Well, with a 100 percent chance of rain today, I thought I should share a few days of exploring with you. We will start with kayaking the Mangrove Caves. For those of you who have no clue what a Mangrove is.. It a tree. They look like shrubs to me with exposed roots. That means their roots are partially out of the water. Oh let me tell you… if you anchor too close to them, they are full of No-see-ums at night when there is no wind. Yesterday, we finally decided to kayak through the tunnels of the Mangroves. The pic below is me kayaking through the Boot Key mooring area over to Sisters Creek where we will enter one of the tunnels.

Okay, Just past this concrete seawall is the canal towards Sister Creek. You can see the Mangroves behind the palm trees.

Look what we found this little guy is hiding from the world….

Just before Sister Creek there is a cutoff. Bryce and I for many weeks now have watched many kayakers explore this area. Now lets see where all the paddlers are going! This is what we saw. It is an opening, so it must be where we go in. We have no map so we must not get too carried away.

Bryce went in first…Now you know I wouldn’t. He has to remove all the spider webs for me….LOL

Me… well I am a little skeptical about whether or not I really want to go into the jungle of man eating Mangroves….  Or I am sure something could eat me in here.  As we paddled deeper into the rooted jungle it got harder to paddle as the stream flowed heavy with the tide current pushing us through narrow paths.

The current is a bit strong so I reach-out to hold onto a root as Bryce was taking photos

We decided it was time to head back, there are a lot of different paths to take and we really did no where they were going to lead us. We we felt we were already deep into the rooted jungle. As we paddled back, we ran into another couple. Kevin & Norma who had kayaked this route just a few days ago. So we latched on to our new friends and headed back in to the unknown.

As we paddled through the rooted Mangrove we would eventually end up in a small pond. The water was very clear; you could see the jelly fish and these weird looking balloon shape whitish-clear looking things sitting on the bottom. I sure would hate to fall out of my kayak here. As Kevin and Norma escorted us through yet another part of the jungle I had the crap scared out of me!!!!  I noticed a brown looking pencil shape snake sunbathing in a tree.  The worst fear is what would happen if one fell in my lap while I was kayaking. We paddled deeper and deeper into the mighty jungle. It was tight to paddle; as I lifted my paddle to turn or move I would hit a root!!! I did try to separate my paddle but that didn’t help. All of a sudden we heard Kevin say watch out for the Florida panther on your left. They run wild in the Mangrove jungle.

We had a great time with Kevin & Norma thanks a mint for adding a great day to our adventure.

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La Luna

As time flies by and we wonder how some of our friends are doing that we meet along our journey.  Then as we are standing in line to pay our water bill in the harbor, I looked up and to my surprise Denise & Etienne were standing there.  Their boat name is La Luna.  We met them Thanksgiving Day in Charlotte Bay. It was so nice to see them again. We invited them over for diner and discussed our adventures since we last talked. They sailed from the Netherlands around the world in there 35 foot Benateau. We were able to visit with them for a few days before they sailed out.  They have emailed us and told us they made safely to Bimini.

Etienne & Denise

A few bottles of wine later🍷🍷

Until we meet again our friends… Safe voyage

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I have a New LOVE

In my office at home I have a photo of a Catamaran pegged to my peg board. It wasn’t until I glanced over my shoulder as we had our morning cup of coffee. Bryce, I think we need to really check into looking at this vessel as our next boat. ALA is a Leopard 40 she belongs to Mark & Gwyn. They are a very nice couple who invited us on board and shared their experience sailing a Catamaran. Thanks Mark & Gwyn.

So Bryce took us up to Dania Florida to the Leopard Catamaran dealer. We found out that the new model is 25% bigger then the older model.

Look at the galley!!!! 👀 I love it…

Me again….  suits me just fine 🙂

 Get this…. if the day comes and we really get this 🙏🏽we are thinking of going to Africa and sailing her home…

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Boot key pictures

Here is a view of Beauty in boot key harbor..

Bootkey Harbor at night..  Hundreds of mast lights on looks cool..  COLREGs require anchor lights on; even on mooring balls.

