To Farmers and Further South

The Five F’s Festival at Little Farmers Cay is a big draw for cruisers this year.  The weather is settled and anchoring in the lee of the islands will be safe and comfortable.  By Friday morning the majority of cruisers have arrived, and the boat count is somewhere around 130.  We anchor about a mile north along the western side of Great Guana Island and gaze southward at a sea of mast.  The Bahamian c-class sloops are congregating – some having been towed to the site while other are on the deck of the Captain C, a small freighter that makes runs from Nassau to the Exumas.  The first race is scheduled to begin at noon, but we are on Bahamian time so add an hour or two to that.  

While waiting for the races to start, these guys show up with a "portable " ice machine atop a runabout and powered by a generator.  They off-load many bags of ice for the bar and then sell the rest to bystanders. There's no denying the Bahamians come up with creative solutions to logistical problems.

 We congregate at Ty’s Sunset Bar and Grill which overlooks the sailing venue.  Beers are flowing and Bahamian music is blaring from an array of speakers. The breeze is lighter than we would like, so the boats generally have crews of 4 to 5, rather than packing them full of crew for ballast.  They are sporting their largest rigs and sails, and a few bodies are required out on the boards. 

Golden Girl flies by with style

The two races on Friday are considered practice races, but they are exciting to watch, nevertheless.  

Close maneuvers at the jibe mark

We bring beach chairs and an umbrella and enjoy relative comfort on an otherwise brutally hot day.  The boats head offshore and return, dodging the huge fleet of anchored boats and finishing right in front of the beach bar with much cheering from the crews and supporters onshore. Our favorite, Smashie from Blackpoint, is out in front and making an impressive showing. 

Smashie sails by, victorious after the first race

After the races, the libations and music continue, and at sunset a small junkanoo band arrives to entertain the crowds with energetic dancing and drumming. 

It is hard not to bounce with the beat when a Junkanoo drummer shows up

We return to our quiet anchorage exhausted.

After a morning walk into the settlement, we return to the race venue for the actual races. Huge trophies are on display and dignitaries arrive by plane, helicopter, and fast runabouts. Due to the heat, many of the cruisers choose to remain on their boats, but the beach scene is alive with spirited Bahamians.   

Homecoming is an important event in the settlement and visitors come all dressed  up for the events.

We watch the races but are sad to see that Smashie has broken her mast and will be eliminated from the competition. Three races morf into only two – “Bahamian Time” again.  By late afternoon the boats are all anchored and crews are ashore for the trophy presentation.  The National Anthem is sung, a prayer is given, and plenty of speeches are made by government officials. And, finally, the awards are presented along with cash prizes of over $1500.  

The proud crew from the winning boat with all their loot.

 It is truly a regatta unlike any other we have witnessed. Bahamians are very supportive of their sailboat racing as it is integral to the culture of the country.  We retreat to our boat for another quiet evening and stay an additional day to do some hiking on the nearby island.

Weather conditions are favorable for the forty mile sail south to George Town.  We go through Galliet Cut into the open waters of Exuma Sound.  Now we have no protection from the easterly trades, but conditions are calm, and we find ourselves motor sailing the entire way through the deep, crystal clear, sapphire colored waters.  The radio is full of successful fishing stories as nearby boats are having a field day catching large dolphin (mahi-mahi) in the open water. We easily negotiate Conch Cut despite an oncoming freighter and drop anchor off of Stocking Island, a mile away from George Town proper.  We are in the company of almost three hundred other cruisers anchored along several miles of shoreline. 

A small section of the anchorage off Stocking Island.  Our boat is anchored in the very back row in this picture

We have arrived back to relative civilization.  Our first stop in town is the Bahama Telephone Company office where we surrender all hope of making our current phone successfully work and purchase a Bahamian smart phone that easily tethers to our computer.  We hope we have finally solved our internet frustrations.  Next stop is the well stocked Exuma Market.  It may not be as glitzy as stateside groceries, but when the freighter comes in, it generally has most American products one might desire.  And we immerse ourselves in what George Town has to offer.  There is wonderful hiking and swimming on the ocean side of Stocking Island.  Miles of beaches beckon walkers with silky soft sand and rarely another person in sight.   

A small portion of beach on the eastern shore of Stocking Island.  The sand is powdery soft and tinged with pink.

