Marathon to Little Shark River

Day 21: March 25, 2018

And another good night’s sleep terminated with a wonderful plate of SOS, chipped beef on toast.  I had studied the wind charts and today promised to be a great day to head north.  The forecast was calling for light southerly winds changing to light easterlies as the day progressed. 

Leaving Boot Key Harbor

Our goal is Little Shark River in the Everglades National Park which is about 42 miles from Marathon.  I had only two tanks of fuel to carry us to the next location that provides that service.  I obviously wanted to get on our way at first light but I figured it would be prudent to hit one of the local marinas that had fuel before we headed out.

We cast our lines off of the mooring ball at 7:00 and headed out of Boot Key harbor.  The first marina that we approached was the one located on the lower level of Burdines where we had dined last night.  I was surprised to see activity on their dock and hailed them to find out if they were open. They were.  We took on 6 gallons of fuel and accepted their offer of free ice with the fuel purchase.  The guys on the dock were most cordial as well as interesting.  The guy who seemed most in charge was from Springfield, OH.

The 7-Mile Bridge in the early morning sun

We pulled out into the Hawk Channel where the wind was very light, but there were still rollers coming in from Cuba.  We followed the Moser Channel under the 7-mile Bridge and set our autopilot on north.  As we traveled along, the wind died to the point that the waters were glassy and flat.  The only thing that interrupted our direct route was an occasional lobster trap float that magically ended up directly in our path.  On two occasions, I hit two that avoided my vigilant

gaze, but fortunately neither hooked on the keel, rudder, or got wrapped in the prop.

In the middle of the afternoon, the winds increased to about 10 knots and had clocked around to our stern.  The water was still flat which made for a really nice

Flying the genniker

ride.  

Our boat is rigged with a second head sail that is mounted on a retractable bow sprit and is located in front of the jib.  The sail goes by the name of a gennaker or skreacher.  I have flown it several times with out much success.  I leave it there because it looks impressive.  But, today, with a following wind, I decided to unfurl it and was pleasantly surprised by it’s performance. We shut down the motor and we were pulled along at about 3.5 knots.   With the motor, we were making 5 knots.  We enjoyed the quiet smooth sail for probably 1 ½ hours.

Mangrove with the green foliage blown away in the hurricane

We motored into the Little Shark River at about 4:00 and traveled probably about 2 miles back into the Everglades until we found an ideal spot to drop our anchor.

We got out a block of Gouda cheese and with crackers and a bottle of beer, we relaxed in one of our favorite places to anchor.  We had 4 of the cheesy hush puppies from last night we so we had them  along with spaghetti. 

After dinner we tried to sit on the deck to read, however, the “no-see-ums” were ferocious so we retired to the cabin where we turned on our electro-chemical bug repellant.  It seemed to work.  We read until bed time.  It was a great travel day.