 

We get to shore using the dingy.. So a dingy dock is required.  Here is the small one.. Larger one is at the entrance to this channel..

 

 

So I spent the morning yesterday on the bow drinking my morning coffee and started a blog.  Today, I went to finish up and the whole document was gone! Thanks Microsoft word.  A few days ago we had to go get parts for the refrigerator 400 miles round trip.  On the way up to the dingy dock, we ran into this colorful guy.

He remined us, we needed to stop for lunch at Hog Heaven.  The restaurant was on a tiny  bay that had a walk out to the point where you could leisurely sip a drink.

Back to the boat.. We had to do a complete rebuild on the fridge; cold plate and all.  I can say I never expected my refrigerator to stop working.  But as usual Bryce was able to get the refrigerator back up and working.  He put in a new Engel compressor and evaporator.  Now works great!

The following day we had to go back up to mall to get my iPhone looked at. It locks up on me at least 5 times a day. We were told, we had a three hour wait for a technician to look at my phone. Hum.. we thought, what are we going to do. Well, I did have a few ideas of things that I could use so wandering the mall we went. Shop shop shop. We stopped in this one store that I can’t remember the name, to find napkins that I wanted. You know the funny kind that say (for instance) “With all these times zones happy hour never ends.” Bryce disappeared, I couldn’t find him. I walked through the store finally I found him staring at this rack. It was full of all kinds of powder for an ice cream maker. I laughed Bryce we don’t have an ice cream maker. He looked at me and smiled “but we can buy one.” We don’t need an ice cream maker I said; we’re living on a boat. Come on, let’s go to the next store. Well we wandered and wandered. I was able to get some good steps in for my Fitbit.

Then finally I received the text. The technician at the Apple store was ready for me. After all that waiting we were told there was nothing they could do for me until I backed up my telephone. So the technician explained to Bryce what has to be done after I backed up my phone. So we headed home. Well I guess heading back to the boat is heading home. The following morning I woke up; made a pot of coffee and watched Bryce work for a few minutes. A few hours later after he was done working, Bryce looked at me. Jane I really do want an ice cream maker. I busted up laughing. Really; you want an ice cream maker. I laughed. So Amazon here we come. Bryce got his ice cream maker. I’ll take advantage of this opportunity. I thought to myself; what at Amazon do I need. Well I surely needed some hair products that I can’t seem to find anywhere. So okay; I’ll order some hair products. That’s all I could think of; laugh out loud.

The ice cream maker is in the middle.  Sure has changed from the olden days.  This one has its own refrigeration unit that cools down to -20 F.  Also its own stirring device.  Put the ingredients in and 45 minutes later, out pops ice cream.  Bryce proceeded to create butter pecan!!  The mad scientist at work..

Here’s what it looked like when done.  Boy was it good.. Calories be darn!!

Later that day Bryce decided to go kayaking.  Started out nice, but a storm came in.  Not easy to paddle into a 35 mph wind.  All butter pecan calories were gone!!

 Winter in Marathon, Vaca key, Florida.  Today weather is quite bad.

 

Another day as a new front moves through the Marathon area. Winter Ba-hum-bug!! I suppose it really doesn’t matter where you are in some way or form winter will come. However, I thought I would share a day trip to the Key West with you. Some of you already know about my first day trip on a bus. But this is about our trip there.

The story starts after our arrival by bus to Key West. We started our journey for the day in a local restaurant on the board walk in the marina for an appetizer & beer. Coconut shrimp 🍤 and a Bud Light🍻. It was very delicious.  Our table looked out to the marina.

 

Maybe the name of the restaurant was Singleton; not sure. This was a great place and our waiter was awesome.

   

Looking from inside to outside I noticed where to park our bike the next time down here.

 

Before I could get the camera out, the bow of this powerboat was full of birds.  There was only one left. I can just imagine the bird poop that has to be cleaned off. 

 

  This is a view from our table. After our appetizer and beer,  we strolled along the waterfront to capture the feel of the ocean. I don’t think Bryce nor myself ever could get enough of the amazing view.
 

