Keys Bound

We were all up early, listening to the Everglades come alive with birds squalling and mosquitoes calling, it was an easy decision to pull the hook and head NuTrix south for the Keys. The weather was actually not so bad or we were just so used to gale force winds and heavy seas that anything less seemed calm?...!! We put on the “island playlist”, cranked the tunes up and jammed to Marley and Buffet across the shallow waters of the Gulf. We couldn’t put out any sails because of the degree of wind so we motored all the way. Ray calls it using the iron jib…..

  Try as we might, we could not catch a fish… SOOOO we had the next best thing… canned chicken. Okay, maybe not the next best thing but when you’ve been on a 41 foot boat with four people for five days, most anything tastes good! A little mayo, some tomato, lettuce,  pepper, chopped onion and voila…. chicken salad on bread! Gourmet, boating style!! I should start my own Food Network show…  The trip down took six hours. When we were approaching Yachtsman’s Channel, which most of the sailing guides warn about, I went up on the bow to watch. I’m not sure whats so scary about it other than its REALLY shallow on either side of the marker, but that’s why they have markers… right???? I guess I also have a very experienced captain because when he came through the first time back in 2007, he did it without a GPS. NuTrix draws 4 and a half and we had no problem. The anchorage on the charts goes by the name of Jewfish Hole? I think it’s named after the fish, which is now called a Goliath grouper. It lies just off the shore of the KOA campground and Seabird Marina. The water is good and the holding is also USUALLY good. After we set the anchor, Wes, on our buddy boat, Hannah B, took us to shore for some ice. Our dinghy engine decided that it did not want to start after being stowed for five days. Our ice was all gone, so off to shore we went, Angie, Terri and myself with our dinghy captain, Wes. We came along side of the cement sea walls of the campgrounds and climbed out with much grace and finesse…..well, no one fell overboard anyway!! As we came around the corner through a grove of palm trees, we were given our first introduction to “island time”…. the ship’s store closed at THREE OCLOCK!!! Seriously??? As we turned to trudge back empty handed, thoughts of hot drinks steamed through our minds but then our disappointment quickly turned to amazement. Low and behold, an ice dispensing machine!! Angie put in her debit card before we read the directions. It would not give her a credit so we had to get 8 bags of ice. SMALL bags of ice that we had to hold under the dispenser when the ice cubes shot out with much force!! Eight bags of ice for 20 bucks!!! Hello “island style”…

 Anyway, we had LOTS of cold drinks!! Back aboard NuTrix, we offered Wes and Terri to join us for burgers on the grill along with my pasta salad. While chowing down, Ray noticed that the Hannah B was a little further behind us than she had previously been. Remember the USUAL good holding!!! She was dragging a little, so Wes and Ray jumped in the dinghy to reset the anchor. Crisis diverted….. sort of….!  Later, after the burgers were consumed, pasta was gone and we were all enjoying a quiet evening, I went below to change our music and straighten up the galley. I heard a weird noise so I yelled to Ray to come and listen. Well when he got below, stairs were pulled off quickly and the engine room door was quickly removed. Our bilge pump was running non-stop but water was still coming into our boat!! This was NOT a good thing… We pumped and pumped but could still not figure out where the water was coming from but we knew it was salty… again… not good! Wes got his pump from Hannah B, but it was too big to fit down into our bilge. “Well at least you won’t sink”, Wes said….. um okay??? I must mention that we had previsioned for two months and when we got into anchorage found out that our front water tanks were empty. They hold 90 gallons of water. This all translated into WAY too much weight in our stern. I know the feeling!! Anyway, our bilge pump line was under water, so every time it tried to empty water out, more water came back in! Wes tacked it up higher, while totally upside down in the back storage compartment! Those Key West boys…..!!! When crisis number 2 was completed, we all just wanted to go to sleep and get to a dock!!

We woke the next morning as the sun was coming over the water. It was so nice to see blue skies that the night before and all of its drama was forgotten. Andy made us all coffee and we sat in the cockpit and planned our journey up to the Postcard Resort and Marina in Islamorada. Ray and I had been there twice before and didn’t really want to go back. In 2010, it was a nasty, over-priced marina with LOTS of… excuse my hoity-toity opinion…. Riffraff!!! They drank and littered and caused an indescribable mess in the marina bathrooms! Unfortunately, there are not many marinas that cater to sailboats that draw over 4 feet, so we were caught between a reef and a shallow place!!  Ray decided that we would give them a try because we heard via the VHF that it had changed hands and they were trying to make it a better family friendly resort. We were so pleased and surprised that they have indeed done just that! It’s still very expensive for a summer-time rate, but we paid it anyway! We also rented a car so that we could do laundry and get some provisions that had run low with our two extra days in the Everglades. Ray and Andy filled the water tanks and then we all went to find the coin laundry. After filling the washers, Angie and I decided to throw fate into the wind and walk down US 1 in search of food and maybe a pedicure. No nail place but we did find a wonderful Greek restaurant with excellent food! We sat down and munched, talked and enjoyed a lazy afternoon. We took Ray and Andy back some food and all sat and watched our laundry tumble dry…. I couldn’t understand the Spanish soaps on TV…?? When all was dried and folded we took a long drive up to Tavenier to the Winn-Dixie… I know, I know… hold your excitement down!! We also hit the Family Dollar looking for a fly swatter. No one in the Keys has a fly swatter??? Though the Keys are not hurting for flys!! We packed that little car until its stern was dragging and headed back to the boat. Bags were unloaded and I don’t even know if we have found all the things we stored? At last it was time for a dinner out! Driving back towards Islamorada we passed the Shrimp Shack and Ray turned around so we could give it a try. It was so worth it! The closed at nine and we got there at 8:45 but they insisted that we come in anyway. The fish was so fresh and so yummy!! It surely did not die in vain and my inability to breath was so worth it too…haha. If you ever get to Islamorada, make sure you put it on a “must eat here” list!

We were supposed to be off the dock by 11:00 because a boat club had rented the marina for a poker run. However, the entrance at mean low water is only four foot and low tide was at noon….soooooooooo… we stayed and had lunch at the tiki bar. To our delight, some Key West friends were on their way up to Miami and stopped in for a drink. We had a really nice afternoon, but the dockmaster kept calling to tell us we needed to GO…. Jeez…. now I think we were considered the riffraff??? We said our good-byes and pulled off the dock toward Rodriquez Key. We had a nice run up the Keys, but again we could not sail with the east wind. The water was still clear and so pretty and soon we came up on our final anchorage in the States. We dropped the hook and ate a dinner of appetizers and sandwiches. Yummm…  Many more sailboats came in and by morning there were about six. It made for a very pretty picture, but I was too worried about the picture on the GPS to think about snapping any with the camera. A HUGE storm was out over the Atlantic and seemed to be stretched all the way over to the Bimini Islands. The weather report stated that the winds would be out of the E to SE and only 5 to 10 knots, but I could see the weather and I’ve been in the middle of 40 knots of calm winds and flat seas more than once on NuTrix! I truly was afraid, but Terri kept telling me to trust our captains and frankly it gets old being the ONLY cautious one aboard, so I figured what the heck… if it was bad and we didn’t die, it would make a great story for some sailing magazine, so off we went. I did take my rescue remedy, pray and text my mom, but by goodness I still went. Anyway, if anything is gonna happen, its gonna happen out there… right???