Life On the Ball

. . . IN MARATHON

Mid-morning Thursday, a three-minute rain blew through Boot Key Harbor as the leading edge of a "cold" front. That night and Friday night, the 15+ mph winds blew through the rigging, water lapped the sides of the boat and both the winds and water rocked us like babies. That means good sleep since we're safely tied to a mooring ball. It also means our sailing friends will still be here a few days longer.

A diver from the boat to the right cleans barnacles off Endless Summer's mooring ball. He then moved to the next mooring ball until all 200-plus were cleaned and inspected. 

Mother Nature is Your Planner

As soon as a weather window opens, some friends plan to sail east to the Bahamas, and others will sail west to the Dry Tortugas. You often don't have time to say goodbye when "Mother Nature becomes your Day Timer." That quote from An Embarrassment of Mangoes, really fits the cruising life. Mother Nature decides when people move on, stay or even motor to the dinghy dock.

For the past 10 days, we've entertained new friends on Carina. We want to enjoy their company while we still can before they suddenly leave. Two among many interesting couples we've met in Boot Key Harbor are Ron and Judy on Pioneer, a 38-foot Cabo Rico, and Alan and Sharon on their 24-foot catamaran.

Ron and Judy are from beautiful Vancouver, although they keep 

their boat on the U.S. east coast. They both swear they have 

no black velvet paintings in their home. We didn't ask if they have 
any on board Pioneer.

Ron and Judy have sailed around Central America, to the Bahamas several times, and to Cuba a couple of times. As Canadian citizens, they can travel there. Judy is a retired high school principal, and Ron had several careers, including one in the '70s as an importer of black velvet paintings from Mexico. We kid you not! Both of them are very knowledgeable and skilled sailors, as well as fun people to be around.

Alan aboard his and Sharon's catamaran on an extremely 

calm day in Boot Key Harbor.

We can hardly begin to describe Alan and Sharon's background. Alan, originally from South Africa, and Sharon trailered their 24-foot catamaran here and are outfitting it to sail to the Everglades to do wildlife photography. Alan is particularly fond of alligator photography. Although they are experienced sailors, they are even more experienced aviators!  Sharon and Alan met when she was piloting a UN plane and he was the engineer aboard.

New Additions

Items to make life easier keep appearing on Carina the longer we stay in Marathon. A tall rolling cart was bought Friday that we can bungee cord onto the bike like a bike trailer or we can roll it on its own. It'll be a huge help when we're underway and need to carry groceries or five-gallon containers of gas or water back to the boat.

The new lifting davits are made of some impressive stainless steel 

and are a less expensive version of dinghy davits. The starboard  

davit fit the mount that the dinghy motor lift was on. Kent will install 

the port side lifting davit next week. 

The item we're most excited about are lifting davits that arrived Friday. They'll enable us to easily lift our dinghy in and out of the water. It's been in the water since the Gulf crossing and has had barnacles scraped off once already. Just three weeks later, it already needs another scraping. Lifting it out of the water keeps barnacles from attaching.

This is why we are so excited about getting the "dink" out of "the drink." Here, half 
its bottom was cleaned and the other half still covered in barnacles.

Barnacle City

Marathon seems to be a fertile area for barnacles to grow. A diver is supposed to come in a couple of days to scrape the bottom of Carina, particularly the prop which has no bottom paint. Barnacles are crustaceans that grow on anything and everything in the waters around here. If left untouched, they will affect the way the boat sails and the speed it can travel. Most boat owners in coastal areas have their boat "dived" every month or so to keep the bottom smooth. We'll have it scraped now and then again before we leave Boot Key Harbor.

Mother Nature is OUR Planner, Too

After the Miami Boat Show on February 14-18, we will be the ones looking for a weather window. We'll come back from the boat show and stock up on food and supplies. When the weather window happens, we'll be gone from Marathon. That may be within days or weeks of our return. It all depends on when Mother Nature chooses to smile at us.


Next Blog:  Marathon -- Home of the Best Sunsets