Final Days to Marathon (Days 70, 71 and 72)

We made it to Marathon and are tied up at Burdines Waterfront Marina where we spent 5 years running our charter business and 4 years just enjoying the beautiful "Keys" winters.  Some of our "normal" boater friends haven't arrived yet but it is great to see the people we know including the marina staff who have been here forever.

The last few days we have been getting used to shore life again and, of course, cleaning up the boat from 10+ weeks traveling.  Here we are as of Sunday, December 13th with the boat looking pretty good.  I didn't get a "before" picture but it was pretty bad.  The bow had a dark stain from the ICW and there were black marks down the sides from moorings we had stayed on.

Monday, December 7th (Day 70)

It was a very windy day in Card Sound (on the gulf side of North Key Largo) but the anchorage was pretty nice in the morning.  Our morning winds were from the west and the western shore here was only about 1/4 miles in front of the boat.  The front came through early and we had some rain but not as bad as expected.  The winds were mid-20s and our ground tackle (anchor, chain, snubber, etc.) handled it all very well.

The winds were supposed to clock to NW then N later in the afternoon but still only 20s.  This anchorage was open about 3 miles to the NW so we knew the waves would build when the wind came from that direction.  I planned on moving the boat just before dark to the north shore for more protection from those winds - anchor up at 5pm.

Around 3pm a squall came through just as the winds moved to the NW.  The waves coming toward the boat increased from 1/2 foot to 3 footers and were very close.  The boat started bouncing around pretty good.  Time to move!

I started getting the boat ready to move by checking the engine and engine room.  Just as I opened the engine room door we were hit by a much higher gust of wind and the boat leaned over to 20 degrees and stayed there.  I knew from experience this meant our anchor had pulled because of the winds and waves.  In almost all cases, if a boat is not anchored, motoring or sailing with high winds, the boat will automatically turn sideways to the wind and stay there.  With our two masts and high free-board (lots of boat sticking out of the water), there was a lot for the wind to push on so we leaned over away from the winds and stayed there.

I immediately closed the engine room door and went up to the cockpit to start the engine.  It took almost full throttle to turn the boat back into the wind.  Later I determined from our chartplotter we had dragged 500 feet before I could stop the boat with the engine against this wind.  I looked down at our wind instruments which were reading sustained high 30s and it seemed like the winds were calmer than a few minutes ago.  Geez!  Good news is we did not anchor close to the southern shore so were not in danger of running aground.

Laura typically is in our forward cabin when pulling in the anchor.  She handles the chain coming into the chain locker while I work the anchor windlass on the bow.  That wasn't going to work this time because someone had to be at the helm motoring the boat into the wind.  I yelled to Laura for her to come into the cockpit and she was there pretty quick.  I instructed her to keep the throttle up and try to keep the boat pointed into the wind while I pulled in the anchor.

Holy crap it was crazy on the bow trying to get our anchor in.  I think the bow was jumping up and down 4-5 feet and the wind was trying to blow me away.  I was worried about what was going to happen when I got the anchor out of the water and it started swinging around.  But, a few minutes later I had the anchor near the surface and it had a big clump of grass on it so was pretty stable.  I was wondering how I was going to get that off when a bigger wave came by and picked the bow up then smashed it back down.  The anchor was clean!  Nice!  I was able to get the anchor up the last 6 feet to the roller and secure it quickly.

Now we had to get somewhere more protected than this.  I took over the helm and cranked up the throttle.  The boat gradually started moving forward and settled at 1.5 to 2 knots with the normal engine RPM that would push us at 6 knots.  This engine is only 58 horsepower and doesn't like pushing a 21 ton boat into a 30 knot wind. I pushed the throttle a little higher to try and get more speed.

When I look back on times like this, I always feel bad that we didn't get any pictures or video.  It seems that almost everything we post is nice weather and good sailing.  We didn't get any pictures this time either.  I was fighting the wheel to keep the boat moving at a slight angle to the waves.  Directly into the waves was shallow water so I had to work my way farther north.  

About every 4th or 5th wave hit the port side of the boat while we were going down from a bounce and sent a wall of water right over our cockpit.  We stayed fairly dry but even a little opened zipper on the windward side brought is a lot of water.  It wasn't raining - this was from the spray coming off the waves.

