End of the line

Two weeks ago we picked up our youngest son in Houston and brought him back to Sarasota. Since then we have rented a condo, put the boat back in our original slip on Longboat Key, and called the boat broker that sold us the boat. 

 Back in Longboat Key:

We still have to fix the bow thruster, redo the teak, and finish emptying it of our personal possessions. This was not part of our near or distance plans; however, as regular readers of this blog will note one of my favorite sayings  is (ad nauseum) "life is what happens while you are making plans."

The good news is that the boat broker called a gentleman who really wanted the boat when we bought it and he is coming to town next week for a viewing.

Sarasota Bay

 On a mooring ball in Sarasota Bay is not a bad place to be in January. High today was 75 and tonight’s low is predicted to be 68. 

Proof that our judgement is not singular - downtown Sarasota is filled with high rise buildings, that unlike other cities, are condos not offices. Just north of us are multi-million dollar condos.

Of course the sunset looks the same from our boat as from their balconies.

Northbound

 We found a weather window and left the Florida Keys Sunday morning, stopping 10 minutes later to fill the diesel tanks and empty the holding tank. Dodging crab pots we followed the chart plotter to our first stop in the Little Shark river - much to the delight of a few million no-see-ums. The evening was spent inside with the windows shut. Not a hardship in the cool (64 degree) evening.

Little Shark:

Day two was our longest passage to Marco Island where we had a protected bay and no bugs.

Sunset with libations at Marco:

On day three we re-entered the intercoastal waterway and within minutes we were joined by dolphins. They stayed with us for almost a half hour giving me time to realize I should get a picture or three.

While trying to reason out why we were blessed with such dolphin attention it finally occurred to me that our boat developed a good size wave at our cruising speed of nine miles per hour. Plenty of wave to play in at an easy speed for a dolphin. As if to prove my point we were joined by several other pods throughout the afternoon. The day goes fast watching wild dolphins play.

We are now in Sarasota and will spend the next month here. We are as far north as we want to be for this time of year.

Heading north

 Tomorrow we head back to the cold north land of Sarasota. Our plan is 5 easy days and anchoring along the way.

View from the patio of the main building:

A strange sight - seagulls feeding on small fish naturally. No human feeding or stealing involved:

Cruiser diet

 After 3 months of cruising I have inadvertently lost 25 pounds. This may be attributed to 2 things. All food must be carried by hand from the store to the dinghy and then shipped to the boat, and in that vein the  portage of ice cream  (one of my former major food groups) is not possible. 

We did find a food truck with excellent BBQ so don’t feel too bad about my soon to be emaciated condition. We followed our noses and discovered the truck behind a small roadside vegetable stand. 

We might be taking a little cruise in a few days....weather permitting.

Red sky

A couple of firsts for me this week. I have seen the red sky at morning, but never in the evening. The old  adage: "red sky at night sailors delight; red sky in the morning sailors take warning."  was true at least that evening.

The next first for me was getting a picture of dolphins. I have seen lots of them, and even a few wild ones doing tricks for free. I have tried a couple times to get a picture but dolphins have their fun quickly and move on. This pod of 4 alerted us with heavy breathing right on our stern. They went to the end of the bay and I was ready for their return.

 

Lost at sea

OK, the title is a bit misleading. A more appropriate title could be "Adrift in the moorings". Some child's teddy bear jumped ship or maybe was forced to walk the plank. In any event our dinghy was stowed for the night and I declined relenqushing my slothful ways to rescue the remains of an inanimate object.

Not to be confused with last week's Marathon Christmas boat parade - last night was the mooring field dinghy Christmas parade.

A few boat bucks

Tuesday we made the 10 minute trip to the Marathon Boatyard. Five hours and 18 boat bucks later (for you landlubbers a boat buck is the smallest denomination for sailors and is equivilant to $100 in US currency) we pulled out with 2 new house batteries, a new generator battery, and both diesels gone over and maintained as needed.

