We Made It!

 In my last entry I wrote about our time in Sombrero Marina in Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida. The problem was that our time there was coming to an end. We had to be out of our slip on January 1. We had moved up the list for mooring balls at the Marathon City Marina, but we were still waiting. There are places to anchor in the harbor, but they are all full of other boats, many also waiting for a mooring ball. We really did not want to anchor there. 

While we were at Sombrero Marina I had been going for daily walks. Much to my surprise, there is a golf course just south. I was able to walk around the perimeter of the golf course and get in about 2 miles. I was planning to get in a round of golf, but the rain and bad weather did not make that possible. While I was on my walks, I noticed a small basin of water. There were a few boats anchored in the basin including 4 sailboats. There was still plenty of room for more boats. I looked at my nautical charts and found that we should be able to get in there by traveling through a maze of manmade canals. It looked like a great spot. I checked with a number of the experienced boaters in the city marina, and they confirmed that it was possible. The only downside was a half hour long dinghy ride to the city marina to use the facilities there. That is also where we would move the truck. 

I took this picture of an Ibis while I was out on one of my walks. This one is for you Mom.

Just a couple more Ibis walking by a house under construction

Lucky for us the weather got very calm on New Years Eve. This made it much easier to move the boat. 

We were up early on New Years Day. We had a very calm morning and that made it easier to move the boat. We disconnected all the lines and backed out of the slip without incident. We then motored through the canals on our way to the basin that I had seen on my walks. I watched the depth instrument closely as we cruised along at about 3 knots. Most of the way it was around 8 feet deep, which is plenty for our 4.5 foot draft. 

Once we arrived in the basin, I was shocked to see the water got much deeper. We had over 15 feet of water where we decided to drop the hook. We were able to lay out 100+ feet of chain and the anchor set on the first try. We settled in to life at anchor and we loved it. It was very calm and quiet. A far cry from the noise in the marina. This is much more to our liking.

We made our daily trips to the city marina to play either Bocci Ball, Pickleball or Dominos. We also made it for a Friday night Happy Hour that is the social event for the week. 

A beautiful night in our little basin. 

The best part of our lifestyle is reconnecting with some great friends. We had met Geoff and Marcia back in 2019 and it has been so great spending time with them again. 

A day on the Bocci Ball courts. 

Our last night in our beautiful little basin

We were on our way to the marina and saw this catamaran looking for a place to anchor. We stopped them and told them about our little slice of heaven. They joined us and stayed for a couple of weeks through some strong storms.  

On January 3rd, we were up in the marina main building, which is a large room which houses the marina office and a bunch of tables. That is where we play dominos. I had asked the person working the desk about any progress on our mooring ball and she told me she needed to talk to the manager. While I was sitting there playing dominos, she gave me the come here finger sign and I sprang to my feet. She gave me our mooring ball assignment. What a huge relief. We had some strong winds coming in the next few days and even though I am sure we would be fine in our little basin, I would much prefer to be on a ball. 

The forecast was for very light winds the following morning. We were up early and moving to our new home. We attached to ball C-12 and then let out a huge sigh of relief. It felt like the end of a long journey that had started on October 31 in Brunswick, Georgia. The goal all along was to get to Marathon and enjoy the months of January and February on a mooring. We were here and now let the games begin!

Why were we so looking forward to getting to Marathon? I will tell you all about our life here in my next entries. 

Major Storm Coming

 In my last entry, I wrote about our trip down the Florida coast and then down the Florida Keys to Marathon. I had been watching the weather closely and knew that a major storm was coming. The expectation was winds to around 40 knots that would last for almost a week. We arrived in Marathon on December 6th and the storm was expected to arrive on December 11th. 

When we arrived, we went into the harbor with SHIFT and looked for a place to anchor. The problem was that the mooring field was in a state of disrepair. We heard that a major storm about a month prior had seen two moorings fail causing the boats that were attached to be set free to be sent into shallow water. This event caused the marina management to fire the company that was maintaining the moorings and hire a new one. The new one had to go to all 200+ moorings and inspect them. Many had failed the inspection, and they were now fixing enough moorings to move the existing boats around to safe places. This left the new arrivals to find a place to anchor. 

