First of all we are sorry we haven't posted recently. Once cruisers get to someplace they plan to stay awhile, a certain degree of entropy tends to settle in. But that is no excuse! So let us catch you up.....

Ft. Myers Beach turned out to be a perfect place to pause and get many things accomplished: Don went to Columbus to visit his parents, Maryann went to the doctor for her rotator cuff problem, Maryann's best friend Bruce came down for a quick visit; then just when we were ready to depart, Maryann's sister Michelle decided to come down to go deep sea fishing! So a good time was had by all... So, after 3 weeks it was time to move on.

When we departed the mooring field on the 23rd of January we had very light winds that filled in enough to deploy our new Code Zero sail (the picture is of the sail flying). Remember the "Sailing at the Dock" post? that was the last time we saw this sail up. We felt like proud parents and were beaming when the sail flew nicely and was easy to raise and quickly lower. It gave us the ability to sail in light winds and save on diesel fuel, as promised.

We did a quick overnight to Marathon that had us eventually motorsailing into a foul current with increasing headwinds by dawn. By the time we went under the 7 mile bridge it was blowing about 18-20 kts on the nose.

As we approached the entrance channel our "it comes in 3's" day began. Number 1: the engine died in the entrance channel and after we dropped the hook IN the channel we discovered we had completely clogged the engine intake going through a thick patch of seagrass. Don fixed it in 45 minutes flat. Number2: we had to anchor in a crowded anchorage because there were no mooring balls available and dinghy in to the office to officially get on the waiting list for a ball. After starting the outboard we cast off the line and the engine died! No matter what we did it would not restart and we were rapidly drifting out that same entrance channel! A couple came by in their dink and gave us a tow back to the mother ship. It turns out that the fuel hoses got inadvertently switched when the engine and gas tank were hooked up. Number 3: after getting on the waiting list we were told we were #14 so it was going to be quite awhile before we got a mooring ball assignment. What's the big deal, right? Normally nothing except in this anchorage, the boats, out of necessity, were anchored WAY too close to each other with not enough swinging room. Which meant, lots of sleepless nights watching our position and others around us.

But hey, we were finally warm and among like minded people. Welcome to the Keys!