 Leaving the boat yard required 200 yards down a very narrow canal. Just as we were about to enter the canal a big 55-60 foot cabin cruiser entered from the oppisite side. With a few choice oaths I got as far over as possible and told De Anne to tell the other captain to hurry up. The boatyard workers gathered in a hurry and yelled to me that he was coming in under one engine. I held back on noting that I always had one engine and concentrated on not hitting any boats on my right as he passed inches away on my left. One boat had a sailing dinghy side tied and our fenders tangled with it. De Anne leter told me that the condition of the sailing dinghy was rough and it would be hard to prove anything aganist us. We went out into the Atlantic (Ok, only about one mile) opened it up and checked everything was working fine. 

 The mooring folks have been collecting money for bikes for under-privileged kids. Some of the results:

Christmas boat parade

Saturday night fun without leaving the boat. The annual Christmas boat parade.

Even after all the excitement De Anne still had energy for a Sunday morning kayak ride. Note the neighboring boat and the "creative" way it has been enclosed for extra living space. Third world plywood and tarpaper construction right here in the USA.

Turn on the heat

 This morning was cold - 58 degrees. I got up at 6:30, cranked up the diesel generator, and turned on the heater for the first time ever. It started out blowing cold air, but in a couple minutes it was warm air and within 5 minutes the boat was warming up enough for De Anne to peek out from under the heavy blanket.

Larry asked me in an email if his boat sign (Enchantress) was still up by the Tiki hut. 

Island Sunday

Sunday in Boot Key harbor. Plans must be made for the day during breakfast. Discussion and refinements ended with a plan satisfactory to all crew. I took the dinghy ashore with the water can and trash, plus shower bags. De Anne kayaked to Sombrero Beach while I rode the bike around to meet up with her.

 Sombrero Beach meets Sister Creek:

We reunited at the marina after showers and went to The Fisheries for lunch of Conch Po boy and coconut shrimp:

Thanks to Donna on a boat of the same name for this picture:

Settling in for winter

The weather has turned cold with a strong north wind. In the Florida keys that is not so bad. Sixty at night and seventy during the day. 

 There are 200 boats in the mooring field with lots of dinghies going by. It seems like once a day someone slows down too comment on how beautiful our boat is. 

 Sunset over Boot Key harbor:

The cruiser's lounge decorated for Christmas:

Down the Keys

We were happy to leave Dinner Key. It was not the same place we loved a dozen years ago, but few places are. The exception is Marathon. 

We are on a buoy in Boot Key and it is the same it always was. Our big decision now is between wings at the Hurricane Bar or a lobster ruben sandwich at the Fisheries. 

 We do have some problems with the house batteries, but the generator helps hide the problem. Tomorrow I will check a couple marine vendors for a pair of new 4D batteries - preferably vendor installed. I would rather spend money than to start hoisting 90 lbs batteries into and out of a dinghy. 

 In the mean time..... enjoying the 80 degree days and 70 degree nights.

Dinner Key

 We made it to Dinner Key mooring field Monday afternoon and will stay three days with a Thanksgiving Day departure scheduled. The marina is still being repaired from Irma almost three years ago.

Empty slips still being reconstructed:

Our trip down the ICW was uneventful with the major exception of a large cargo ship entering Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale. We were in a line of other boats that all turned left to go out to sea leaving us alone crossing the ship channel. Looking left we saw a cargo ship bow on about a mile away. That may not seem close to landlubbers; but trust sailors when they tell you that is way too close! I put the wheel over hard and gunned it like a sissy. We did lazy circles for half an hour then continued down the ICW past the port terminals. 

We passed the same cargo ship docking with the help of a tug. The tug pushed as we went by and the surge of water was huge. The boat surfed sideways and the crew nearly experienced loose bowel syndrome. Once again - pedal to the metal escape.

Monday happy hour was a special treat!