Burt jumps right into the volleyball scene while I take up basket weaving with the local silver palm fronds at the nearby picnic tables.  We have happy hours and dinners with friends we haven’t seen since last year.  Valentine’s Day takes us to the St. Frances Resort for a gourmet dinner, and then we head over to the deck at Chat and Chill, the nearby beach bar, for dancing under a full moon.  Sunday evening is Trivial Persuit at St. Frances, and we mange to take third place on our first evening there. The next day we have a Seven Seas Cruising Association picnic on the beach and two days later a Ladies’ Luncheon at St. Frances. There is much more going on but we need to have down time for chores and recuperation.  No wonder George Town is considered adult daycare for cruisers. We plan to stay for a few weeks until the itch to move gets the best of us.

Wandering Through the Exumas

Two days in Nassau fly by as we easily check in with customs and immigration, get our first sticker shock at the grocery store, and wrestle with communication problems at the Bahama Telephone Company.  Our current solution is to use an old cell phone with a Bahamian SIM card, but it is far from satisfactory as we can’t down load any files off the internet.  We have a fun dinner out with other cruising friends at the Poop Deck overlooking Nassau harbor. 

Before we know it we are skimming over the crystal clear waters of the banks on our way to Highbourne Cay in the northernmost Exumas.  We arrive in time to spend the afternoon at Highbourne Cay Resort.  This is an upscale marina catering mostly to large motor yachts with adjacent villas and a restaurant/bar overlooking the Exuma Banks.  It is pricy and exclusive, but we spring for drinks at the bar and soak in the gorgeous views.   

View of the beach from Highbourne's restaurant

On the way back to the dinghy we stop at the fish cleaning station along the docks where a sport fishing boat crew is cleaning the day’s catch.  Below, the water is teaming with large nurse sharks, snappers, rays, and a few black tipped reef sharks.  This crowd looks decidedly hungry and unfriendly, and we detour out of the way in the dinghy to give them good clearance.

Hungry critters after fish scraps

The weather forecast is benign for the foreseeable future, and we begin meandering down the chain to Shroud Cay at the north end of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, the premier park in the national park system.  Here there is no fishing or collecting and access is controlled to preserve the pristine conditions.  We gather some other cruisers and dinghy down one of the mangrove creeks that bisect the interior of Shroud Cay to the ocean side and the site of Camp Driftwood, a hill above the sugar sand beach and perch for DEA agents in the 1980’s who were keeping tabs on a large drug operation originating from nearby Normans Cay.

Tidal creeks like this are prevalent at both Shroud and Hawksbill Cays

 We stay only long enough for a quick hike, short beach walk, and picnic lunch as once the tide starts to fall there won’t be enough water in the creek to make it back to our boat. 

The view from Camp Driftwood on Shroud Cay

A day later we wander a few miles further south to Hawksbill Cay. The western shore is comprised of rocky outcroppings interrupted by untouched crescent beaches. We spend two days exploring the entire coast of the island, including cuts at both the north and south ends leading out into Exuma Sound.  

Exploring the north end of Hawksbill Cay with its amazing variety of water colors

We celebrate sunsets each night with happy hours on the beach with other cruisers. And it is here that we see our first green flash sunset of this year’s Bahamas cruise. 

Happy hour sunset with Exuberant in the distance

Hawksbill is rarely visited, and it is a special gem that perhaps we should keep to ourselves.

Next stop is Warderick Wells, the headquarters of the park and probably the most visited portion.   

The always spectacular mooring field at Warderick Wells. Exuberant is the boat to the left.

But make no mistake, we are still in undeveloped territory.  For a fee we can get internet service, but it is very unreliable, a problem for Burt who is trying to do some work on a consulting job.  There is no phone service, grocery, or trash disposal anywhere in the forty mile long park.  We spend several delightful days here, dinghying around the cay, hiking along paths, and snorkeling at slack tide among the coral reefs.   

View atop a hill at Warderick Wells - the water of the banks is to the left, Exuma Sound to the right.

A curly tailed lizard poses along a hiking trail.

Another spectacular sunset at Warderick Wells

The overall beauty of the park entices cruisers to spend weeks here despite the lack of amenities, but Burt’s need for internet forces us to head out of the park.

The sign says it all - "Welcome to Staniel Cay". The resort cottages of the Staniel Cay Yacht Club are in the distance.

