Start: Rodriguez Key, 25.03.008 N, 80.26.110 W
Finish: Marathon, 24.42.398 N, 81.05.392 W
0727 Underway
1355 On mooring ball at Boot Key Harbor, Marathon
Total Time: 6 hour 41 minutes
Total Distance: 49.34 nm
As we raised our anchor in Rodriguez Key, a few dolphins came by to greet us. We haven’t seen many sea creatures out on the ocean, although today we did see two very large turtles swimming near us. We’ve only seen one school of flying fish. It was another day in the protected Hawk Channel, even smoother than yesterday. As you can see the water is beautiful. Daisy decided to join Mark on the seat where it was shadier than by his feet.
As we checked the weather we saw that the storms were now predicted for late evening, so we had nothing but blue skies with a few puffy white clouds all day.
There used to be a bascule bridge coming into the mooring field here. It’s left open now, but there is a power line stretching across the opening at 65 feet. This kept us from coming into the mooring field located in Boot Key Harbor before. There is another entrance at Sister’s Creek but it is shallow and narrow and not recommended. I was busy preparing the mooring lines so didn’t get a shot of us going under the power line, but we followed Almost Pawsible who had plenty of room above their mast. Still, we held our breath as we negotiated our first 65 ft. passage.
Just after we arrived, as we put things away and got ready to go ashore for some groceries, I noticed a smell in the galley. Opening the freezer, I saw the reason. Everything had thawed! While our freezer doesn’t appear to be huge, it is very deep and was completely full. Along with hamburger, steaks, chicken breasts, meatballs (lots of them), pork tenderloin, shrimp, sausage, bacon, and cheese we had stacks of frozen dinners from Nutrisystem which we ordered both for a diet and as easy food to prepare while cruising. Everything had to be thrown out. While the food was still cold, we didn’t know how long the freezer was off, as we hadn’t opened it since leaving Ft. Lauderdale. Hundreds of dollars of food was lost, just as we experienced several years ago when a part failed. This time it was for a different reason. The good news is that we don’t need a repairman. While Mark was working on the solar panels in Lake Sylvia, he turned off a number of breakers. Guess which one he missed turning back on? We had to clean the freezer with bleach since some of the meat juices escaped from their Food Saver bags. It appears to be working fine.....just empty.