February 26, 2013

We spend Sunday, 2/17, anchored at Rodriguez Key.  The wind is howling out of the north.  We are not getting much in the way of waves, but the wind is buffeting the boat. 

Monday, 2/18/2012, the wind has died down to 10-12 knots, now in the northeast.  We leave the anchorage at 7:30am, headed south to Marathon.  The wind dies off almost completely at noon and we are motor-sailing.  By about 2 pm, we are off Marathon, the wind goes into the east and build to 25 knots.  We finally manage to get all the canvas down and are in Marathon on a mooring by 3pm.  Today is President’s Day, so the Marina Office is closed, but we will check in tomorrow.

46.1 NM today.
Marathon (Boot Key Harbor) 24° 52.53’ North, 081° 05.20’ West Mile Marker 1195.

Lisa and Jeff have signed up at Tilden’s Dive Center to get their NAUI Certification.  They spent the next five days in class, pool and open water diving.  Exhausted at night.  They got to dive on Sombrero Reef, Ivory Wreck, Horseshoe reef and Barbers Point.  They had a great time and both got their certifications.

I spent a great deal of the time with George and Susan Barlow tracking down the details of our electrical system.  We have been experiencing some strange voltage output from our inverter.  We (I think) have figured out that it is dirty contacts (from lack of use).  As a side note, we now have a complete wiring diagram of our boat.  George had helped me do one of these for our last boat.

Thursday, I am doing laundry, and as I leave the laundry room to go to the Marina Office, I hear someone shouting my name.  It is Darrel and Ruth from Nite Cap! We have not seen them since before Charleston. 

We have had dinner at Hurricane’s (Taco night and two other times), Keys Fishery (sort of like Woodman’s in Essex, MA), Annies Steak and Lobster (very good, great desserts – try the carrot cake cheescake!).  We also ate at a very good Thai restaurant across from the marina.

Today is Tuesday and we are waiting on spare parts to arrive.  We have paid for another week here and will spend some time sight seeing and again provisioning for the Bahamas.  There is a bus to Key West, so we may do that for a day – we really like Key West.

This morning the pump out boat came by and as I was helping the pump out operator empty the rear holding tank, the hose cam loose and “stuff” went everywhere (including dousing me! Ukh!  Into the water to wash off and then a shower ashore after cleaning off the stern of our boat.  Holding tanks are great for the environment, but there has to be a better way to dispose of waste!

Wednesday, 2/27/13.  Lisa is now a qualified dumpster diver!  We rteceived replacement spare parts yesterday (remember all the water pump issues?).  We inadvertently threw out some of the parts with the packing, so Lisa dove into the dumpster to retrieve them!  It was the recycle dumpster, so it was ”clean”, but she showered afterward anyway.  Fun never ends!

Our plans as of now, are to leave here early next week and head back north to Rodriquez Key, Angel Fish Cut and then over to Bimini.  From there north to West End and the Abacos.

Stay Tuned!