Lyn's Log, 28th March 2007
Florida Keys

Marathon, Florida.
N24º42', W81º06'
13,446 miles.

Twenty-four hours after leaving Marina Hemingway we arrived in a Key West Marina on 8th March. The wind had eased after a couple of hours out but continued to come from a direction rather too close to where we were headed, but we were helped considerably by the Gulf Stream pushing us northwards. We were assigned a rather difficult mooring space but I gained a round of applause from the lady on a nearby motorboat after she watched me manoeuvre Sentinel in a difficult wind so that Andrew could get the mooring ropes on the dock without any shouting or accidents. So there we were, in the land where the water was drinkable (It’s city water Ma’am), fresh food was readily available and the wi-fi was free. Paper information abounded including a magazine called ‘Menu’ listing the hundreds of restaurants to be found in the larger Keys.

We arrived at Customs in the morning at opening time along with half a dozen other skippers and crews, some of them rather drunk. The Customs team were polite but firm. The drunk skipper who had tried to answer back was put in his place. We were told we could not arrive from Cuba. ‘But’, I said, ‘we have. We are here.’ We were handed the explanatory sheet that we had already read in Puerto Rico. It was all about who can leave the USA for Cuba, but nothing about foreigners coming from Cuba to the USA. But there was no arguing. We had to accept our verbal slap on the wrist and have some Customs heavies come and visit the yacht, but everything was soon done. Next day in the street we spotted the off-duty Customs lady who had given us such a hard time, and she gave us a cheery wave.Several local people in the marina stopped for a word. One guy looked at our ensign and said, ‘Are you from Canada?’ Another time, a couple went passed discussing where we were from and he was assuring his wife we were from Australia.

Key West is the ‘historical’ Key at the end of Highway number 1. It has the ‘southernmost point’ and had the ‘Southernmost Hotel’. Hemingway lived there for a while. The old shiplap buildings have been preserved and it is a pleasant town to wander around. It is also possible for four cruise liners to be moored alongside the town. By comparison other towns along the keys are ugly strip developments.

After a couple of days we motored along the Keys on the Atlantic side but inside the reefs. We anchored near a mangrove island overnight and then just managed to scrape into Boot Harbor by the town of Marathon, about fifty miles from Key West. The anchorage is in a large bight with mangroves and islands along the ocean side, and the highway with the town stretched along it the other side. It was a good place to ride out strong winds and that is just what we did. Most of the time it was too windy for us to row our dinghy ashore, but there was a good water taxi service. Andrew, who had been suffering from toothache, managed to find a dentist and had a tooth pulled.

One day we decided to go to Miami to help us not go crazy waiting for the winds to die down. The bus went to Florida City, over 100 miles away and on the outskirts of Miami, for the princely sum of $1.70. The Florida City terminus was in a huge shopping precinct, where there was absolutely no information on how to proceed. (We guessed that most bus customers were illiterate, so timetables would have been of little use). We called a taxi company but it appeared they had no taxis. Finally, we found the number for a local motel, just ten minutes walk down the highway, with all the cars blaring horns at us. We enjoyed a wonderful hot bath, a good film on the television, and never did get to Miami.

At the anchorage we listened to the boaters’ radio net in the mornings and joined in with a few social events. The people were lovely. We were offered lifts in dinghies returning from the marina, and the use of a couple of bikes to make the long trip to the nearest supermarket more bearable.

From an advert on the net we bought a cheap second hand inflatable dinghy. This dinghy has a wooden transom capable of taking an outboard engine. It has taken the place of Andrew’s thirty-year-old Avon Redcrest that had always had a wet soft floor and nowhere to mount an outboard, which we donated to the boy scouts of Marathon. Then we bought a new 3.5HP outboard – the one recommended by Yachting Monthly. Unfortunately it had to go back to the shop three times in as many days before the shopkeeper finally gave us a different one. We had no time to test this before we left Marathon, but fortunately it seems to work. The weather had at last changed and we were able to leave, along with 22 other boats waiting. I hope Andrew’s apparent jinx on outboards is now played out and this one will continue to be OK.