Marathon Magic

Here we are in Marathon Florida, among the great keys of Florida.  It has been sunny and warm since we arrived.  It is usually in the 60's at night and in the mid 70's during the day, just perfect.  We arrived after a couple of passes on the outside.  For those of you that are not familiar, that means instead of the waterway or the river system, we actually were in the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

It was a beautiful trip and took us a couple of days.  We traveled from Ft. Meyers to Goodland and then to the Little Shark River.  At Goodland we anchored by the Coon Key and it was very peaceful.  The 2nd night we anchored at Little Shark River with half a dozen other boats, it was just outside the Everglades National Park and was very nice also.  We sure had great weather and were very thankful for that.

As we crossed under the famous 7 mile bridge the seas from the Gulf of Mexico were building and also there was quite a bit of current coming at us from the Atlantic,   however we made it under the bridge and turned into Boot Key Harbor.  This is an anchorage unlike any we have been in and it was quite a culture shock for the Captain.  There are mooring balls provided by the City of Marathon marina (226 in all) and there are probably another 100 boats that are anchored in the harbor.  We waited a few days to get a mooring ball as it was quite windy and the weather had to change in order for some of the boats to move on.  Here is a picture of sunset at the anchorage.

We were anchored just at the bridge on the farthest point from the marina.  This bridge was supposed to be a fixed bridge and we would have to travel under it.  We were quite surprised to see that a section of the bridge had been removed in October of 2010.  This is what the bridge looks like today.

We did dinghy up to the main office and were surprised to learn that we could pay a small  fee and use the dinghy dock which provided us with pump out service for the holding tank, water at 5cents a gallon, ability to use the shower facility, lounge, and laundry service.  All in all it was a great deal.  Now we were ready to learn more about the keys so here is some of the pictures of our adventures.

This is one of the dinghy docks.  The soft inflatable dinghies are on the right and the hard bottom dingies park on the left.  There is 2 more full docks like these.  I guess if there are 350 or so boats of your friends that does have a lot of potential for dinghies.

Here is a picture of the anchorage.

Here is another view of boats, there are so many that you can not really describe it.

This is a mural on one of the buildings in Marathon.

Here is the road sign along the famous highway 1, we are hiking to town.

Like I said a few days at anchor and then the weather and seas were better so several boats moved off the mooring balls and headed for Key West or to the Bahamas/Exuma or up to Miami to the boat show.  This is a view from the starboard side and the port side of our boat on the mooring ball.



After a couple of days we got a call from our friends Corky and Rhonda  (they were coming from our home town where it was very cold).  It happened to work out for them and us that they were able to spend a couple of days and an evening with us on the boat.  It was great to catch up with them.  We even were able to view the international space station crossing over the anchorage the evening they were here.  What fun!  The next day we all hopped on the public bus and traveled 50 miles to Key West to take in the sites.  Well both Erwin and I forgot the camera, I promise we will go back and post some pictures.  For now though you will have to sustain on this picture of the Mile marked 0 (off the coffee mug I purchased)  Interesting fact is the highway starts there in Key West, hence the mile marker 0.  Marathon is at marker 50.


ENJOY

More Gulf sites from the Western shore of Florida

Well, sorry that we have not been posting a lot.  Here is a couple of the nature shots.  One of the sky with a light filtering through the clouds, the other is of a beautiful sunset at Pelican Bay in Cayo Costa State Park.

We took a week to enjoy the company of our old cruising pals, Tom and Sheryl.  We met with them in Palmetto and cruised around the area for a week or so.  I guess we were on vacation along with them as we did not take any pictures.  Here is a picture of our buddies on one of the other trips we took with them.

It was fun going back to some of the places that we cruised with the two of them several years ago.  We were on their boat at that time.  It is a sailboat, but we don't hold that against them as we used to be sailors.  We cruised around Longboat Key, Anna Marie Island, St. Petersburg, and Palmetto.  It was great to catch up with them on family and all.

We dropped them back at Palmetto and then decided to cruise toward the southern part of the Gulf.  We will be making our way to the Florida Keys over the next week or so weather permitting as we will be traveling the Gulf part of the trip and will wait for good seas.

Here is a couple of pics of the Sunshine Bridge.  One is of a freighter quite a distance away from our boat, the other is of a full size semi on top of the Sunshine Bridge.  This is a view that not all of the tourists see.

We traveled to Ft. Meyers beach and Estero Island.  Here is a picture of the mooring field.  Basically it is an anchorage but has these mooring balls that you rent and hook the boat onto.  There are over 70 mooring balls and so it is a busy place.

Here is a picture of the mooring field, Solitude on the mooring ball, and an interesting pirate ship which takes the tourists on a cruise a couple of times a day.  It looks quite different than the boats we are used to seeing.

We took the dinghy over to shore and walked over to the times square at Ft. Meyers Beach.  It was cooler and there was not as many people there as usual.

Here is a shot of the pier at the beach, as you can see by the waves, it was quite a windy day at the beach.

Doesn't take much to amuse the two of us as we have been on the boat awhile.  Here is a one man band performing at the square.  Check out the apparatus hooked on his feet to work the drum and a washboard on his back.  If nothing else you got to be entertained by the sheer work going into this!