An hour and 2.5 miles later things finally calmed down as we motored near the north shore and the squall passed us.  The winds dropped into the teens and we re-anchored 1/2 mile from shore without any problems.  The boat was soaked and covered in salt.  We had some fresh water to spare since we would be at the dock in a couple more days so I got out our fresh-water hose and washed down the canvas around the cockpit.  Almost back to normal!

Tuesday, Dec 8th (Day 71 - Start of Weed 11)

Our plan was to motor over to Anglefish Creek and pass through to the ocean side of Key Largo.  Then we would sail down the Hawk Channel to Marathon.  Anglefish Creek has a shallow spot on the very end of the channel coming out onto the ocean.  We needed at least 1 foot of tide to make it through there without touching bottom.  Oh oh.  Low tide there was 8:21am today.  We would have to wait until at least 10:30am for enough water.  Cool.  Sleep in and relax.

Just before 10am we motored the 2 miles over to the creek and passed through without problems.  When we got to the spot I knew was shallow, I kept the boat moving but very slowly.  Our depth gauge got all the way down to 6.2 feet - we need 5.5.  Good thing we waited for more water!  We wouldn't have made it at low tide.

Once on the Hawk Channel we pulled into the wind and raised our mainsail.  Once back on course we rolled out the jib and turned off the engine.  It was awesome!  The winds were low teens and slightly behind our starboard beam (broad reach).  The ride was very nice and I turned on the autopilot then relaxed with a good book.

An hour later the winds picked up to the high teens and we started flying.  We actually hit 8 knots and we always say that's when we are going to break something.  A short time later we turned into the wind and reefed the mainsail because the gusts were trying to push the boat into the wind and the autopilot was working hard keeping us on course.  

Now the winds worked into the 20s.  Still too much sail!  We turned downwind to reef (pull in some of) the jib.  Once back on course the boat seemed much more under control.  It always cracks me up that in high winds, we pull in sail and don't loose any speed.  The boat is not moving around so much and less lean means more sail for the wind to push.  

We had lunch then I looked where we would stay for the night.  The best anchorage for these winds would be on the SW side of Rodriquez Key.  But, that was only 10 miles away which would leave us 45 miles tomorrow to Marathon.  Farther down the keys the water is more shallow near shore so I would have to anchor more away from shore which meant more waves.  We talked about it and decided to anchor early at Rodriquez.  By 2:15pm we had the anchor down and relaxed with the howling wind out of the NW.  

I think everyone had the same idea and by an hour later we had 5 other sailboats anchored around us.  There was also a gent sailing a kite-board through our anchorage.  He was very good but I thought he was crazy.  The winds was still high 20s and this guy was flying.  I took a video which you can check out here.

The winds seemed to be high all night but we were calm at this anchorage.  I'm glad we decided to stop early.

Wednesday, Dec 9th (Day 72 - end of trip)

We were both up early so decided to get moving on our last day.  We had the anchor up at 7:30am and by 8am we were under sail with the motor off.  This was an excellent last day on the water and we sailed all the way to Marathon.  This time I didn't roll out the full main or jib so the boat was much calmer with the higher winds in the morning.  

By early afternoon, the winds calmed and we let out the main and jib.  Plus, we raised our mizzen sail which we hardly every use.  It was a wonderful several hours of sailing.  Laura took this video of our sail for the trip.

Later in the afternoon the winds increased so we rolled in the mainsail and reefed the jib.  We were still making 6.5 knots with 3/4 jib and the small mizzen.  

We averaged 6.5 knots for the 7 hours of sailing which is really good for us.  At 3pm we pulled into Burdines Marina where we plan on spending the next few months.  

It's nice to get to your destination but I am always sad the trip is over.  I mopped around the next 2 days then finally got my act together.  I dropped the dinghy and acid washed then scrubbed both side of the boat above the waterline.  Today, Laura and I polished all the stainless rails to remove the salt and start of rust.

If you can't see the videos on this blog, you can find them on our YouTube page by clicking HERE

I hope you have enjoyed our blog.  I like writing it but more enjoy reading back through it months or years later.  It helps to bring back a lot of memories.

If you would like to read about more of our travels, I have published 4 Kindle books on Amazon of our sailing travels from 2007 to 2018.  They are all under $5.  You can check them out HERE

Trip Stats

1,602 nautical miles in 72 days.  

Anchored - 26 nights

Stayed on moorings - 10 nights

Paid dockage - 26 nights (including 20 nights at Wayfarers Marina for carpentry work)

Free dockage - 7 nights

Overnight at sea - 1 night