I did not feel comfortable with any of the anchor spots inside the harbor. They were overcrowded and that left no ability to let out enough chain to ensure good holding. We decided to leave the harbor and anchor on the west end of the Key. We had decent protection from the North and East but were totally exposed to the South and West. We stayed there for 4 days. We went to shore and discussed our options with other boaters. Our close friends, Richard and Theresa were going home for Christmas, so they decided to bite the bullet and get a slip in a marina. They told us that there was another slip available in that same marina. We decided to check it out. We went by Sombrero Marina and saw the slip. We would be right next to the restaurant/bar. They have live entertainment 7 nights a week. They play until 10 pm on weekdays and 11 pm on weekends. The cost would be $1500 for three weeks. We would have to leave the slip on January 1. I was unsure, but Kim was adamant that we should stay outside and ride it out. On the 9th, Richard and Theresa invited us to their boat for dinner. The slip was still available and I decided that we should take the slip. Kim told me "NO!". She rarely does that, but for some reason in this case, she was sure. We went out to our boat and the water was rough with a good swell out of the south. We had a lengthy middle of night discussion on the subject and decided that we would take the slip the following morning if it was still available. 

I called the marina the following morning and was very relieved that the slip was still available. We were ready to move on in by around 10 am. Richard and Theresa were there to greet us and help us with our lines. It felt great to get the boat secure and have access to water and power. Kim got right to work washing all of the salt off of the boat from our "sporty" sail down from Rodriguez Key a few days before. 

Here is a shot of SHIFT in her slip at Sombrero Marina

You can see that the restaurant is right next door. This is an open-air restaurant/bar, so there is not sound protection for us. 

Our first day in the marina was also the lighted boat parade. The judges were in the restaurant right next to us. The restaurant is called "Dockside". 

They have lights in the water. It is cool to see all of the fish that swim by. 

Here is a shot of our solar powered Christmas lights in our cockpit.

Here is one of the better boats

This one was pretty good. It made for a fun night.

The following day a friend named Roland, who has been coming to Marathon for the season for a very long time celebrated his 87th birthday. He got up on stage to dance and sing. He always does. He invited us to his 83rd birthday 4 years ago just as we arrived. It was a fun time and great to see a bunch of old friends and make a bunch of new ones. 

All of these people were there for the party. We even had live entertainment. We only had to walk about 50 feet from our boat for the party.

Here is a shot of Kim on the right and our good friends Richard and Theresa. It was a fun, albiet a bit cool night. The storm arrived the next day.

The storm turned out to be not just one storm. It hit with winds over 30 knots, but we barely felt it tucked in our slip. You could hear the wind howling in the rigging and I even got Kim to admit that I was right, and she was glad to be tucked into this slip even though it set us back a bit. 

It stayed windy and it rained hard for most of the next week. One morning we had gale warnings and we saw some winds approaching 50 knots. 

That 47.9 maximum wind speed came on the 17th of December. We felt that one.

The truck was sitting in about a foot of water after the worst of it. 

On the subject of the truck, it had continued to start intermittently. I went over all of the sensors and even disconnected and reconnected the one that I thought may be the problem. Ever since then it has started every time. I am just hoping that continues. (That is as of this writing on 1/8/24) 

I spent much of my time in the marina doing maintenance to the boat. I also fixed the failed bilge pump switch. that failed in Jacksonville. I was very happy to find out they covered the 4-year-old switch failure under warranty. It was a very productive time. We are now ready to move north, when that time comes. I can now focus on having fun!

As we got closer to Christmas the weather got a bit better, but it was still much windier and colder than normal. We had a great Christmas dinner potluck at the city marina with all of the other cruisers. We made some new friends, and all is right with our world. It felt strange to go to and from the city marina in the truck rather than our dinghy, but that was just easier. We got right into Pickleball, Bocci Ball and Dominos. Not to mention the Friday night Happy Hours and other social events. We just love this place!

They finally started giving away mooring balls just before Christmas and many of our friends got one. We did not and when we checked with the office we were #2 on the list, but they did not know when they would hand out more. Our time to leave the marina was coming quickly and we were getting nervous. 

What would we do? Well, you are going to have to wait for my next entry to find out what we did. I will tell you now, it all turned out pretty awesome.