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.