February 2, 2009

Monday, February 2, 2009 Georgeous sunshine at Marathon Key this morning, Punxsatawney Phil would surely have seen his shadow here, too! The blustery, rainy day that was predicted never materialized. (Until now—at 6:45 pm the rain has suddenly come!) Last Tuesday morning we again headed south. Waved farewell to that fellow blowing the conch shell as we left Miami and headed for the Keys! Passing thru Biscayne Bay, we altered our course a bit to give way to a group of sailboats doing Olympic training, and we chose the inland route to the Keys. This western side is a continuation of the Intra Coastal Waterway's magenta line on our charts. The alternative is to go to the eastern, or Atlantic Ocean side of the Keys, and follow Hawk's Channel, running between the Keys and the only barrier Coral Reef in North America, which separates this chain of islands from the ocean. If you know as little about the Keys as I did a very short time ago, you might be interested to hear that there are 150 miles of islands, attached by 42 bridges, curving gracefully from Miami to Key West, which is only 90 miles from Havana, Cuba. Route 1 is a continuous highway running the entire US coastline, from Northern Maine to Key West. Beginning just south of Florida City, FL, the route is marked with mile markers that descend from 126 to Mile Zero, located at the intersection of. Flemming and Whitehead Streets in Key West. Route 1 divides the land into 'Oceanside' and 'Bayside' and uses the Mile Markers for most street addresses. Pretty neat. How wide are the keys? We're told that in a recent hurricane the water came in on the Bay side and washed out on the Ocean side. Excuse me! Our Waterway Guide recommends phoning ahead to any commercial place you want to visit, as it is not uncommon for stores to “go out of business, move, or close for the day with a 'gone fishing' sign on the door”. This is the Keys. On Tuesday evening we gave Knute the anchor a chance to do his thing. Man, does he bite and hold in the muddy bottom! We shared a corner of the Tarpon Basin with 3 other boats—2 from Germany, who bring their boats over as cargo and explore American waters. Wednesday was one of those mixed bag days—the best of times and the worst of times. The morning started off just wrong when we met up with Marker # 50 in a most unpleasant way. The steel beam crimped our rail and removed part of YA's rub rail. Could've been much worse, and we didn't violate rule #1—Nobody got hurt. The day ended on a wonderful high when Geoff, Amy and Peter arrived from AZ. In between those events, we cruised along the edge of the waters of Everglades National Park, mostly in what is labeled Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas, where running aground can damage the coral bottom and incur a large fine. We were heading for Marathon, about the midpoint of the Keys. Hurricane Wilma did a lot of damage here in 2005, and we were pleased to locate a marina that has been beautifully restored. (Many simply sold their land--usually to developers.) Banana Bay sports a bubbler at the mouth of the harbor to keep the sea grass away from the boats (wind has overridden the bubbler these past few days...) complimentary breakfast every day; a pool with a tiki bar for lunch, hot tub, a swing to sit in while reading the papers, and if you are interested, cages of gi-normous iguanas to view and (yikes) handle if you wish. In addition to the Marina, there are resort rooms and time share apartments available,so it is a busy place! We hunted for shells and avoided Jellyfish at the beach, drove to Key West in time to watch the beach showmen and shop for souvenirs before sunset at Mallory Square, visited a wonderful Diving Museum, where grandad was able to give Peter first hand information about deep sea diving, fed the tarpons and the minnows, swam, soaked in the hot tub and relaxed. All too soon it was Sunday and Geoff and Amy drove away to meet Kris and Gerry at the Ft. Lauderdale airport and hand off the car keys. (remember last week?) Gerry and Kris had a quick turnaround fishing trip. They arrived Sunday, went out on a Party Boat Monday and although they didn't catch the 'big one' we had a good time watching the sorting and cleaning of the 2-3 bite filets that were brought in. The pelican show is a hoot! These scroungers began to arrive 15 minutes before the fishing boat was due to return and fought hard for each scrap of fish. We jumped in the Burb just after I started this message, and drove to Islamorada for a delicious fish dinner in a dramatic tropical storm. There was nearly continuous lightning with really loud thunder, strong winds and buckets of teeming rain for 2 hours! No snow, though! And that was Monday, the day of the Blog. So there I'll end and resume next week, when I swear I'll get back to the Monday Message on Monday. Good health and good times to all, Fred and Linda