Way Pointe Marathon

We are on a City of Marathon mooring ball.  We have traveled a total of 372 miles since leaving St. Petersburg, June 1.  We sailed down the west coast of Florida to South Seas Marina on the north tip of Captiva Island and stayed 2 days before heading to the Dry Tortugas, 33 hours of offshore sailing.  We stayed 10 days and enjoyed fabulous weather for snorkeling wrecks and reefs and exploring islands.  We met our friends, Gordon and Jean and their guests, Mary Lin and Allen, on their 41 foot Morgan Out Island that is rigged for fishing; can you imagine outriggers on a sailboat? Yes, no, but it pays off, and they catch a wahoo and we have fish on the grill the first night.   The weather delayed our departure for 3 days, nothing severe, just 20-25 knots winds from the east, therefore, on the nose, and 4-7 foot seas.  Much too much for our comfort and safety level; besides, we are sailing open ended, with no time frames or specific destinations.  Just on the boat at distant anchorages and uninhabited islands.  So far so good.  We leave when the winds level out at 10-15 and seas are 2-3, much better, still on the nose as we sail to the Marquesas Islands, 40 nautical miles east.  With many tacks, we sail 62 nm and arrive in the calm water west of Marquesas 14 hours later.  It is a tropical paradise, with waters of brilliant colors and hues of blue and green.  We rest the next day, and play the following day before departing for Marathon.  The east winds, which are the prevailing winds, continue veering southeast so we take the north route through Gulf of Mexico toward Florida Bay and north of Key West. We anchor offshore about ¼ mile behind a small island in the keys just east of Key West for the night.  Mosquitoes awoke us and we got an early pre-dawn start for the last leg to Marathon.  Another lovely day sail with no other boats in sight as we round the channel that will take us to the Intracoastal Waterway along the 7 Mile Bridge between Bahia Honda and Vaca Key where Marathon is located.  Our friends Gordon and Jean have their boat here so we get a mooring adjacent to theirs, and as we motor through the 226 mooring balls, we are delighted to see Swalawag 3 balls down from us.  Swalawag is Hank’s boat and he has been in Marathon since the days of Faro Blanco, and we haven’t seen him in 10 years.  I sailed with Captain Hank on a memorable trip from Nassau to Tortola on a 52 foot GulfStar back in the day.  Sailing is a small community and you never know who you will see at the anchorages. Plus you meet new friends, like Dan on Saga out of Boston. He leaves today for Morgan's Bluff in Andros, Bahamas, and Daryl was delighted to share our adventures in Andros and give Dan a message of introduction to Shonaray, our friend and tour guide there.  

On the way we enjoyed great sailing and many sights – we also had our share of failures, so we will be staying at Marathon for at least a month to recuperate, settle into living on the boat, and do some repairs before moving on.  We will continue to watch the weather during hurricane season and make our next move accordingly.   

Departure

We leave the docks at 9:00 am Monday, June 1, 2015.  It’s a sunny day, blue skies with puffy white clouds, east winds about 5-8 and 80 degrees.  We leave Gulfport and sail over night to Boca Grande and stay at the South Seas Marina, about 100 nm south.  We have great east winds so the sailing was terrific as we headed south and it shifted to the west with sea breeze.  We sailed 5-6 nautical miles per hour, and hope to average 4 nmph over the trip.  We sailed offshore about 5 miles to avoid the shallows of Egmont Key and Anna Marie Island and then came in to 3 miles offshore in 30 feet of water.  We set the display to chart our course and set the auto helm to steer the course. We started out on port tack to southwest then tacked over to starboard tack about 2:00 pm until sunset and light air required motoring.  We saw a dolphin leap in the Pass-a-Grille channel coming out, frigates flying overhead, a pod of dolphins feeding and splashing, and pelicans on the water. We passed the beautiful white sandy beaches of St. Pete Beach and Pass-a-Grille, and watched as the landmark pink Don CeSar faded away.  We planned to anchor offshore at Midnight Pass, but when the sea breeze came in, it made it too rough to anchor offshore.  The backup plan was to anchor at Venice, but the thunderstorms over land made it too uncomfortable plus there may be mosquitoes in the calm night air. So we sailed over night and into Boca Grande to the South Seas Marina in Captiva at 9:30 am.  Twenty four and one half hours of sailing!  We rest and sort our stuff and get things organized.  It’s a rainy day with cool breezes so we are glad to be in the marina.