Back In Marathon

We are back from our Christmas trip to North Carolina. We could show many pictures but we will limit it to these three. The first is Spencer in his Empire trooper helmet; the second is Kendall playing with her Santa delivered doll house and the third is a beautiful sunrise taken at the Snake Creek bridge on the way north.

The trip was a long one; 970 miles each way. The trip back was marked by the worst traffic I have ever seen on the interstate. Sunday and everyone trying to get home . Traffic was a 10 mph crawl with a number of 30 mile backups. No accidents, no active road constuction; just too many cars on too little highway. Very tedious. So much for reduced holiday driving. Anyway here we are back in Marathon. New Years "celebration" will be a quiet dinner out with some dock neighbors. Happy New Year!

Heading Home for Christmas

We are driving back to North Carolina on Sunday. We will drop the cats off at home and then go to Holly Springs for Christmas with the kids and grandchildren. We will be back to Marathon on Monday, Dec 29. A couple of pictures from our walk to Sombrero Beach this morning. A cloud framed sunrise and a shot of the beach. This is a beautiful park.

Boot Key Harbor

Boot Key Harbor has had a difficult history. The harbor is large and protected 360 degrees but as usual government indifference and incompetence made a mess. When we were here for three weeks in 1996 waiting for a crossing opportunity to Bimini the harbor was totally uncontrolled; dozens of bum boats, no pump out system, no mooring field. Marathon was unincorporated and Monroe County could not have cared less. A different story today; Marathon incorporated after years of court fights and took control of the harbor. Most of the bum boats are gone and there is a huge mooring field patterened after Vero Beach. The first picture is as good as we could get of the mooring field. Lots of boats waiting to cross to the Bahamas. The second picture is of a cloud framed sunset.

A Day Trip to Key West

We took a trip down to Key West today. Its 50 miles and takes about an hour. We were surprised at the relative quietness of the town. The parking lots were essentially empty and the city marina in Key West Bight which is normally overbooked was, as seen in the top picture, empty. The locals said in a hopeful tone that things would pick up after Christmas. The second picture is of an empty Mallory Square. About an hour before sunset this area will fill with tip seeking acts, food vendors and thousands (maybe hundreds some nights)of people; every night, year round. The bottom picture is our (mine anyway) favorite restuarant in Key West. Love the raw oysters on the half shell and other great sea food. We'll be back to Key West quite a few times this winter.

Our arrival was timely.

Its good we pushed a bit and arrived before schedule. The weather has been windy with over 8 foot seas in the Gulf Stream for days with the forecast calling for another 5 days of the same thing. Dixie and I have commented several times that we are glad we do not plan to cross the Gulf Stream this year since there has been very few decent crossing days. Its surprising to us as we observe some boaters who try to cross when they shouldn't. Their whining about the uncomfortable crosssing does not get sympathy from us; the secret is to wait until its safe. The worst case of a careless crossing we encountered last year when a boat that finally reached Lucaya was followed by a CG helicopter for 2/3's of the crossing as they feared floundering;took them 17 hours to do what should have taken 9 hours. Not a good use of taxpayer money.
We have crossed the Gulf Stream at least 28 times and never have had a bad or even marginal crossing. The weathermen keep commenting that its cold everywhere except the tip of Florida, and here we are.

The car is "Home" also

The boat is here and after a long day the car is here for the Winter. In early November I drove the car to Ft Lauderdale and left it with John & Bonnie. I rented a one way car today and brought the minivan back; 140 miles each way. The Turnpike is the only way to do this. US1 through Miami would add hours to a 3 hr trip. One thing has not changed; south Florida drivers are the worst in the US, even worse than Boston, Houston, Atlanta and LA. In a 280 mile round trip I never saw a police car as some fools traveled 100 miles per hour weaving in and out of 70 mph traffic. Defensive driving is the key to survival.

Winter Home

Home for the Winter. The first picture is DIXIE IV at rest in slip B32. The second is the center of activity; the Dockside Grill, a classic Florida Waterfront bar and grill. The gentleman in the picture is Roy the dockmaster. The marina owners are trying to market these slips for $199,000, which seems more than a little excessive. Not much interest so far.

Miami to Marathon

Its 120 miles from Miami to Marathon; a two day trip. Its better to go outside but the sea conditions prevented that so we took the inside route where the control water depth at low tide is as low as 5 feet. We traveled for miles with a foot or less of water under the keel. We never touched bottom but the venturi effect of rapidly moving water between the keel and the bottom slows the boat down and makes it harder to control. We anchored at Islamorada the first night with most of the shallow water behind us, moved on to Marathon and docked in Boot Key Harbour at the Sombrero Marina about 12:30 the next day. The pictures are of a manatee that apparently has been swimming around Boot Key Harbor for years. We saw this one about 30 feet from our dock. Our plan is to be here until the end of March.

