sittononthebeach.com

We woke up to fog this morning….. that means calm winds and warm temps.  It’s nice seeing the fog this morning since we don’t have to move today unless we want to.  The visual blanket isn’t always welcome, but this morning we have no agenda that makes fog a problem so we sit and enjoy the beach and our own personal 200 yard circle of life over coffee and Linda’s breakfast “migas”.   It’s 9 now and the sun shows itself through the hazy morning now and then.  Generally I have found that by 10 in the morning Florida shows you what the day will be like.

Yesterday evenings drizzle made the boat damp inside so I ran the AC several hours before we went to sleep.  The dry boat made a huge difference.  We all slept well.  The light winds did move the boat over a shallow spot about 4 this morning, we bumped the bottom wandering around in the light shifting winds on the long rode.  Jono and I got up and set a stern anchor to hold the boat in place.  My little 8# Manson serves well as a light day anchor and low wind stern anchor.  It has enough holding power to be very useful.

The anchorage was a good choice, it was flat and fairly quiet.  Apparently the birds in this “sanctuary” are so excited about living here they can’t sleep at night….. the gulls yacked outside all night long.   We are SO LUCKY to have a seagull sanctuary….. those things are almost extinct… you almost never see one right?  I can officially tell you they love the South end of Egmont Key.  In truth though… they didn’t keep us awake, we didn’t even hear them from below decks.  We are just far enough away from their party town that we slept well, but I can report they were still hitting the bottle and laughing around the camp fire at 4AM when Jono and I got up temporarily for the stern set.

9:44  on my second cup of coffee.  Jono has the long handle squeegie pushing water off the back deck.  The divider that encloses the back of the salon is still up to keep the boat dry.  I can see the bottom of the fog bank as it lifts.  It’s actually a pretty morning.  Every now and then a flight of late night partiers come by and laugh at us on their way to breakfast…. other than that the morning is quiet and Linda’s wonderful breakfast goes down good.

It’s almost 10 and our cirlcle of life is growing larger.  Breakfast is over so Jono and I are about to go see what high tide left us on the beach.   Sea Yawl Later !!  Rusty

We just entered the Tamapa Bay area from Siesta Key.  I decided to go out to the mouth of the bay to Egmont Key for the night….  The islands SE sand bar would totally protect us from the small rollers and wind left over from the fairly overcast and meager 6 knot of wind we had most of the day.   We are 15 miles from St. Pete and have the whole of Tampa Bay layed out in front of us to explore.

About 3PM (just before anchoring) we got a light drizzle…. the boat felt damp inside so after getting the hook down and a great dinner….. I cranked up the AC to dry us out.   Jono took the dink out for a “fishing” expedition on the totally flat bay after the rain.  It goes without saying but….. no fish dinner tomorrow.

The South end of the island is a bird sanctuary… so the very best beaches here are off limits to us pesky humans.  I assume a pair of double breasted pink and lavender flamingos flew by here one day looking amourous at each other so now it’s hallowed ground and off limits to us destroyers of nature (cruisers).  Yeah I sound synical… but I understand how birds have dominion over the humans….  oh wait…… I think I read somewhere that WE have dominion over the animals……  maybe just not here in Florida.

We will spend the next few days dodging the expected rain.  The weekend is promising showers so we may enjoy the fresh water on the decks…. or do some land excursions.  So far with Jono on board…. if we saw something that looked interesting along the shore we called “excursion”  and pulled off to investigate.  Venice was fun, we found a super cool island to inhabit right at the Venice Inlet.   We have stopped to take pictures of Dolphin as they played… just generally fooled around on our way home for the past couple weeks.

more later…. SYL  Rusty

The only thing we saw in the Florida Bay was crabpots.  The above picture is misleading because it was not this calm for about half of the trip.  We left this morning about 7:30 am.  We were downwind for the first 30 minutes and we had the wind on our nose and it was “rodeo” time.  Jono did quite well and I mean we had waves swashing the windows.  The winde stayed between 20 and 25 knts all morning and thru most of the afternoon.  Finally, as evening approached the wind died down.  We motor sailed in calm waters until almost 10:00pm.  We went over 75 miles which was quite a feat considering sea conditions.  The sunset was breathtaking as usual.

