Marathon to Marco Island By Sail-- Whoa!!

View from our bow in Marathon 4 days

 

For starters today is my mother's birthday and I first and foremost want to say Happy Birthday Mother- I love you and don't worry we are almost home!  Also, today is Easter and we should all give thanks to God for our Saviour Jesus Christ.  All things are possible with the love of One's Mother and the Great Divine! YEAH....And for those of you whom don't believe ENJOY your CHOCOLATE BUNNIES!

 

Will and I left Hawk's Cay on Monday morning 3/25/13. I believe I told you in my last post we had to wait for a thunder storm and then head down to Marathon.  That was a rough ride for 2 1/2 hours.  UNFORTUNATELY, gadget girl - I lovingly refer to as MYSELF....screwed up the view on the camera in Marathon.  And trying to prove I could fix it accidentally deleted over 100+ photos.  The camera now works and my husband of course just shakes his head and forgets that I can read his mind. Oh well.

 

The majority of this trip thus far has entailed a lot of bad weather. We have gone from winds, storms and cold temperatures to an occasional 83 degree day or two. Marathon was 4 days of  "nothing to write home about." The first night it stormed hard and gusts were over 20 knots.  The second night was pure wind storm.  We had gusts in some instances over 40 knots.  When you are tied up with fenders (rubber bumpers) you heard a lot of rubbing, squeaking and water slapping the hulls(lower bottom boat).

We left Marathon early Friday Morning

Seven Mile Bridge we have to cross under to head to Gulf of Mexico

 The top of our mast going under the bridge. Do you FEEL IT? I guess you have to be there! SUCH  an indescribable feeling of greatness and smallness. This has 65 ft clearance. We require 53 ish. A couple of bridges were only 56 on the Inter Coastal Waterway.  You literally go slow and hold your breath!



Little Shark Harbor- Everglades

 

We can not go the distance power boaters go due to the fact our boat on the average moves about 6 knots.  We had the worst crossing from Marathon to Little Shark Harbor.  It took us from 7:30 am to approximately 3:30 pm to achieve this 36 +  mile distance.  The winds were blowing North to Northeast on our bow and causing white caps. We had 2 and 3 feet waves breaking. (White caps are waves breaking causing white splashes everywhere. Kinda like when you are at the beach and a wave rolls in the front of it is white foamy looking.) There were lobster pots everywhere. LITERALLY EVERYWHERE!!! The hard part is the colors  of the buoys on the top of these traps in addition to the location.  With the white caps on the water the white small buoys on top of the lobster traps made it even more challenging. Some of the traps have different colored buoys like orange thank goodness however, with the boat going up on down hard it was a BASHING, STRESSFUL EVENT. Will had to hand steer the whole time. (Boaters often like to set a course and let the auto pilot steer the boat and just keep an eye out.)  Our speed dropped down to 5 knots and at times even lower. THIS WAS HELL forgive me everyone...I did not think I would be so happy to see the Everglades....land of the mosquitoes and any other creature that bites.

There were six boats in the small anchorage. Five were sailboats and this one power boat.

 

We have screens on our boat's cockpit.  Dusk is when the bugs come out.

 

As soon as it was light outside in the morning, about 6:55 am, we pulled the anchor up and began our route to Marco Island. What a difference a day makes, the waters were calm the wind was 10 - 15 knots and we were able to hoist our sails. Our speed increased to 6.7 knots for the first couple of hours.  There were lobster pots of course, but not as horribly bad as our prior day.  Captain Will was able to set the auto pilot for our new course. Several times we had to put it on standby to sail around lobster pots however, we were able to sit on the bow and let the boat do most of the work.YEAH!!

The star is our Island Packet Emblem (boat builder). Great boats for anybody looking to buy a sailboat.











Captain Hayes enjoying the view underway.  I was busy applying sunscreen.

Heading into the beautiful Marco Island

View from the back of our boat in our slip here in Marco.

Nikki is always on Watch Duty. (Still a Swab tho!)

 

We are going to take our bikes out today and do some provisioning for the boat (water, food etc...) get some fuel and then go exploring. We are going to head to Ft. Myers tomorrow morning. LATERS!!