After a long crossing of 31 hours from Ft. Myers Beach we were exhausted. But since we arrived at night we were forced to anchor in the lee of Marathon for the night in a very rolly anchorage. The anchor held for awhile but after I was asleep my anchor alarm went off and we were slowly dragging. That necessitated another anchor attempt, this time with more rode. The 2nd time was a charm and we were able to sleep. The next day we made it into the mooring field and were officially part of the cruising community in Marathon harbor. The next day we made our way out to Sombrero Key reef and lighthouse for some diving / snorkeling. I took that opportunity to scrape the barnacles off the bottom of the boat as well. I took a short dive around the reef, at least as far as my hose connected to the snuba system would let me travel. Fortunately the reef is directly under the boat. There are 20 or so mooring balls which enable you to park the boat right over the reef and dive directly under the boat.
Last night we made our way to a favorite restaurant called Dockside which is a long dinghy ride away. Well the dinghy motor quit about 100 yards from the restuarant so I was forced to row the last bit. After eating and listening to music for awhile a nice neighbor towed us back to the boat.
Today I took the carburator apart on the dinghy motor and cleaned it with chem tool. Now it seems to be running good. Hopefully that will last.
Today is laundry day! Woo hop!
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Howdy Rich&Pam,
ReplyDeleteJeannie says: "They have an alarm on their anchor?"--and I explained that your GPS will set off an alarm if your position shifts. That's a cool feature that will set your mind at ease at night. There have been several nights on our little boat during rough weather when I didn't sleep well because I had to keep checking that we weren't dragging. Hey Rich, how big a pair of oars do you think you would need to row Lulabelle if the 50HP craps out?? Ha!Ha! Do you have an updated map of your progess? I couldn't find it on the blog, but I'm still working my way around the site. Hey, I thought you guys fixed the head in Port St. Joe. What happened?
Marathon sounds great--wish we were there too.