Delilah's Meanderings

I promise this post will be upbeat, only the fun parts of our cruising experience. We are currently anchored in Sister Creek, off Boot Key Harbor near the City Marina of Marathon in the middle Florida Keys. It is a beautiful spot. The short version of Delilah's meanderings since Fort Meyers Beach ... 1/22 south from FMB to Smokehouse Bay Marco Island, 1/28 south to Indian Key Pass in the 10,000 Islands, 1/29 south to Little Shark River in the Everglades, and finally 1/30 south to Marathon in the Keys. This is as far south as we plan to go this season. We need to be back to FMB by the last week of February for visit from one of our daughters and her family. Our March schedule is full of other visitors in SW Florida. For the detailed version of what happened aboard Delilah continue reading.

Tuesday 1/22 we motored out of Matanzas Pass by FMB and sailed south down the Gulf of Mexico towards Marco Island. This was terrific day sailing, didn't use the motor most of the way. We had a NE wind and sailed around 6 knots (close to 6 mph) with main and genoa sails out. You don't buy a sailboat if you want to go fast! Dropped anchor at 2pm in Smokehouse Bay our favorite area to hang out on Marco Island. The wind had picked up, but the anchor held. We walked about a mile to Su's Garden Chinese restaurant, had wonton soup, spring roll, and shared happy family, very good. It felt like we were still rocking.

The next day we got a slip in the Esplanade Marina and lived a life of luxury for the next three days on floating docks tied up next to very expensive yachts. This was just the thing we needed to move on from the event at Fort Myers Beach. The marina accommodations are first class and even the washer and dryer are free, not coined-operated. Our goal was not to eat out every meal of the day. ;-) We did have some rainy weather, but even that helped me not to have to wash the salt off the boat. Friends from the boatyard, Duane and Jenn aboard Proper Tease a 42' foot classic Morgan, anchored in the bay and we took tours of each other's boats. The four of us rode bikes to Tigertail Beach park and walked down the beach, mostly talking about our grandchildren. We went out to eat with them and filled them in our favorite restaurants in the area. We re-provisioned at Winn Dixie which has a nice dock for customers to use.

The weather window we were waiting for to head for the Keys came, so Monday 1/28 we motored down Big Marco River, the inside route that goes by Goodland to anchor south of Indian Key Pass in the 10,000 Islands area. This was to position us for a shorter sail to Little Shark River in the Everglades. This was a short trip which allowed us to turn off the motor after Coon Key Pass and enjoy a slow sail downwind with the genoa unfurled on a warm sunny day with white puffy clouds. It doesn't get much better than this. Well it didn't until I forgot to move the spinnaker halyard and rolled it up and jammed the genoa being furled. Oh well, no big deal. Kim made spaghetti with meat sauce and salad for supper and we ate while watching a beautiful sunset over the Gulf. No green flash, so I guess we will just have to keep watching sunsets and taking a million pictures.

The next morning I baked cinnamon rolls in our little propane oven. This oven is a little tricky to use because it gets much hotter in the back. To compensate we bake on a small stone pan and rotate the pan to bake evenly. Anchor up at 7:30AM and we motored south toward Little Shark River as there was very little wind. Kim was busy below hard boiling eggs and cleaning and making salmon patties for supper. I made chicken salad for lunch which we had on crackers. Everything tastes great when you're underway. Thank goodness for the auto pilot. You still have to be vigilant to avoid getting tangled with buoy lines on crab pots. Fortunately there didn't seem to be many crab pots on this leg of the journey. We arrived at Little Shark River at 1:30pm and anchored not far up the river for a quick getaway. We saw several manatees including a small one which stayed close to its mother. Little Shark River is the last protected anchorage before heading south across the Florida Bay to the Keys. Since we arrived so early we had time for luxuries like taking a sink bath and playing Scrabble which is our favorite game aboard. I won this one!

With barely enough light to see we raised anchor at 6:30AM anxious to get to Marathon. Winds were light at first, but we had a favorable current which allowed us to average 6.5 knots with motor alone. Delilah has a 27 HP 3 cylinder Westerbeke diesel engine, which I baby a little. Later the wind increased out of the east and we raised the main sail and motor sailed. Which allowed me to slow the engine and maintain the same speed. Also it has the benefit of smoothing out the ride through the waves. As usual Florida Bay was thick with crab pot buoys to dodge. The crab fishermen usually lay the traps in lines roughly evenly spaced. Sometimes we are lucky and go between them and don't need to disengage the auto pilot and manually steer around. I know ... it is a tough life! Actually I secretly enjoy it, kind of like a game. We saw a few dolphins and Kim saw a sea turtle. We went under the bridge at Moser Channel at 12:30pm and motored into Boot Key Harbor at 1:30pm. All the mooring balls were taken so we motored around the crowded harbor trying to find a place to anchor. We finally found a shallow spot and dropped anchor. Quickly I got the dinghy down and we motored to the City Marina office to pay for a week of "Dinghy Package", get on the waiting list for a mooring ball, and put money on the laundry card. Next we took the dinghy to Burdine's for a Mahi-Mahi plate and a basket of fries to share, which they are famous for. Ahhhh ... back to civilization and eating out!

We didn't get much sleep that night, worrying about depth in the anchorage and listening to the raised rudders rattling. It was shallower than we calculated and we kept thinking the boat was going to be grounded and put stress on the rudders because the back of the boat was in more shallow water. Delilah's draft is 18 inches which is very shallow for a sailboat, but not good enough if the water is a foot deep at low tide. As it turned out we stayed afloat ... all that worry over nothing.

The next morning we decided to move to somewhere with more depth and anchored in Sister Creek which links Boot Key Harbor to the Atlantic. The boats anchor perpendicular to the shore with the anchor off the bow and a stern line (rope) tied to the mangrove trees on shore. This was the first time we anchored this way so there were some lessons learned, but we got the job done without hitting any other boats. We recognized two other boats in the creek from the boatyard. This anchorage has it good points and bad points. On the good side it is a beautiful, natural setting (Kim has seen manatees swimming by) and a short dinghy ride to Sombrero Beach. On the bad side, it is a 20 minute dinghy ride to the City Marina facilities and the no-see-ums are bad, especially when there is no wind. Also we are close to the line of 4 tall radio antennas that broadcast to Cuba and we experience a few strange electrical phenomena like our anchor light is glowing even though it is not turned on! We plan to move to a better spot in the creek when one of our friends head to Key West.

We have really been enjoying our time at Marathon and not sure when we will head back north, but need to back in FMB by the last week of February. The city marina has bikes you can check out including a three wheeler which we have used to get groceries at Publix and exchange a propane tank at Home Depot. As usual we are assisting the local economy be eating out as much as our budget allows and then some. We went to the Pigeon Key Art Festival in the nearby community park and even bought a painted sand sculpture of a great blue heron to replace the 3 plastic fish that hang in the saloon in the boat. This is our first art purchase at an art fair if you don't count T-shirts.

It is really nice down here (highs in the upper 70's, lows in the lower 70's), no wonder no mooring balls are available. Many cruisers are waiting for a good weather window to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. Hopefully we will be able to grab a mooring ball before we head north. We'll let you how it turns out!