During our ride to the Key West a girl on the bus was telling us about the roosters in the Key West. She said they were everywhere. You cannot turn around without seeing a rooster. I was thinking she might be a little nuts. Man let me tell you, she wasn’t  exaggerating; there were roosters around every corner. I wonder why hurricanes don’t blow them away.  

  

“I think I’ll enjoy a walk through town today. Maybe there will be less humans; after all don’t they know it’s winter… Silly humans.” LOL I do wonder what they are thinking.

 

I think that this is as close as I want to get to a shark…. This is a replica of the Megalodon shark; meaning Big Tooth.  As the plaque says this is an extinct species of sharks that lived about 1.5 million years ago during the Cenozoic Era. They were known to grow 62 to 67 feet long and hunted whale as their main source of food. The Megalodon teeth are similar to the Great White Shark however, they were much bigger, thicker along with finer serration. 
   

My sweetheart is standing in front of the History Museum.
  

We also noticed the cruise ship that was at port. 

  

Sorry, everyone this is as far as the road goes.  Mile marker zero.  From here on out, you need to be on a water craft.
 

Forgive me for not reaching out to you all for a while, but there is not much going on here. We are still in Marathon; but we did receive a mooring ball. It feels so good to know we don’t have to rely on our anchors with the horrible weather. Today is going to be a good day winds are only NNE at 14 with gust up to 20.  Winds are constant and it has turned colder (60 at night).

 Bryce took advantage of the Heavy fresh water rain to swab the deck.

  
I collected rain water to clean the cockpit.  
 
Bryce asked me if I wanted to send back anything I wasn’t using or going to use to his sister Sheila’s house. She has offered to store a few things for us till we get back. Well, I did some Spring cleaning.  

  Putting the boxes together & weighing them no more then 20 pounds.

  
We could only fit 3 boxes in the dingy at a time. I stayed and packed Bryce took them to the rental car. 

   
We ended up with 8 boxes. 7 of them are full of my clothes; 1 is Bryce’s.

Thank you so much Sheila…the joke is I still have that many more outfits on the boat. 

After we went to the UPS we went for ice cream..yummy🍨. Because they sold cupcakes, Bryce asked if the owners of the store were two broke girls. The young lady looked up at him and replyied “Yes”.

 The ice cream was very good I had a peanut butter chocolate Sunday.

  Bryce had a waffle cone and peanut butter chocolate ice cream.
 
  

Relaxation is the thing to do when there is nothing to do other than hanging around the boat fixing things that stop working. But yesterday, we really did nothing. After Bryce was done working, we made our way to the bow of the boat where we planted our rears for severals hours. The sun was shining upon us most of the day. We decided it was a perfect day as we sipped  grapefruit juice & vodka and got a little silly  waving to boaters as they went by on boats, dinghy, and jet skis  some even came by and laughed with us and shared stories of travels. I think we need more days like this.

I even danced a bit..LOL It was a great day.

That was our day in a nut shell. As evening approached I knew after doing laundry we needed to take our water jugs in a fill them up. It was a funny time.. see I have two left feet when it comes to driving the dinghy. Bryce needed to show me once again after a few cocktails.. he was really relaxing..It was probably a good thing because he laughed at me while showing me how to move the handle on the motor to steer. One of us needed to be in control…LOL We were not drinking and driving. Anyways, after arriving at the dinghy docks, I walked in to see how the list was doing for a mooring ball. I was so excited to find out we are number 2👏🏽 The young lady said Friday should be our day. This is a pic of what the mooring ball area looks like. Wonder what Letter & number? Please keep your fingers cross that we get one soon.

Sunday we went to West Marine and ordered a depth transducer for the jet-ski. Bryce installed our back up GPSmap 440s on the jet-ski. As we explore, sometimes we find great anchorages. But we have no clue what the depth is.. so what the heck.. let’s put a depth gage on the jet-ski.

We went back to Burdines restaurant and shared a cheeseburger & fries and watched this guy tack this little sailboat back & forth.

 

It has been a busy few days here in Marathon. The winds are howling  around 22 knots through our anchorage.  

