Marco to Marathon
Passage Preparation
To prepare for our sail from Marco to the Keys, we decided to check our offshore lifevests. Upon inspection, we realized they needed to be re-armed. Up to this point in our trip, we had been using our coastal inflatable life vests. But for a night sail, it is best to use our offshore lifevests with tether clips so we can be attached to our boat.
No problem, we’ll just dinghy to shore, walk to the local West Marine, and pick up a couple, wrong! At least I thought to call ahead to confirm they had them in stock. “No, we don’t have any in stock. And there is a shortage of re-arming kits right now”. Some boating items seem to be in short supply and hard to obtain. We just happened to need one of those items.
After searching online and seeing that the Key Largo West Marine showed some in stock, I called the Marathon store and requested they have 2 sent from Key Largo to Marathon. They confirmed that Key Largo actually had them in stock and would arrange the transfer. “Can you hold them until we arrive?” They reassured us the re-arming kits would be there when we got to Marathon. We are impressed with the customer service from West Marine.
Time to Improvise
We wanted to get on our way to the Keys while the weather cooperated. So, we devised a plan to improvise for this passage. We could use our coastal inflatable lifevests with a climbing harness (for Tony) and harness straps (for me). It was a little extra trouble to get our extra equipment on and off when we switched watches, but it did the job.
Night Passage
Moderate winds allowed us to sail almost the whole way from Marco to Shark River. And after dusk, we enjoyed a textbook perfect night passage! There was a stunning starlit sky all night. We didn’t catch any crab traps (we made up for it the next day by catching many!).
For this night passage, we took short watches of about 2 ½ hours each with the agreement we would wake the other if there was anything in question. If the weather got worse, if we saw a vessel’s lights too close for comfort, if we heard anything unusual, we would wake the other person.
Is It An Alien Spaceship?!
At one point, I saw a light that I didn’t recognize as a marker or a vessel so I woke Tony. He looked and agreed it looked strange, it looks like an alien spaceship?! Are we both imagining things?! We waited for a few minutes. The light rose and become bigger and brighter. We realized it was the moon rising from the horizon! The bright moon shining down on the water made the rest of our nighttime passage magical. It was so relaxing and pleasant to have nature’s spotlight illuminating our way! In the early hours of the morning, we anchored offshore of Shark River. We wanted to time our arrival at Marathon during daylight hours so why not catch a short nap.
Everglades Mosquitos
Whenever we mention Everglades National Park to our adult children, they imagine being swarmed by large mosquitos. And they have a very good reason for that reflex assumption – it’s from their first-hand experience! We sailed as a family in the everglades during the summer months when the mosquitoes are at their worst. We thought MN had big mosquitoes…until we anchored in the everglades during the summer. We won’t repeat that mistake! The National Park Service explains “The Everglades has two very distinct seasons: a dry season and wet season. The wet season “can produce a lot of mosquitoes”. Our current strategy to avoid mosquitoes is to sail in the dry season, anchor well off shore (more distance from the mangroves), bring a variety of bug supplies, and cover all our boat openings with screens before dusk.
Crab Traps!
There were brisk winds and big waves as we sailed from Shark River to Marathon. We enjoyed the steady and fast sail! Until we didn’t…Since we were sailing (as opposed to motoring), we didn’t think we would have trouble with crab traps because Terrapin has a full keel. But, we were diligent about watching for them nonetheless. We learned firsthand that when the seas are up, it becomes much more difficult to spot crab traps. They may disappear in the crest of waves or be obscured by all the white caps. It became a game of now you see them, now you don’t! And depending on the color of the buoy, we may not see it at all!
The first time we caught one, we were sailing along at a good clip, and then we weren’t. We had drastically slowed down. At first, we thought maybe the wind had died or changed direction so we tried changing our tack and then we tried trimming the sails, but to no avail. Then we suspected that maybe something was dragging to slow our speed so we glanced over the stern to verify nothing was dragging from our rudder. We even went forward to confirm our anchors were still attached. (It’s very unlikely an anchor would fall down without us knowing, but when we brainstorm for a solution we acknowledge all possibilities). Still with no apparent reason for our reduced speed, Tony looked more intently over our stern on both sides of our rudder and this time noticed a slight shadow of an object where there shouldn’t be a shadow.
Hmm, we need to check this out from the water so we took the sails down and put the anchor down. When we swung to the wind, out popped a whole string of crab traps! We were dragging eight crab traps that were all strung together! Somehow part of it had become lodged between our keel and rudder. It was acting like a drogue. Sure, we were sailing in high winds, but we didn’t need a drogue! We didn’t feel anything when we picked up this string other than our slower speed. The mystery remains of how we caught them since we were keeping a close lookout.
Raise the sails, let’s get back on course and sailing!