We stop at Staniel Cay and the nearby anchorage of Big Major’s Spot, home of the aggressive and sometimes biting, swimming pigs.  Once you’ve “done” the pigs, they are best avoided. It is a relief to get the stinky garbage off the boat, and by sheer luck we have arrived on the same day as the Captain C, the inter-island freighter that brings food (read fresh fruit and vegetables that we crave) every week or so to the Out Islands. We enjoy dinghying around the nearby cays and snorkeling the famous Thunderball Grotto where portions of several James Bond movies were filmed.  The grotto is filled with friendly fish that overwhelm you if you offer them bread crumbs. But, it is also filled with many tourists as it is only accessible at low tide slack.  I battle my way through the crowds of people and fish and emerge from the other end of this cave to explore the rarely visited eastern side of the small cay.  It is a garden of beautiful corals of every variety and color.  Late afternoon we stop by the Staniel Cay Yacht Club for a drink on the deck overlooking the busy marina filled with more large motor yachts – one even has a hot top on the foredeck that we consider the ultimate in decadence.

The internet is proving to still be unreliable at Staniel Cay, so we continue a few miles further south to the settlement of Blackpoint.   

Hiking along the Exuma Sound coast near Blackpoint

An impressive rainbow off the stern of Exuberant while anchored at Blackpoint.  We have had an unusual amount of rain this year resulting in rainbows (good) and mosquitoes (bad).

This is a favorite stop for cruisers as this small community of around 100 has gone out of their way to make it cruiser friendly.  We are nearing Super Bowl Sunday, and around 130 boats have dropped anchor here.  The community allows us to use their facilities at Ragatta Point to have a large happy hour/pot luck the first night we arrive, and a few of the locals also drop in, an indication of the nice relationship here between visitors and residents.  On Super Bowl night, the three local restaurants/bars host dinners and viewing parties.  We choose to go to Scorpios for the game as more of the locals tend to come here, and it adds a culturally diverse dimension to watching an American icon. The enthusiasm of the Bahamians is more riveting and entertaining than the game itself. The next day the large fleet of cruisers begins to head further south to Little Farmer’s Cay and the site of the Five F’s (First Friday in February Festival at Farmer’s Cay, the small ((around 70 residents)) settlement’s annual homecoming and sailing regatta). We choose to stay in Blackpoint for a few more days to enjoy the relative quiet before following the fleet to Farmers.  We avail ourselves of the services of Ida’s Rockside Laundry which is far more than a laundromat. 

With the Rockside Laundry in the background, the Bahamian C-class sloop Smashie bobs at anchor.  We helped with her initial launch when we visited Blackpoint two years ago.

One can dine on homemade carrot cake, shop in the gift shop and hardware store, take a shoreside, hot water shower, get a haircut (which Burt desperately needs) or hairbraiding in a chair outside overlooking the anchorage, rent a vacation room, have free access to higher speed and reliable internet, and, of course, do laundry in the cleanest and most well maintained facility in the Bahamas. Ida and her husband take entrepreneurship to new heights, and we leave them donated supplies for the local school and newly started preschool. We depart Blackpoint, provisioned with several loaves of Lorraine’s Mom’s homebaked coconut and wheat bread, best in the Bahamas, to join the hoards at Farmers.

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.

Lotta Catching Up to Do

My credentials as a blogger should be revoked as too much time has elapsed since the last posting, and too many miles have passed beneath our keel during this time – 608 nautical miles to be exact. My apologies to all readers!

November 10 we depart Charleston in the first weather window we have seen in almost two weeks.  We are accompanied by a parade of boats as we exit the harbor and turn south in the Atlantic.  It becomes readily apparent that the fleet of boats is heading into Georgia while we are determined to cover a lot of ground by heading all the way to Cape Canaveral. Come nightfall we are almost 60 miles off shore and all by ourselves.  The seas are placid, and we are motorsailing through the night and, in fact, for the entire 48 hour duration of the passage.  We time our arrival at Canaveral for early morning and make an 8:30 lock opening. After passing the large harbor for the many cruise ships that call Canaveral home, we need to negotiate a lock between the tidal ocean waters and the non-tidal Banana River.  It is a new type of lock for us as once we are in, the gates partially open on the inland side, allowing the water to pour in until we are at the level of the river.  We cross the Banana River and head, via a manmade canal, over to the Indian River and the ICW.  Several hours later, we arrive at Eau Gallie and turn north into the very southern point of the Banana River where it merges into the Indian River. Here, at what is known as Dragon Point, we have excellent protection from the predicted 40 knot winds that will accompany an approaching cold front. It is a pleasant anchorage, as dolphins frequently play near our boat, other cruisers we know are anchored nearby, and we have great access to the village of Indian Point and all its amenities. Big box stores and groceries are accessible by bicycle, and we enjoy riding along the many parks that front the ocean.  One day, as we are riding downwind along the ocean on a bike path, the following gusts are so strong we have to apply the brakes to avoid going out of control.  Needless to say, pedaling back upwind was no easy matter.