But we are able to play catchup on a few minor repairs. I am also getting some cleaning done.  On this map below in the red shows all the small craft advisory. At the tip of Florida where we are, the green shows it is also raining.

 
Everyday we have been taking our water jugs into town and filling them. We are trying to keep our water tank somewhat full. Lol..  I need to create a funnel so when it rains I can collect the rain water in the water tank.  Last night we made an extra trip into the dingy doc for water. This was our view as we headed back. All the little lights you see are sailboats mast lights. They have to be on at night even when people are on a mooring ball. Because interestingly enough, Colregs International regulations apply within the harbor!

  

We went to Sombrero reef snorkeling.  We had the GoPro camera in its case, and Bryce jumped in. But it was not the waterproof case.  It was destroyed by the salt water, so only a few Picts with cell phone.

I don’t know if you can see it but this is a jellyfish it almost clear looking. When we were snorkeling I saw little bubbles and they were baby jellyfish. Pretty cool🐟

  

Everyday we see kayakers and fishing boats pass us by here in sister creek. Typically dozens of kayaks head into the Mangroves.

 
Here is an updated map of our adventure. By the time we are done we will connect to the beginning marker in Michigan. 

 

 

My days are now starting to run into each other. Not sure what the day is until I look at my watch.. We have been on a waiting list for a slip or a mooring ball for a week now. I sure hope someone calls us soon as I am getting bit up by no-see-uems. Well, the time has come to replenish our food & drink supplies.  We walked to the Publix grocery store and had to call a taxi to bring us back. After we loaded up the dinghy there was hardly enough room for us. but we did it. LOL

After we finished up with the grocery, we went and picked up some snorkel equipment and Bryce is showing me how to snorkel.

My hair is as white as my mask..LOL It didn’t take me long I tried it now it is time to relax….

Our anchor light has been out for a few days and we have been waiting for a day that I could host Bryce up the mast without wind or boat traffic. Yesterday morning, New Years Day, was the day. Our Anchor light is finally getting replaced and we don’t have to use our tri- color any longer. On the way up he found my TV antenna wire had come undone. So Bryce fixed that.

I finally got him to the top.

While Bryce was at the top he took pictures of the area with his phone.  Sixty feet up gives quite the view.  Here is a picture of two boats near us and the Mangroves behind.

Here is a picture looking toward Boot Key Harbor.

And the radio station that causes all kinds of wacko problems on the boat.

Looking toward the Ocean, are subdivisions.

The top of the boat looking down gives an interesting perspective.

After dealing with the mast-light we went into town for ice-cream

On New Yeas day they had a polar plunge at the dinghy docks.. They used a few bags of ice to make it cold, but I think it melted quickly as the water temp was nearly 80.

We had the opportunity to meet up with our brother-inlaws (Jim Rathbun) two sisters (and spouses) and friends of his sister Sally’s for lunch on News-Day. What a wonderful time we shared with them.  On the left side of the picture from me is sister Nancy (white/yellow stripe shirt) and her husband Joe (white tee shirt).  On the right side of the picture from me is sister Sally (blue shirt) and husband Bill (white shirt).  Further right are friends Brende (aqua shirt) and Bo (freen/blue stripe shirt) who are sailors down here in Marathon. OM… I forgot the one behind me (green shirt) I think you all know who he is…LOL.  And me in the black shirt.

Our day is coming to an end so we stopped by the beach for a few minutes after meeting up with Sally and the gang.

we hope you all had a safe New-Years-Eve and New-Years- Day.

Yes, we made the transition from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. We anchored two nights off Fanny Key thinking that we would be protected from the ESE winds at 20 knots. It was a cute area with lots and lots of boat traffic but with the waves from the wind we didn’t even noticed their wakes. I received a text from some of our BEST friends in Michigan that said: “We have left for Florida. Where are you?” Awesome we are getting company….  We had two rough nights anchored at Fanny Key. We drove the jet-ski over to the Atlantic side to Boot Harbor City docks and put our name on a list for an anchorage ball in hope that we could get one before our guest arrived. They said we were the 10th person on the list and no one is moving due to the small craft warnings. We had lunch at Burdines. great food. Who ever thought that shrimp and sauerkraut Rubin sandwich would be so delicious…

On the third night we drove the boat over to Boot Key Island and anchored in the Straits of Florida at this point we are officially in the Atlantic Ocean. The winds changed from a ESE to a slight SE 15-20 knots and back to ESE with small craft warnings.  Waves were building where we anchored. George’s eyes didn’t look so happy.  Needed to find a smoother anchorage.