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!!

Thursday we sailed Hawks Channel from Islamorada to Boot Key (Marathon).  Hawks Channel is the Atlantic ocean but there is a reef line offshore before it gets deep.  The reef does not come above the surface so it does not offer any protection, you just need to know it is there.  It is the reefs that everyone snorkels on in Florida.  We had good winds again.  We have been able to sail since Miami which has been really, really nice.  I am so glad that Karen got to actually sail a lot instead of motoring which  is a totally different experience.

Upon arriving at Marathon,  one of the first things we did was to find AJ and Lisa.  AJ and Lisa were the first people who took us under their wing here in Marathon and showed us the ropes.  We have kept up with them ever since that first year.  It is because of AJ and Lisa that we met Ted and Mili, s/v Morning Glory.  AJ and Lisa have just purchased their second Seawind 1000.  They are both amazing.  For me especially Lisa,  I would just like to follow her around with a notebook taking notes.  She can do anything and is a wealth of information.  When they are not cruising she works for West Marine, infact she is working part time at West Marine now.  She told me about two products I had no knowledge of so I will pass it on….303 which is a UV protector she said we should apply two times a year to our tramp and and Plexus for glass.  I intend to quiz her more and will pass on the information.  She also told me that the sticky glue from the velco I had first used to attach the bug screen will dry and you can use a plastic razorblade to get it off.  Just a word…..be very careful about using self adhesive anything on the boat.  It tends to stop working in time and the adhesive separates from the product leaving a mess.  Also be very careful with rubber backed rugs.  In time if you are in heat the rubber will adhere to the surface of your boat and it is very hard to get off.  Finding rugs that do not have a rubber back is hard.  I still use them but I make sure I take them up fairly often.  We left a rug down in the salon when we left the boat in Brunswick and the rubber back has attached itself to the deck and we are playing heck getting it up.

But back to Marathon.  We found out from AJ and Lisa that the couple that bought the Allons-Y ( currently named Windfall) is coming to Marathon for a couple of days.  The Allons-Y was the Seawind 1000 we rented for our honeymoon and a couple of other times. We all met up for dinner at Burdine’s which is a seafood restrauant under the bridge.

Rusty found the restrooms interesting!

They had other facilities!

We took the dinghy to Burdines and the sunset was spectacular!

Islamorada has been a stop for us every year.  Our first year to cruise we choose Islamorada as the final staging point before crossing the Gulf Stream.  Besides having a great small grocery store a short dinghy ride and walk to it has Lorelei’s.  Another favorite night spot of ours.  One of the first things you may notice is the amphibian Cadillac.  You have to have your picture taken with that in the background.

We had a greata evening.  Lorelei’s New England Clam Chowder is awesome.  We listen to Billy Davidson serende us and took a dnghy ride home that evening.  It was Karen’s first nightime dinghy ride.

We had a delightful evening on anchor in Blackwater Sound.  After a breakfast of pancakes we pulled anchor and set off for Islamorda another one of our favorite hangouts in the Key’s.  During the sail we saw an odd sight.  Sail boats being oared.  Check this out:

Outward Bound

Outward Bound participates

Outward Bound 2

We looked up Outward Bound on the net and this is what we found out:  Outward Bound is a program for “at risk kids”.  They offer several different experiences where the participants learn responsibility, leadership and working as a team etc.  It sounds like intervention for kids who are headed down the wrong path.

In the Key’s one of my favorite places to anchor is Blackwater Sound.  It is large, close enough to eatery’s (if you want) yet you can get off by yourself without a lot of traffic ( can’t tell you what it is like in the summer though).

We got our anchor down well before sunset.  Karen spent some “downtime” on the bow of SYL just soaking in the spectacular sunset.  One of my greatest pleasures cruising is that everyday, and I mean everyday we are treated to beautiful sunsets and sunrising.  Even the lake can not compare to being out on open water.  There is nothing to obstruct the beauty.   All this is missed in populated areas because there are always structures of some sort blocking the beauty nature provides us every day.

Karen Relaxing at Blackwater Sound

Sunset at Blackwater Sound

Blackwater Sound - Full Moon