during the night, which is better than most overnights we have done, but the nap came easy. 

I did wake from my nap in time to catch this sunset over Rodriguez Key. It felt good to be in the Florida Keys again. 

I checked the weather and saw that we were expecting some wind from 15 to 20 knots the following day. The good news is it would be on our aft starboard quarter giving us a broad reach all the way to Marathon. 

We were up at first light and the wind had come as expected. I set the first reef in the mainsail and raised it at anchor. As I looked across the anchorage I saw another sailboat getting underway. They did not know it, but we were now racing to Marathon. The sailing was awesome. We unfurled our genoa to the first reef point and the boat felt very balanced and comfortable in the strong wind. The seas were a bit choppy, but because they were behind us, it was a comfortable ride. The autopilot handled the conditions well and we cruised along at over 7 knots average. We did have a few waves hit the side of  the boat and gave us a good splash in the cockpit. I got wet and Kim thought it was funny. The biggest issue we had was dodging the many crab pots. We were very glad that we didn't try to do this in the dark. 

We were about 10 miles to Marathon when I heard a radio call from the boat that was behind us. They had lost all steering due to being entangled in a crab pot. I asked if he needed us to turn around and render aid, but another boat was closer and stood by in case he needed help. We listened on the radio as he reported that he got his steering cleared and was then able to make the sail on down to Marathon and get the anchor down. He then got in the water and cleared his prop. Nasty things, those crab pots.  

We had great wind as we cruised down Hawk Channel. This shows us doing 7.6 knots SOG.

Here we are doing 8.0 knots. The heel is more than it was due to a passing wave. Look how clear our new dodger glass is. We love our new canvas. 

We pulled into Marathon and went in the inlet. We knew it was going to be crowded and it was. We were not able to find anywhere to anchor, so we went back out to the anchorage on the west end of the Key. It is not smooth out there, but we do have protection from a northeast and east wind. We do get some swell off of the ocean, but it is not too bad in fairly calm weather. The crazy thing as we were getting anchored, we saw another boat getting their anchor set. That was none other than Richard and Theresa on "It'll Be Allright". They had just made the trip from Mobile, Alabama and we arrived within minutes of each other. We then found that our friends, Geoff and Marsha on "Interlude" were also anchored a short distance away. It felt like we were home with friends. 

We got the dinghy down and headed to the marina to get on the list for a mooring ball. We were number 27. That means we had to wait for a while. We also knew that a major storm would hit the Keys in about 4 days. That set off a chain of events that was very unexpected. I will write all about that in my next entry.  

Our Very Crazy Time in Vero Beach

 We arrived in Vero Beach on November 10th. We love to spend time in Vero. This time around we had some things we wanted to accomplish. The first order of business was to go to Brunswick, GA to pick up the truck. We had come up with a crazy plan on our way down the ICW. My parents had decided to make the trip from Colorado to the Dallas area for Thanksgiving. This would mean that both of our parents would be in the area at the same time. That was just too good of an opportunity to pass up, so we planned to rent a car and drive it to Texas and then stop by Brunswick on the return trip to get the truck and then drive back down to Vero. Unfortunately, that did not work out. My parents were dealing with some illness and did not feel up to making the trip. We understood but were disappointed that we would not be able to see them. 

We decided to cancel the trip to Texas and just rent a car to drive up to get the truck. On Novermber 17th we took the dinghy to shore and met the city bus. We made one transfer to get to the Vero Airport to rent the car. When I tried to rent the car, everything changed. As it turned out my driver's license was expired! We quickly changed plans and Kim rented the car, but that would mean that she had to drive the car to Georgia and back. That turned out to be about 10 hours of driving. Other than driving in rain much of the day, the trip went off well. I was concerned about driving on an expired license, but I kept the speed down and had no problems. We were pretty tired when we made it back to the boat that night. 

During the trip in the car, I was working on how to get my driver's license renewed. It came down to the only good solution was to go back to Missouri. Thanksgiving was the following week, so we decided to see if we could get flights during that holiday week. Allegiant Airlines has direct flights from Orlando/Sanford to Springfield, MO. We were lucky and got two tickets departing on Monday, November 20 and returning on Friday November 24. We called the kids and let them know we were coming.

Our time in Missouri was a blur, but we did get the license renewed and were able to spend time with all of our kids and grandkids. My favorite part was playing football with three of my grandsons. I am sure I threw over 1000 passes in 2 days, but I loved it. 

When we got back to the boat on the 24th, all was well except we needed a ride out to the boat. The marina did not want us to leave the dinghy at the dock while we were gone, so they gave us a ride to shore in the pump out boat. The marina was closed when we got back, but Kim asked another boater and we now have some new friends. 

We rested after the whirlwind trip and started looking for a weather window to make the trip down to the Marathon in the Florida Keys. 

This is one of the mooring balls in Vero Beach.

Very calm night in Vero.

You can see the two catamarans that are rafted up on one ball.

I love it when it is calm like this. You just have to be aware of the bugs.

 After we were back for a few days, we also got a rafting partner. Kurt and Libbe on SV Epiphany were heading to the Bahamas. They were having some issues with their dinghy. I was able to give them a hand and in return they invited us over for an amazing dinner. Meeting interesting people is the best part of this lifestyle. 

I had been watching the weather for a while for an opportunity to sail south. We could do the ICW through Miami, but we knew there were over 40 bridges we would have to open. It would be slow and tedious. The weather looked great for a departure on December 4th and sail overnight and make it to Marathon on the 5th. We had some things to get done to be ready to go.

We went to Walmart to provision and got the boat ready. The day before we left, we decided to take one last walk on the beach. When we got to the truck, it would not start. The truck has run perfectly since we had it fixed back in June. We have put more that 5000 miles on it without any issues. I was frustrated and decided it would be best to take a walk and develop a plan. I walked by normal 3 miles and as I returned to the marina, I saw a guy working on a Ford Diesel Pickup. I stopped to talk to him and he offered to help. We tried lots of things, but without a good explanation it finally started. It ran perfectly and I moved it to where we were going to leave it. I tried starting it again and it started right up.  We took Omar and his wife Heather to lunch to thank him for the help. It was a crazy day. 

Our plan was to motor on December 3rd from Vero the 13 miles down to the Fort Pierce Inlet and anchor there for the night. I was very nervous about leaving the truck, but I had no good option. I also had a 2 day offshore passage to think about. It was one of those times when I had to focus on the present and pray that all would work out. In my next entry, I will tell you all about what happened next. The good news is that as I write this, we are safe and sound in Marathon, Florida.