Once again we had great sailing. This time it came with the caveat of having rather violent seas. Luckily, Fira took her Dramamine and got some food down before the worst of it. Grete and I generally seem to be alright. Dublin however had a lot of puking to tend to.
We got to Marathon and went into Boot Key Harbor to find a spot to anchor. It was packed. We tried poking into a less crowded spot and quick ran aground. The holding was solid, even with 0:1 scope :)
We got towed off within 30 minutes or so and it wasn’t really an issue. We didn’t feel safe with how close we would have to be to other boats so we went just outside the harbor to anchor.
That turned out to be a bad decision. The anchorage outside was really rough and felt like the sailing from the day before. Dublin again got sick. We headed back in and decided to drop the hook. It was freaky for about a day but after the wind had circled us a full 360 and no one hit anyone else, we felt much better and were able to go ashore peacefully.
Turtles
We went to the Turtle Hospital and got to learn about sea turtles and the efforts that the hospital leads to saving and protecting these cute critters. The timing was perfect too because instead of loads of dolphin sightings on our trip up from Key West, we had several turtle sightings.
Passport and Delays
Our next stop is Miami in order to prepare to cross over to the Bahamas. We need to wait out the weather in order to head that way since boats don’t do well sailing directly into the wind, or without wind. My passport is set to expire in about 4 months, so I’ll be trying to get a new one expedited in Miami as well. My appointment isn’t for over a week from now. Given all of this, we’ve decided to stay in Marathon rather than push up to Miami right away. The marina has a lot of comforts and the stores are pretty much all within a mile. Where we plan to stay in Key Biscayne is basically none of that and I don’t think we’d have as much fun there.
Normal-ish Life
In Marathon we kind of just did normal things. We went to the playground, the library and the stores. We did all of our big loads of laundry from the colder weather. We had school. None of it special, but everything had a twist.
