The time had come to cast off our lines from the lovely St. Pete’s and to finally head for the Keys. Our dreams of a nice 48-hour blow, which would allow us to sail and keep us from yet another noisy multi-day motor-sail, were quickly squashed by the locals. Laughingly, they informed us that “nice” wind for a trip to the Keys meant we could (a) wait until October or (b) sail there in a hurricane.

Since neither one of those options was really appealing, we decided to wait for the lowest chance of thunderstorms over a 72-hour period instead. Believe it or not, this was quite a challenge since it seems our good friends over NOAA are suffering from a case of Marine Bulletin cut-and- paste this summer.

Here’s a glimpse at the ultra-helpful weather alerts ‘round these parts:
• Monday – Light winds. Waters a slight chop. Afternoon thunderstorms.
• Tuesday - Light winds. Waters a slight chop. Afternoon thunderstorms.
• Wednesday - Light winds. Waters a slight chop. Evening thunderstorms.

Anyway, you get the picture. It looked like we were going to run into thunderstorms. Yippee! Honestly, I wasn’t too worried. We had this weather forecast for the previous two weeks, too. We’d get cloud to cloud lightening, some wind, and the occasional drizzle. Nothing too worrisome or serious.
So, we wrapped up the last of our to-do list, said good-bye to all our of new friends, and pulled out of St. Pete’s last Sunday evening (6/19) with a planned 36 to 41 hour trip ahead of us.

We had a couple of little glitches before we even got out of Tampa Bay, but nothing too tragic. I must admit, though, it was a little unnerving to pull out of the marina at sunset for such a long trip. But, we absolutely did NOT want to pull into the infamously shallow waters of Marathon at night. Leaving the now familiar territory of Tampa Bay in the evening so that we could arrive in Marathon a day and a half later during daylight hours was the definitely the better option.

The first 24 hours of the sail went off without a hitch; we had nice weather and calm seas, but, of course, no wind to really speak of. Things got a little more interesting, though, just as the sun was setting on night two. Seems the XM weather radar hadn’t updated in a while, so we were more than just a little surprised to see lightening suddenly popping off all around us. Scott quickly resituated the radar, and what do you know, there were three, huge, nasty storms all around us! Now, just in case you don’t remember from my previous posts, I’ll remind you again - I’m a wuss. I have no interest whatsoever in playing dodgeball with Zeus in the middle of the Gulf. Luckily, Scott, as usual, kept a cool head and realized that the weather systems were falling apart as soon as they reached deeper water. So, he headed us a little farther offshore, which worked like a charm. We didn’t even get a single drop of rain! Good thing, too, because I’m pretty sure my plan of running back and forth across the boat screaming, “I don’t wanna die!” wouldn’t have worked. So, crisis averted.

The next morning, as we sailed into choppy Florida Bay, we were treated to dolphins, a sea turtle, a couple of rainbows, and the clearest water we’ve seen yet. The only downside was that it appeared we had the misfortune of arriving during dead sea grass season. There were huge pockets of the yucky stuff everywhere! Of course, it clogged our engine intake three times, leaving Scott with the fun task of taking the system apart and putting it back together over and over again.

Finally, Scott decided we’d be better off sailing until the grass tapered off. This meant we had to beat it across the bay at a whopping three to three and half knots. Of course, this slowed our arrival time down by several hours, and despite all of our planning, we pulled into Marathon right as the sun was setting. Since we weren’t able to make it into the marina in time, we dropped the hook right outside of the entrance channel, toasted to our safe arrival in the Keys, and passed out.

Our 54-hour motor-sail put us getting a predictably slow start the next morning, but once we drug ourselves out of the cabin, I knew it was worth every bump in the road and peptic ulcer along the way to finally get here. This is a very cool place! We sure are a lucky crew!