A couple of hours later, we were happily sailing along in 20+ knots of wind and we suddenly slowed down again! This time we had a clue of what to look for. Isn’t it great when you learn from experience? We anchored and swung to the wind, but no crab trap popped up. Tony donned his snorkel gear to go in and have a closer look. I was a bit nervous because of the weather conditions to have him near the stern of our boat as it was bouncing up and down with the waves. He assured me he would be safety conscious. He took a quick look. After considering a few options of how to remedy the situation, I handed him a boat hook to grab the line and pull it up above the water, then I gave him a sheet (rope used with the sails) that he tied to the crab trap line, then I winched it up towards the boat. Lastly, he asked for his knife to cut the crab trap line to free it from between the keel and rudder. We were able to keep this crab trap buoy as a souvenir!
Raise the sails again, let’s see if we can get to Marathon before dark after these delays due to crab traps. After today’s experience catching crab traps while sailing, we may need to install a crab trap preventer the next time we’re on the hard. Terrapin had a crab trap preventer when we purchased her. We removed it after our anchor rode kept getting caught on it when anchored in a strong tidal change area. Now that we have switched to all chain rode for our primary anchor, a crab trap preventer won’t be a problem anymore when anchored. Crab traps are certainly a nuisance for boaters!
Marathon
We got our anchor down outside the entrance to Boot Key Harbor just as the sun was setting. Because of a long waiting list for mooring balls at Marathon City Marina, this outside anchorage is the busiest we’ve ever seen it.
We Need Help!
The next morning as we were lounging below in our cabin sipping our coffee, we heard a knock, knock on our hull. Tony went to the cockpit first and was greeted with “we need help!”. “Oh, yes you do!” was Tony’s immediate reply as he saw the water rising in their dinghy. Their dinghy was sinking! The woman started handing up the items she didn’t want to get wet: her camera, their boat papers, and a box of Dunkin donuts. She didn’t want to return to their catamaran with soggy donuts for their crew!
Tony went below and came back with a hand pump. As the man bailed out some of the water using our hand pump, there was discussion as to what the problem was and how much farther they had to go to get to their sailboat. When it seemed safe for them to continue, we insisted they take the hand pump with them in case it was needed. This time they did the insisting. We “must” each take a donut for helping them out. I handed back all their gear minus a couple of donuts. It was a sweet reminder of all the donuts we shared with my parents when we lived with them to assist in caregiving for my dad. Grieving has its ups and downs. This unexpected gift of a Dunkin donut while anchored at Marathon brought a warm smile to our hearts.
Shore Access
One challenge of anchoring “outside” is the long dinghy ride to the city marina dinghy dock. If you make the trek there, you can pay for a day pass to use the showers, deposit trash, and it’s an easy walk to the library and grocery store. We did that a handful of times and called it our “Sunday afternoon dinghy ride” since it was such a leisurely (long) trip to shore. Another option for shore access is Burdines. It is a shorter dinghy ride from the outside anchorage.
Best Cuban Sandwich
From Burdines dinghy dock, it was an easy walk to West Marine and El Nina restaurant. El Nina gets our vote for the best Cuban sandwich, and we’ve tried many! The atmosphere at the outdoor patio is charming with local chickens roaming about. If the waitress doesn’t clear a customer’s plates promptly after they’ve left, the chickens help themselves! Those are some well-fed chickens!
Staging For The Bahamas
We came to Marathon to stage for our passage to the Bahamas. That was our plan A, but as many sailors know our plans are written in sand. We were fully aware we may need to alter our destination if things didn’t work to get to the Bahamas. It is one thing to wait for a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream, but it is quite another to coordinate the Bahamas Covid entry requirements in a timely fashion to not miss the weather window. We wanted to give it a try! If it didn’t pan out, we would know we gave it our best effort. If not the Bahamas, we like cruising the Keys!
Spoiler alert – we made it to the Bahamas.
Yeah, thanks for the crab trap reminder! But at least we did not have to go overboard!
I Just walked down the back steps of our Gemini. First raised the rudder, no luck, then tried the boat hook, still could not get it loose, as we were still moving at about 2 knots with the sails down. Then I tried “the knife”, that worked! But I was not smart enough to hold on to the buoy as a souvenir.
But we never made it to the Bahamas, but we did run into Terrapin at the channel 5 anchorages.
Dealing with crab traps isn’t fun in the moment, but they make for a good memory and story! And the memories of ending up in the same anchorages together with you are even better!
So happy to hear you guys are out traveling. I can’t imagine trying to coordinate Covid tests with weather windows 🤪. We picked up a few crab traps, Don would usually turn the boat in circles and that would normally free them. Have fun!!!!
So happy to hear you guys are out traveling. I can’t imagine trying to coordinate Covid tests with weather windows 🤪. We picked up a few crab traps, Don would usually turn the boat in circles and that would normally free them. Have fun!!!!
Thanks for the tip to go in circles, that’s another method we can try IF we catch another one. Or should I say “when” we catch another one? Sailing in Florida waters and dealing with crab traps seem to go together!