These photos show us leaving the Gulf and entering the Atlantic.

We have some dear friends Dirk and Silvia who have spent 4 years traveling around the world.  We were exchanging text info on where they went and their route.  We need to carefully look at this prior to our crossing of the Gulf Stream.

Bryce stayed up late looking at Active Captain suggestions for anchorages by other boaters and found us a calm river for protection: Sister Creek. What a great place…

We anchored and had to go pick up our arriving guest. Yuan, Jie and Helen.  I stayed behind while Bryce went into the Boot Harbor City dinghy doc and picked them up. After their arrival we found out they would only be with us for that day, the night and the next day. They only came down to see us and had to head back to Michigan.  We have spent a number of Christmas and New Years holidays snowmobiling out west.. So it seemed appropriate to see them now.

What a great visit! But we wish they could have stayed a bit longer.  Yuan and Helen kayaked out to the beach.

Jie and I sipped drinks and enjoyed the pool.

Good-bye our friends till we meet again.

That was a long trip for 24 hours; but, we really enjoyed them stopping by.

While Bryce went into the marina he also paid for us to use the dinghy dock. Along with that you get a key for the showers, trash drop-off and serval other accommodations.

Every Wednesday a boat comes along the side of us and gives us a pump-out.  Every morning at 9 a.m on channel 68 on the VHF Boot Key City Harbor Host a What’s happening for boaters. It is very informational.  Today was our day for a pump-out. Thank you Toby..

We are anchored just outside a very high power government broadcast facility.  It is causing havoc with the boat electrical system.  The touch screen on our Garmin GPS does not work.  The LED lights on the inside of the boat flicker according to the broadcast modulation.  And our current indicator to our battery fluctuates about 10 amps.  It took me a while to realize what was going on.

We carefully planned our route from Marco Island to the keys through protected waters stopping at Indian Pass and Shark River.  However, we made the horrible mistake of not realizing these safe harbors were controlled by the National Park Service.  The National Park Service does not allow Jet-skis towed or otherwise into its boundary waters.  At 3 PM Christmas Eve we were ordered out of the protected anchorage at Indian Pass.  We pleaded that we promise not to operate our jet-ski for the period and explained small craft warnings were forecasted.  The Park Ranger explained rules are rules.  We can anchor outside the boundary waters which varied from about 1 to 2 miles off shore.  The picture below shows our anchorage with 2 other sail boats prior to leaving.

We left anchorage in a hurry because his words were “This is your only warning. I will not tell you what may happen.” I never argue with someone carrying a fire arm.  We left the harbor, immediately into 10-15 mph winds.  The National Park Boundary waters were clearly depicted in our chart plotter, so we understood where we could go.

We headed south, because we we will not be able to travel the 80 miles to the keys without anchoring.  And the National Park Service controls nearly 100 miles of coast in this area.  So no safe harbor for us.  We motored about 15 miles till sunset wind on our nose.  We are not able to sail over night because of the thousands of crab pots in the area would make it unsafe.  We anchored in 10 feet of water outside boundaries about two miles off the coast in 15 MPH winds.

Winds died down at about midnight, so we were able to get some sleep.  We left at the break of dawn because we had about 65 miles to go. It is not possible for us to motor into wind and waves fast enough to get us out of the impending weather by nightfall.  Fortunately, the winds turned easterly and we were able to sail on a close haul.  Winds started building and we found ourself in 30 mph winds and 5-7 foot waves.  Crab pots were everywhere..  Worse than we have seen yet..  Some only 40 feet apart.  In our haste to exit the Park waters, we failed to rig a reef.  In these winds, a reef is a necessity; otherwise, the sails could be destroyed.  I rigged the reef in 30 mph winds and 7 foot seas by climbing out on the boom.