Port of Palm Beach

The marina where we are weather-trapped is next door to the Port of Palm Beach. Big cargo ships load and unload day and night. We can, once in a while, hear the trains leaving and if a pleasure boat gets too close to a cargo ship the harbor pilot boat or Coast Guard will blow a combo horn and siren so loud you can almost feel it. I watched a large catamaran pirouette in mid channel and beat a hasty retreat with a heavy steel pilot boat bearing down on it. The pilot boats are berthed in our marina so we have advance notice of a cargo ship coming in when the pilot boat goes out.

There is a constant on both coasts of Florida. Derelict boats are everywhere. Property owners complain to their city, then laws are passed that hurt liveaboards. The boat bums leave the boat abandoned and it sinks creating a very expensive mess for the local government. The State government passed a law that boats could anchor at least 48 hours with some local restrictions allowed. Just north of our marina is a small anchorage with 2 boats blown ashore and 2 sunk boats just barely showing. In the picture below a bum boat is tied to a sunk boat - very convenient!

The wind is relentless and it now looks like we will remain hunkered down 2 or 3 more days enjoying the delights of marina life.

Hanging out with the big boys

We are spending the night at Riviera Beach city marina just north of Palm Beach. The marina is full of large, expensive yachts.

The big boys in the sunset:

The only slight mis-adventure of the day was when a boat with four 400hp outboards passed us throwing a 5 foot wake. In the insuing rocking and rolling I must have hit the refrigerator switch with my foot. A few hours later we discovered our ice was on the slushy side. Three dollars and a trip to the gas dock and now we have 10 lbs of this vital commodity.

Tomorrow we fight our way through the boating capital of the world.

Update: Tuesday morning - upon weather review the crew saw upcoming winds in south FL of 30 to 40 mph and decided to wait it out in this nice marina opting for comfort in lieu of intrepid seamanship.

Fair weather

 Two weeks of strong to gale force winds grew tiresome. It is now gentle breezes and sunshine. We could move on, but do not want to subject ourselves to one of the busiest waterways in America on the weekend. Monday morning seems soon enough.

Last night during happy hour(s) De Anne pointed up and yelled “what is that?”. It took a moment, but then we realized it was a rocket taking off from Cape Canaveral. I was so enthralled watching the magnificent sight that I never got out the camera. Oh well, another launch Sunday at 7:27 pm is scheduled.

Our location is called Sunset Bay and here is why:

TS Eta

The outer bands of Eta are whipping around us today. Our dinghy, like several others in the buoy field, is in the davits. We added chaff guards to our mooring lines and watched as others added additional lines.

The steady winds are in the twenties with frequent gusts above fourty:

It looks like tomorrow will be more of the same.

My last picture of the schooner Lilly was into the sun. Here is a better picture of her under sail two days ago:

Holding in place

We had plans to leave yesterday for points south; however, a weather check Tuesday night on the storm Eta gave us pause to rethink traveling to south Florida this week. Another week in Stuart seems prudent. 

There are moments of crisis in the buoy field. Lilly, a prow, gaff-rigged schooner started to sink. SeaTow arrived with big pumps and after a couple hours saved the ship. They moved to a dock and did the repairs. 

Lilly going by us - all well again:

Tuesday afternoon we spotted a large ketch trying to pick up a mooring ball in a 12 knot breeze. The multiple attempts were fun to watch for a few minutes, but their technique was very poor and became painful to watch. 

De Anne and I began to debate rendering assistance (she - pro, me - con). 10 minutes later we were in our dinghy with a stout mooring line. 

It was an older couple in a very large, heavy boat. We attached our mooring line and held it out for their next pass. De Anne passed him the line while I attempted to stay close without being rammed. Their boat looked much bigger from the front approching too fast with the husband yelling "Stop" to the wife at the helm. He cleated the line and all was well.

Gale

 A gale is blowing today. Yesterday we raised the dingy and stowed the kayak in preparation. The water is foam streaked, but wave action is minimal because of the protection of land and the marina to the north and east. It is a stay aboard day.

Two days ago SeaTow brought a sailboat in to the buoy two down from us. 4 little girls plus Mom and Dad. They abandoned ship last night. I would not like to ride a gale on a small sailboat with 6 people either.

Rising moon from the buoy field: