March 3, 2011

Lat 25 19 69' long 081 08 72; Fuel 135 gallons; Engine hours 663.12

This morning we raised anchor and it was relatively easy once we pulled up directly over the anchor. I was very glad because this morning I saw a crocodile swimming in the water very close to our boat - probably looking for breakfast. The winds picked up overnight, as predicted by NOAA but I think they were a little stiffer than the 17 - 20 knots they predicted. In any case, when we started out it wasn't bad and I had the boat on auto following my charted line. The trouble was the winds were coming from the north east and we were traveling southeast. I finally had to take the boat off auto because the boat was rolling as auto tried to maintain course. Once I took the helm the roll got better but the seas were running about 3 to 4 feet with the odd 5 footer thrown in for good measure, which was strange since most of the trip was in about 12 feet of water but we were offshore about 3 miles so there was a reasonable fetch.

After about 3 hours we finally saw the Keys. We came up to the bridge a Vaca Key and it appeared that I could not make it under that section of the bridge so we went further west where the bridge was higher. We came under the bridge and headed directly east into the seas which was far better than being hit on the beam. As we were approaching the entrance to Marathon, we saw a 24 foot centre consol boat with 5 or 6 people in it waving. They were anchored and appeared to be in no danger. In fact they were still fishing. They said they had run out of fuel and could we tow them in. I did not think that I wanted to tow them in with the seas being a rough as they were so I said I would radio the coast guard which I did and reported the problem. Later I heard back from the Coast Guard saying they could not find the boat at the location I reported them at. There were no reports of boats missing, so the conclusion was they had started the boat and moved on.

Anyways we went into Marathon channel trying to find the marina. Went up a channel and suddenly, I lost power on the throttle except for low idle both forward and reverse. Made it difficult to turn around and we rubbed bottom as we tried. Finally we radioed the marina and found that we had taken the wrong channel and had to come back out and turn around and down another channel. The dock master told us however to go out a ways before turning around because it was very shallow. Just what I wanted to hear.

However, as I came out into the main channel again, the throttle started to respond so that helped the turn around. Wind was blowing directly down the channel to the marina, so it made it difficult enter our assigned slip. As soon as I started turning boat into the slip the wind would push it back down the channel. The channel itself was really narrow as it was low tide, and as I went a little wide to try and enter the slip, I again crossed a sand bar and scrapped the bottom. Oh well, I'll dive under the boat to see if any damage and get it fixed if anything serious. Just a cost of boating. I was just lucky that the throttle was working otherwise I would not have been able to get into the slip with only idle power forward. Finally we made it in and there were lots of people there to help us get tied up. I think our trip across may have kicked up some crap in fuel tanks that caused the loss of power that and the fact that I have not changed the fuel filters since Great Turtle Bay up on the Cumberland River. Could also have been a bad tank of fuel at my last fill up. I think I will do that this weekend. Thank the Lord the power loss did not occur on the crossing. Would have been a fun time changing the secondary filter in those seas. The primary would have been and easy switchover to the unused filter but the boat would have been dead in the water for some time.

Russ and Janice are int Marathon for a few days, so Brenda got hold of them and Russ picked us up at the local bar. When we went into the bar, who do we see but our friends from Serendipity and Windsong. They are in this marina also for a little while. In fact Windsong is up for sale so it may stay here a long time.