The beach near Melbourne on the day of the big blow - no one is out sunbathing!

We are staying in the Eau Gallie/Melbourne area to attend the SSCA Melbourne Gam, a three day event of seminars, social events, and nautical flea markets. As always, it is an enjoyable time, and we meet up with old friends and make new friends.  The cruising community continues to expand for us.

At the conclusion of the Gam, a half day motor on the ICW brings us to Vero Beach (also known as Velcro Beach for obvious reasons), one of our favorite stops.  We plan to stay through Thanksgiving, but as events would have it, we stay much longer.  Vero is a great place for cruisers to stop.  The mooring field is well protected, the marina offers the amenities we want at a reasonable price, and we have access via a free bus to all the shopping anyone could desire in the Vero area. 

 

View of the north anchorage at Vero after Thanksgiving when many of the boats had left

 Thanksgiving is a time when many cruisers congregate here as the community puts on a nice Thanksgiving for us vagabonds. The CLODS (cruisers living on dirt – in other words, ex-cruisers) provide the turkeys and hams, and the rest of us bring the side dishes.  Held at a nearby luxury park pavilion, we pack in over 150 people for the feast, music, and door prizes donated by local merchants.  Vero is a sociable place, perhaps more so as during the busy season boats are required to raft together on the moorings.  We initially raft with Amici, trawler friends from Connecticut, and, upon their departure, Interlude, who we met in the Bahamas, pulls in for the remainder of our stay.  We definitely enjoy the company. There a numerous happy hours both at the marina and on boats. 

Weekly Happy Hour/Jam session at the marina - it is surprisingly good music.

One night we meet up with two couples who are CLODS, join them for dinner at a locals’ favorite restaurant on the ocean, and then return to one house for an evening of Sequence, a popular game among cruisers.   Another night we take lawn chairs and head to a park for a street fair and music from a performing arts high school in Miami.  And yet another night, we accompany friends to the local theater, which is in walking distance, for a comedy club. Each Sunday we take dinghies to a park where we cross over to the ocean side and enjoy a leisurely breakfast with endless coffee and chat. 

One Sunday's breakfast bunch - the crews of Interlude, Sirius, and Exuberant

Walking along the beach to work off that big breakfast

Vero is still relatively close to the space center and one evening, as we settle down to a sunset glass of wine, we see a bright ball approaching from the northeast.  We determine it is not one of the many planes that pass overhead, and after a bit, we make out that it is a rocket launch.  We watch in amazement as the rocket discards several stages and finally approaches that point in the atmosphere where a cone of vapor(?) forms a cone in front of it. It is the first rocket launch I have ever seen close up, and it is spectacular. The marina sponsors a Christmas Lighted Boat Parade, and we float out in the river in the dinghy to enjoy the small but colorful parade. 

Part of the boat Parade - not the best picture but you get the idea

Finally, we bike all through the barrier island neighborhoods with their moss draped live oaks, multiple varieties of palms, and stately homes with colorful tropical landscaping. Oceanside Vero is definitely upscale. On the downside, during the 24 days we stay at Vero, we get over 12 inches of rain.  The decks are clean of salt, but the mosquitoes and no-see-ums are out in force.

But Vero isn’t all fun and games.  As soon as we arrive, we make an appointment to have a semi-annual teeth cleaning and checkup.  Burt has had a few teeth chip over the last months, and we discover the situation is a bit more serious than we thought.  He is scheduled to get three crowns, something we had hoped to postpone until we were in Ohio in the spring. Chalk off two weeks of trips to and from the dentist office.  All seems to go well, and we are thankful that in an emergency situation we were able to find a capable dentist. 

While we are in Vero, Burt is going to install new wind instruments.  Our old ones were original with the boat and not always reliable, and this task will replace the last of our old electronics. Replacing the wind instruments requires ascending the mast.  It is not too difficult as we have an electric winch to do the hoisting, but unless you are really fond of heights, it is not a favorite pastime.  I man the winch, and Burt goes up in a boson’s chair.  We successfully feed through the new wiring and bolt on the new instruments with a succession of necessary tools hoisted in a bucket on a separate halyard.  All is going smoothly until Burt notices that the wire in our forestay is untwisting.  This is definitely NOT GOOD, and he takes many pictures to send off to Mack Sails who redid our rigging a year ago in nearby Stuart, FL. Now, Burt is getting very experienced with ascending masts, as he makes multiple trips up to assess the situation and collect information, along with one trip up Interlude’s mast to install a new bulb in their anchor light.  

