I have been pretty slack at getting this post out but anyway here it is now:
We are planning the next crazy adventure which requires us to earn a bit of cash (not so easy when one is lounging around on the boat) so we decided to hang up our sails for a while, put the boat in storage, and get a real job.
We found a very reasonably priced storage facility in Goodland FL called
Calusa Island Marina but first had to sail to Marathon to get a few things sorted out and then the 100 mile trip up to Goodland.
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| Our anchorage at Islamorada |
The sail from Islamorada to Marathon was a short one, only about 6 hours of sailing but we went via Channel 5 and on the ocean side of the Keys with a stiff onshore breeze. It was choppy with a lot of reflected waves off the shore, the most uncomfortable sail we had yet. There was also a lot of boat traffic adding wake to the mix. We got quite wet and were really tired of being jerked around by the choppy seas by the time we reached Marathon.
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| Channel markers at Little Basin, Islamorada |
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| Cormorants on an Intracoastal Waterway channel marker |
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| Approaching Channel 5 bridge |
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| Channel 5 Florida Keys FL |
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| "Bobby The Viking", one of the colorful characters in Marathon FL |
Having got our business out of the way we set off for Goodland. We decided to take 4 days to get there with stops at some of our favorite places and some we still wanted to see.
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| Leaving Marathon under a beautiful rainbow |
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| Leaving the Keys behind, heading to Sandy Key |
Sandy Key is always a great place to anchor with lots of birdlife and good protection from the prevailing wind so that was day one. The second day we had planned to sail to Whitewater Bay but decided to sail by as there was a thunderstorm approaching and also the following day's wind was forecast to be against us. We made Lostman's River by late afternoon and anchored in the bay at the mouth of the river. A great anchorage but a fairly big storm hit us just at sunset and lasted a couple of hours. Our anchor held ok but we still got a bit anxious after our previous experiences with these violent storms.
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| Storm approaching at Lostman's River |
By morning we were surrounded by dense fog which made a surreal scene with the world around us just gone and the water dead calm. We motored away using the GPS and watched the world return as the fog burned off. An hour or so later the wind came up from the north east at around 15 kts and we were soon racing along close hauled. The short fetch from the shore kept the sea flat making a superb sailing day. It was so pleasant we decided to carry on all the way to Goodland.
Before hauling the boat out we needed to clean it out and sort out what would go with us and what would stay on the boat. Also the mast would have to come down and the sails needed to be washed to get rid of the salt before we packed them away. We found a nice little motel with a dock, The Pink House Motel, at Goodland where we could do all we needed to do. The motel is old and has a lot of mismatched cutlery, crockery, and furniture but very clean and the owner was real friendly and made us feel at home.
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| Moored at the Pink House Motel dock. |
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| Drying the sails before packing them away. |
After 2 days of vigorous cleaning, sorting, and packing we had the boat ready to be hauled out. With the mast tied to the deck we motored the mile or so over to the marina. The staff at Calusa Island Marina are great. It only took a few minutes to get the boat out and at no time did we feel anxious at all. They pressure washed the bottom and put her into covered storage. They are most professional and run a neat and tidy marina. So that is our boat's home for a while.
Our future sailing plans (probably towards the end of 2014) are to follow the Florida coast north and continue around to Texas and Mexico...........
