There no rooms at the inn….Marathon is full and as usual has a waiting list. The good news is that about 30 boats left on Wednesday taking advantage of a good weather window for crossing the Gulf Stream so there were plenty of anchorages available. I love our Manson anchor and have such confidence in it that I would just as soon be on the hook. Rick, Kristen, AJ and Lisa came over to SYL and spent a little while onboard talking boats and such. Rick and Kristen are self proclaimed “Newbies” ( but only to the Seawind) and are doing it right. It is always good to talk to other cruisers who have the same boat you do. A lot of the “innovative” non-sailing changes that have been done to SYL were not my idea but were “borrowed” from other cruisers. You look at what each owner has done and take those things that fit your personality or lifestyle and implement those on your boat. Our King size bed was an AJ invention. The “Natures Head” we first saw on Morning Glory. Putting a floor in the kitchen “storage compartments” was taken from Sol Surfin. Now when it comes to making SYL perform……there is no one better than Rusty!
We all jumped in our dinghy’s and AJ took Rusty and Karen to pick up the rental car and Lisa, Kristen and I met the guys at the Key Colony Inn for lunch. After a great lunch we came back to SYL and just hung out. It was Karen’s last night onboard. We sure enjoyed her visit. She is a natural sailor!
Saturday was bitter-sweet. We were losing Karen but Jono was coming. Rusty and Karen left early to drive to Ft Lauderdale. They would pick up Jono, have lunch and Karen would fly home.
OK now I am going to vent:
I am really easy going and usually unless you mess with my children I am very easy to get along with. Here I am on SYL alone and this 36 ft monohull named Northern Lights dropped anchor and drug, dropped anchor and drug, dropped anchor and drug, for an hour I watched them try drop anchor and drag TEN times trying to get a plow to hook up…..then they drug out a danforth ( why that was not their main anchor I can’t fathom). I watch this, this PERSON take about 10 ft of chain and attach it to rope and throw it over as well. The Danforth hooks up except they are a boat length away. Now we are getting ready to have 30 mile an hour winds that night. I put out three bumpers on that side and take two more to be ready to put on that side. I call AJ and he comes by and says that since they are on our side we are not in any immediate danger. Rusty gets home and is considering moving when a large heavy monohull goes aground behind us and the wind is pushing against him. So of course Rusty is off helping get him out of trouble. By the time he gets back to the boat it is dark.
I keep checking all night to make sure this PERSON is not dragging. This afternoon the wind shifts and now he is over our anchor in front of us. Rusty finally says, “Are you spending the night there?” He replies that he is, and Rusty lets him know we are leaving early in the morning and he says he will as well. Rusty just shakes his head, comes back and starts his engines. We have had enough of this PERSON. Northern Lights then started his engines so he could move over so we could get our anchor up. There is just no cure for STUPID!! OK, I feel better now…..:)
We went to Burdines, fueled up, took on water found a good anchor closer to where we are exiting and all is good.
Earlier, we got a blanket for Jono, went to Publix’s and returned the rental car. FREE!!
