Day 278 - Little Shark River to Marathon, FL
Day 278: Sunday, January 29th: Weather-wise, today was the day to go to Marathon. The seas were predicted to be 2-3 feet and it was only about a 45-mile trip. Our forethought of re-setting the anchor yesterday paid off. The tide was dropping and the current was going out as we pulled anchor.
You can see how the current was running by noting the wake our anchor marker buoy made. Yes, the buoy is a half-gallon milk bottle striped with colored tape:
We were underway by 8:00am and enjoying our second cup of coffee on the bridge as we tried to find deep water.
We had to go almost four miles offshore in order to have enough water under us to relax. So that's what we did and had a fairly comfortable cruise to Marathon. Southerly winds were our friends in this case.
Thanks to a rather serious editorial error in the Waterway Guide we were using, the marina we were aiming for wasn't on the north side of the island, but on the south. We altered course westward and headed for the cut through the "Seven Mile Bridge," part of US 1 that runs from Maine to Key West. This added about ten miles to today's trip. Here's the bridge:
Actually the "bridge" is two bridges - an old one and a new one. They cut the old one to allow boats to get through what is called "Moser Pass."
The cut:
After we passed under the bridge the south winds worked on us. We had to turn back to the east and we started to roll badly. Fortunately, it was for only about four miles, half an hour.
We happily pulled into the Faro Blanco - Oceanside Marina in Marathon. It's a very social place populated mostly with seasonal boaters - "Snowbirds" travel in all ways. We'll be here two nights. Thank goodness there is cell phone coverage and we can post some of these logs and check email (first time in several days).
Position tonight: N24 42.258 W081 06.474
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