In a pinch the first reef could take us to 40 mph.  After we would require a second reef.  It could happen the main might not come down to the first reef, so I rigged a downhaul using the topping lift.  No chance to move the gen lines to the storm track, so I protected the heavily furled gen by tightening the gen sheets to the shrouds.

I depowered the main a bit.  Our speed was reasonably brisk at about 7-8 knots and we had a comfortable heel angle.  At this speed we could make it the 60 miles to the keys prior to sunset.

The crab pots were everywhere.. much worse than we had ever seen..  It required a spotter midship to point out the small buoys in the 5-7 foot waves.   Very difficult to see.  We missed some by only a few feet and had a few slide down the side of our hull.  We strapped Jane to a life line and put her up on deck, with PLB.  Her antics in pointing out the crab pots and lines of crab pots reminded me of the dancing police officer at an intersection.  In this picture there are dozens of crab pots within only a few hundred feet, but invisible in the picture.  The worst was in a 30 mile stretch.  This is how we celebrated Christmas Day.  We pulled into Marathon and finally anchored at about 4.30 pm.  Just before nightfall.  The lesson we learned was to carefully check our cruising waters for restrictions prior to heading out.

 

What a fabulous journey of exploration we are now having! We are thinking that we have already seen 90 miles of area that we would have never have seen without the jet-ski.   We went to Rookery Island this time. We meet up with….I will call them the three wise men.. We talked about jet-skis of course and other areas of interest.

Our three wise men from the left are: Jesse, Derik and Colin  Thank you again for the fun time on the beach.  Jesse owns the Spark and the Sea-doo in the center.  So he was a great source of information on the Spark: a boat we have been looking at.  Colin and Derik gave us great pointers about taking care of our Sea-doo in salt water.  We are fresh water jet-skiers, so the salt water specifics were much appreciated.

Today the island was busy with people putting their toes in the sand and enjoying the sun. There were lots and lots of pontoon boats.

We left Naples and headed to Marco Island. Towing the jet-ski behind Beauty worked out very well. We just have to clamp off the cross over tube which provides the water inlet and then again remember to unclamp it before we use it. The Gulf was suppose to be kind to us today; winds 5-10 but she has her own mind and blew 10-20 knots. Waves were between 2-5 feet.

We anchored at Marco Island near what used to be Cocoa Island before a hurricane took it out.  And we were greeted by the dolphins once again. This time if you look closely you can the damage done to this dolphin’s fin by boat props. It just brings tears to my eyes when I see this.

I cannot even count the number of dolphins dancing in the bay around us it was just so beautiful watching them.

We went on another adventure today and traveled through the Collier Seminole State park and a portion  of the Ten Thousand island National Wildlife Refuge. Just under this bridge we passed a tour of Jet-skis. You can take a tour of the Islands by jet-ski. They are pretty cool.

This is Old Marco Lodge. We thought about stopping in but there was so much to see we didn’t want to stop.

This Island is not far from Cape Romano. It looks like a place to hang out for the locals. Just prior, we stopped at Brush Island and asked about directions to the “Dome House”.  On the way, we stumbled on to this unnamed island.

This island also had a curved shape in it that formed a bay on the other side.

Me enjoying the beach and jet-ski.

This is the “Dome House” at Cape Romano Island. I believe the story goes that back in the 1970s .  Someone built these dome looking pods as their home. They were originally on land.  They are made of concrete and are slowly being engulf by the sea.  It is just a shame that people have to confetti old buildings.

After a few hours of play we ended our evening on Marco Island Beach and Beauty is in our view.

What a great time on the beach.

I have to laugh.. I have never been in sand that felt like flour and sand. YES, I mean baking flour; it even left a residue on my feet. LOL I could roll in it and look like a ghost.

We watched the sunset from the beach on Marco Island

Earlier in the day, we anchored inside the red buoys in front of the Beach & Resort. The depth is 11.4.  We anchored in a small current of the out going tide. Lots of wave action from passing boats. We didn’t see anything less then about 9 feet with the out going tide.