Picture of the unraveling forestay from the top of the mast.

 The only plus side is that you get some interesting pictures from 60 feet up.   

View of Exuberant and Interlude from 60 feet up.

Mack Sails decides that the forestay needs to be replaced and the cause of the failure diagnosed.  They schedule a visit on a Monday, and we reserve the marina courtesy dock for that day.  But, when Monday dawns, they are still finishing up another project, and don’t arrive at our boat until 4:30 pm (remember the sun sets at 5:30). It will definitely take more than an hour, and we scurry to gather up all the flashlights and other light sources available.  The rigger goes up the mast and disconnects the forestay and furler, and it is lowered to the dock. Four of us pitch in to remove the old forestay from the furler foil, fabricate a new forestay, and reassemble it into the foil.  It is now dark and flashlights and headlights provide our light.  We determine that the foil had slid down the stay, allowing it to catch individual wires and untwist them.  The solution is to fabricate a means of preventing this slippage. Between two riggers and one engineer, this is accomplished, and the entire unit is reattached to the mast, all in the dark of night.  By 8:30 pm we are whole again, but just a bit unnerved as we could have easily lost the mast if this had gone undetected.  Mack Sails graciously charged us nothing for the replacement, but we will now be checking our rigging on a more regular basis.

The teeth are good, the rigging has been repaired, and the boat is well stocked, so we are off to the Miami area on an overnight motorsail just off the coast.  It is a parade of shore lights along south Florida coast as we stay less than one half mile offshore to avoid the adverse Gulf Stream currents. The sunrise is spectacular with towering cumulous clouds forming over the Gulf Stream. 

Sunrise with clouds over the Gulf Stream

We pass Miami just after sunrise and head a bit further south to tuck in behind Key Biscayne. We anchor off No Name Harbor and enjoy the views across the Bay and towards Miami.  There are many other boats anchored near us awaiting a weather window to head over to the Bahamas. During the day, we take our bikes into the state park to bicycle its paths and access the remainder of Key Biscayne.  One day is spent relaxing on the Atlantic side beach and enjoying a leisurely lunch at the park’s Cuban restaurant.   

Restored lighthouse at Cape Florida beach

It is no surprise that there is a Cuban restaurant in the park (in fact, there are two) as we rarely hear English spoken in this part of Florida. Another evening, the Key Biscayne Yacht Club sponsors Christmas Boat Parade through our anchorage, this one a bit more elaborate than the one at Vero. While we are at anchor, we determine that our VHF radio is no longer receiving transmissions – that would explain why it seems so quiet.  We don’t like the constant chatter on the radio, but it certainly is an important safety feature. We move into the protection of No Name Harbor, and Burt once again ascends the mast to check the connections.  The connections are cleaned, dielectric grease is applied, and resistance within the wiring is tested, but we see no improvement. The unit will have to be removed and sent in to the manufacturer once we arrive in Marathon.  Meanwhile, a handheld VHF will have to suffice. As one friend says, if nothing is broken at any given time on a boat, you just haven’t looked hard enough.

More scenes from the top of the mast - parkland of Key Biscayne in the foreground with Miami in the distance

The entrance to No Name Harbor with Biscayne Bay in the distance

So, we are off to Marathon, a two day cruise down the delightful Hawk Channel.  The first day we make excellent progress motorsailing in a strong wind from the stern.  Seventy miles later, we drop anchor on the south side of Long Key with enough protection from the strong winds to have a peaceful night.  The next day we cover the remaining twenty miles, reaching in flat water under sail alone.  With its smooth aqua colored water, Hawk Channel is one of the best sailing venues we see in our cruising year.   Too soon we arrive in Marathon’s Boot Key Harbor. Like Vero, we know many boats here, and the coming month will be filled with more boat projects, many social gatherings, and opportunities to bike along the old Seven Mile Bridge and dinghy to the ocean side beach.  Life is good, life is warm, and we have a bit of survivors’ guilt as we hear about the succession of winter storms harassing the northern states.  Every morning while eating breakfast in the cockpit, we hear on the Cruiseheimer’s Net reports of the low temperatures further north. We are thankful that we have broken the grip of winter weather that followed us so far south. 

Dawn with a full moon over Boot Key Harbor

And thus, Burt joins me in extending to all our readers wishes for a very Merry Christmas, a joyous holiday season, and all the best for the coming year.