Marathon, Vacca key

Tuesday February 12, 2013
24 43.289 W
81 05.017 W

Back in civilization.

We had hoped to take a mooring in the harbor but there were no vacancies and so we have just anchored on the north side of the island. Its a calm day with less than 10 kts of Southerly breezes, so we will be good here for a bit. In the meantime we are catching up with emails and watching the sun set.

At last we are in water where you can see the bottom. I was not happy with the way the anchor set so I put on my "shortie" and followed the chain out to the anchor. Sure enough, it was not really set, the anchor was half exposed. I dived down to try and push it into the bottom to no avail. I suspect the bottom is sand over coral. Not much I could do but set the alarm and watch the weather.

Wednesday February 13, 2013

The evening was calm and Tide Hiker had a settled night. I had promised Dick and Dee from Sarinana that I would dive under their boat because they felt they had fouled a crab pot. So after breakfast I broke out all the gear and after a couple of false starts Dick picked me up in his dinghy and I dived under their boat. Sure enough, they had 20 plus feet of nylon line wound around the running gear, but it came out easily enough. He had also run aground and wanted me to inspect his keel for damage. All was well.

Since I was in my gear and in the water, I wanted to take a peek at Tide Hikers bottom. (I know it sounds a bit rude, but I have known her long enough now that she does not mind, so long as I do not talk about any details.) Dick tried to tow me over to Tide Hiker behind the dinghy - I did not want to swim because there was a current and I am not as young as I used to be - at least according to Deidre. Off we went. It was hard to hold onto the line, especially wearing all my gear. What is more, we seemed to be going the wrong way. I took a peek every now and again and Tide Hiker seemed to be fading into the distance. Turned out that Dick could not turn his dinghy with me dragging behind. So I let go, he reversed the dinghy and dragged me going backwards (the dinghy, not me.). Awkward as it sounds, it worked.

Intrepid Diver

By the time we got to Tide Hiker I was pretty exhausted. Unfortunately I found a bunch of crab pot line around her running gear, so I could not bail out! It was wound tight, so there was no "unwinding it". Deidre brought me a selection of knives, but after a couple of tries only her good bread knife (Thanks Susan!) would cut the nylon. Maybe we will get an extra 1/2 a knot tomorrow?

After I had recovered we took the dinghy ashore to a marina where we could land and headed off to the Post Office, bank and super market.All worked well. We came back to the boat and unpacked and sorted thru the package of mail.

Homeward bound

Dick and Dee called in for a chat and a beer about 4 PM, which threw our schedule off a bit. After they left, Deidre and I set off in the dinghy for a visit to the "big" Marathon mooring harbor at about 5:30 PM, knowing that we would be returning in the dark. In fact the round trip was just a hair under 10 miles! It was not dark on the way back, it was pitch bloody black.We had to go under the famous "7 mile bridge" (first built by Henry Flagler) and the current under that was quite interesting. We were on the last mile or so when the outboard just "stopped". It would not restart. We threw the little "lunch" anchor over so at least we would not lose ground (or get sucked back out under that bridge)

I knew we could not have run out of gas as I had just filled the tank in  Longboat Key, but I decided to check it anyway, even though I could not see my hand in front of my face. As I undid the cap I heard a load hissing noise as air entered the tank. OBVIOUSLY, there had been a partial vacuum in the tank. I left the cap loose, and the engine started. New tricks for young players.

We are leaving for Key West in the AM. There is some bad weather arriving Friday and I want to be at a slip, on a mooring ball or in a good anchorage for that - and this is not the place.

Stop Press: Just stepped into 2" deep water in the ER. That got my attention fast! After 1/2 hour found where a drain from the 15Kw gen had fallen lose. Phew!