Looking for Warmth in All the Wrong Places

Lots of cookies but very little room

Ah…Christmas in the Keys.  It is sunny.  And some days it is quite warm.  Being away from family and traditions at this time of year can be difficult, so we try to maintain some of the old ways. We have a small lit Christmas tree below and colored solar powered LED lights strung around the cockpit. The primary challenge is Burt’s need for his favorite Christmas cookies – cut out ginger cookies decorated with colored sugars.  I’m working in a tiny boat galley but if you are desperate enough, you can make it happen. Weeks later I am still finding red and green sprinkles throughout the boat.  Cookies in place, we try to continue another tradition by going to Christmas Eve services at a local church.  In the dark we hop on the bikes and pedal three miles upwind to a Presbyterian church.  The first person we encounter there is a friend of Burt’s brother who moved to Marathon recently – small world.  And afterwards, in the dark with the sound of the wind in the palm trees, we pedal another three miles, now downwind, to the marina where we dinghy back to our moored boat.  It is definitely a different experience from Christmas in Ohio.  On Christmas day we celebrate with a progressive dinner between three boats which quickly becomes two boats once one decides to make a last minute dash to the Bahamas.  Elaborate hors d’ouvres, grilled steaks with the trimmings, and cherry pie leaves everyone quite satisfied. We join our good friends Ted and Sally to conclude the holiday week, celebrating New Year’s Eve at the Dockside Café with a delicious dinner, dancing to the Eric Stone Band, and Burt demonstrating how to do a shotski. Appropriately, the ski is a water ski.

Dancing to the Eric Stone Band of "Lats and Atts" fame

Burt, Sally, and Erin, our server and liveaboard in the mooring field demonstrate the fine art of consuming rum punch on a shotski

Our time in Marathon flies by.  Burt has some boat projects, the foremost being installing an inverter so that we can have an available supply of 110v power.  It is a big job, but it goes smoothly, so now coffee can perk in the mornings, and I can use a hair dryer.  We go biking most days.  Sometimes it is just to the grocery store or Home Depot, but often we make the 8 mile trek out on the Old Seven Mile Bridge.  This is a remnant of Henry Flagler’s trans-Keys railroad, extending from Marathon to Pigeon Key.  It has been maintained for walkers and bikers to reach Pigeon Key and enjoy the surrounding waters.  It is a spectacular bike ride, made all the more interesting by all the wild life you can see along the way.  Burt and I purchase a new camera with a telephoto lens for a mutual Christmas present, and the results are impressive.  

Osprey in flight along the bridge

 

Tropic bird overhead

Ray swimming along in the sea grass flats

  

Shy sea turtle as seen from the bridge

Manatee mother and calf near a bridge pier - there was another calf nearby

Iguana in mangrove roots along approach to the bridge - notice how its coloration matches the surrounding vegitation

Other days we ride bikes or dinghy out to the beach at Sombrero Point.  It is in a lovely city park and gets pretty lively during the holidays with many of the visitors coming from foreign countries.  I sign up for a pine needle basket making class and am now mastering another “media”.  We attend the weekly Seven Seas Cruising Association lunch at a nearby restaurant. There’s yoga several mornings a week but other plans and cold spells keep me from attending.  Evenings get pretty social.  Almost every night you can find music at some venue, our favorites being the open mic nights at Dockside or the marina tiki hut. One of the frequent performers is a trumpet player in his 90’s who once played backup for Frank Sinatra – he is still pretty darn good.  

Must have spent a lot of time at Dockside as we left Eric Stone with a Sandusky Sailing Club burgee to decorate his newly purchased business - a place for good food and good music

 In between are Happy Hours, Pot Lucks, Game Nights, and dinners with friends. With over 250 boats in the harbor, you would have to try to be lonely.

Sunset in beautiful Boot Key Harbor, Marathon

As usual, Mother Nature intervenes.  We experience a very unusual 5.5 earthquake.  The epicenter is located about 100 miles away, off the Cuban coast.  Shaking buildings are reported in Key West, but I am oblivious to any movement until someone at the dinghy dock mentions that there are no tsunami warnings.  TSUNAMI WARNINGS??? What’s up?  A tsunami in Boot Key Harbor would be unimaginable. We are also struggling with a succession of cold fronts.  If it is frigid up north, it is darn cool in the Keys where on several occasions we are the warmest spot in the Nation.  Nevertheless, on days when the temperature never breaks 60 degrees, it gets pretty chilly on the boat.

We would love to spend more time in Marathon and perhaps explore a few of the other Keys, but we make the decision to head to the Bahamas on the first possible opportunity. We need at least 48 hours of settled weather and wind from the right directions.  It takes several weeks until we see a possibility. We plan to leave on a Monday, and the day before we take one last ride out on the bridge.  One look at the water tells us we should leave ASAP.  In the following two hours we pedal back to the marina, make a last stop at the grocery store, transport the bikes back to the boat, and prepare the boat for an offshore voyage. By 1:45 pm we motor out of the harbor amidst shouts from surrounding boats wishing us a safe passage and enjoyable stay in the Bahamas.  It brings a lump in my throat – we are leaving wonderful friends and a lovely boating community.

We chart a course to head directly out to the Gulf Stream past Sombrero Light.  About ten miles off shore we begin to pick up the current and see an increase in water temperature.  We have found the Stream, and today it is a benign and welcoming place.  At the peak we see a boost of over three knots through the sapphire colored water.  Flying fish lead the way, and towards sunset we pick up a pod of dolphins that keep us entertained.   

Pod of dolphins that kept us company for almost 30 minutes, playing in the bow wave and slapping tails to herd prey

One of the dolphins close up

We are motor sailing with winds between five and ten knots off the beam and watching our progress towards the Bahamas tick off at amazing speeds.  Just before sunrise, we pass from water thousands of feet deep on to the Great Bahama bank with depths in the teens.  The water goes totally flat, and our bow wave is the only thing that distorts our views of the sand and grass bottom.  For most of the day, we see no land.  In the late afternoon we exit the bank into the Tongue of the Ocean and anchor off the south side of Chubb Cay with five other boats that are making the same passage from Marathon. It has been an amazingly easy trip – we both get plenty of rest, cooking hot meals is a breeze, and we enjoy a glass of wine and dinner of grilled lamb chops while gazing out on our first Bahamian sunset.  

Our first Bahamian sunset - taken from anchorage off Chubb Cay

The next morning we hoist the anchor before sunrise and cover the last thirty miles into Nassau. 

Cruise ships at dock welcome you to Nassau

We are in the midst of a parade of boats converging on the port as many more are completing an overnight directly from Miami.  We take a dock at Nassau Harbor Club Marina right at slack tide.  There are so many new arrivals that Customs and Immigration come to the marina to sign all of us in on the patio next to the pool.  We know many of our fellow dockmates and make plans for a Happy Hour that night and dinner out at a nearby restaurant the next night.  Our hope is that the weather will improve this side of the Gulf Stream, but another cold front comes through during the night.  This is the same one that is providing blizzard conditions in the northeast.  Here it is quite windy and cooler than normal. You know it is chilly when the marina staff is wearing jackets. Our quest for warmth continues.