Start: Marathon, 24.42.398 N, 81.05.392 W

Finish: Rodriguez Key, 25.03.008 N, 80.26.110 W

0935: Underway

1625: Anchor down in Rodriguez Kay

Total Time: 6 hour 50 minutes

Total Distance:  49.25 nm

We left Marathon a few hours later than we planned because we waited for a thunderstorm to pass.  It started raining while Mark was taking Daisy for her morning walk, so they came back wet.  We had a pleasant motorsail to Rodriguez Key in Hawk’s Channel, a few miles offshore.  We had a full water tank and were pumped out yesterday but we made more water to replace what we have used.  Whenever we are sailing, we can make water and of course our water is as pure as you can get.  The Marathon City Mooring Field charges 5 cents a gallon for water, on the honor system.  We have always paid for our water there, usually getting about 50 gallons or more during a weeklong stay and feel this is a small price to pay.  We bring it back to the boat in five gallon jugs to replace water we use showering, doing dishes, drinking, etc.  This is the only facility we have stayed at in the States which sells their water, but for a good reason.  They either get it from farther north in Florida or make their own from the sea.  Either way, it’s not free for them.  It was interesting to hear that only about 40% of the water at the mooring field is paid for, showing how cheap some cruisers are. There are a lot of rules at the mooring field, and one can understand why.  Hopefully the next time we return to Marathon there will still be water available.

Daisy is getting more and more comfortable with the boat, and after four years I guess she should.  While she usually is under the helm seat while we are on the move, she will sometimes sit on the helm seat with Mark or me.  However, she rarely takes it for herself as she did in the photo above.  I’m not sure why she seems to be pushing Mark.....maybe she wanted to steer the boat herself.

When we arrived at Rodriguez, there were only four other boats anchored there and no one came in after us.  The holding is excellent here, as long as you grab a good spot, and that is important because there isn’t much protection here from the wind as it is open to the ocean on the east. We expected a storm to pass over, which we were watching moving toward us on radar, but oddly shortly before the large cell got to us, it split and one part went north and one part went south.  Forecasts are for thunderstorms all week, but intermittent so we are traveling and trying to avoid them. 

Every day we motor now we are amazed at how much better Seas the Day performs.  Since the conversion, we regularly motorsail at 8 kts and have rarely had wind in the two digits.  In addition we are confident that we can get to our next port in a more powerful lighter sailboat than we had in the past.

Our week at Marathon was uneventful.  We mostly rested.  The second night we were there, we returned to Key Fisheries for stone crab claws.  The season ended two days later, which was bad news for crab claw eaters but great news for sailors because the crab pots we had to avoid a few weeks ago were all gone when we left today and headed north.  We were going to go back to Key Fisheries on our last night, but Mark ran into problems when he started to change the oil in the sail drives.  The problem was that he couldn’t find any of his oil changing tools so he had to go to West Marine and buy new ones.  (He thinks they were inadvertently thrown out during the conversion.) By the time he was done, he was exhausted, sweaty and too tired to go into town. 

We’ll leave early tomorrow morning to anchor in No Name Harbor, Key Biscayne, Miami.  Hopefully it won’t be packed as it sometimes is on a Sunday with locals.  If it is, we have a few other anchorages to choose from, but No Name is the easiest place to take Daisy ashore.    Miami is not our favorite place to stop and will be a huge contrast from the laid back, low key, friendly town of Marco Island.