Commentary & Pictures, Palm Beach to Miami

The distance from Palm Beach to Miami is only 70 miles but for most boats its impossible to do in one day. There are more than 32 draw bridges between Lake Worth and Miami and most boats cannot get more than 50 miles to Ft Lauderdale. Sailboats of any size have to go outside at Ft Lauderdale since the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami is only 55 feet high even though all high rise bridges across the ICW are supposed to be 65 feet high. No one really seems to know why the bridge was built that way. Local legend says the state DOT put the bridge up for bid with the wrong height specified and the contractor built it that way even though he knew better. Anyway we were able to make the trip in one day since we can lower the mast and pass under all but 5 of the bridges.

A couple of pictures. Downtown Miami in the late afternoon, and a shot of the cranes in the Port of Miami on Dodge Island. Miami is the last city going south. The towns in the Keys are basically strips along both sides of US1. As a stretch Key West could be called a city but there are lots of other better adjectives for Key West.

Commentary and pictures, Vero Beach to Palm Beach

Some pictures from Vero Beach to Palm Beach (Lake Worth). They are actually in reverse order. The very large fin is one of the many thousands of very large dolphins that populate the waterway. They follow boats everywhere.

The brick lighthouse is the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse. Its one of the most attractive but like most lighthouses today are more of a tourist attraction than anything actually useful for navigation.

The large power cat was tied up at Palm beach. Its far larger than anything we have ever seen. Palm Beach itself is strickly an enclave of the very wealthy. Its a barrier island, very narrow with miles of mansions, no businesses, no industry, just money and social snobbary. Since Ted Kennedy loves it it tells you something about his real orientaion.

Arrived in Marathon December 10, 2008

Well we got here. No more cold weather this winter. More and pictures tomorrow.

Islamorada, FL December 9, 2008

We have been moving fast and I have not had a chance to at least tell everyone where we are. We have made remarkable progress in the last few days:
Vero Beach to Palm Beach (Lake Worth) 70 Miles
Lake Worth to Miami 70 miles. This segment is remarkable since there are over 40 draw bridges between Palm Beach and Miami. Since we can readily lower our mast we only had to stop for five of them.
Miami to Islamorda 70 miles.
Tomorrow on to Marathon, 5 days early but provides some flexibility.
More commentary and pictures when we get settled in.

Vero Beach, December 5, 2008

Turned out the things to be done exceeded the time available to do them so we will stay one more day and leave Sunday morning. Fine with us since we still have time to get to Marathon on schedule and we like Vero Beach. We have no intention of moving from North Carolina but when we speculate on where we would move its always Vero Beach (given the problems Florida has we wouldn't move here anyway; there are hundreds of thousands of folks leaving the state. The population is not going down but I will leave it to you to figure out where the makeup population is coming from.)

Vero Beach, December 4, 2008

Here we are in Vero Beach for two nights. One of our favorite stops. There are two meals out that over the years have become essential. A hamberger at Bobby's on the beach, and pizza at Vincent's on the Miracle Mile (about three miles away). We took care of Bobby's at lunch today, on to Vincent's tomorrow. Lots of chores to get done before we leave Saturday morning.

Some pictures:

The bridge at Haulover Canal is typical of the dozens that we are able to go under without waiting for them to open by lowering our mast.

There are hundreds of shoal islands and they all seem to be covered with birds. Just sitting there watching the world go by.

The shuttle hanger at Cape Canavaral is, literally, the largest building in the world. It can be seen miles and miles away.

Melbourne, FL December 3, 2008

Here we are at anchor off Melbourne. A good travel day. We took what should be some good pictures which I will post tomorrow from Vero Beach.

New Symrna Beach, FL December 2, 2008

We left St Simon early Monday and moved on to Pine Island, just north of St Augustine. This was our longest day trip, 90 statute miles. We got in just in time to anchor before darkness fell. It was a long day but in this area of the ICW both anchorages and marinas are in short supply. An uneventful (best kind) night at anchorage.

Underway this morning for Rockhouse Creek anchorage in New Symrna Beach, 77 miles. A fast but uneventful day. Saw more boats on the waterway today than we have so far, mostly sailboats. Anchored here about 3:30 with the most boats we have ever seen here. A little crowded.

A couple of pictures. Fort Morro may be the most famous fort in North America. It defended St Ausustine for hundreds of years. The second shot is the skyline of the city; no high rises here ever.

On to Melbourne tomorrow enroute to Vero Beach Thursday for a two night layover.