Archive for November, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

More Cowbell in Bahia Honda

More Cowbell in Bahia Honda


Happy Thanksgiving! We are in Marathon, Fl staying in the Sombrero marina. They are having a cruiser’s pot luck at the local bar and grill 5 slips away. We are bringing pumpkin pies.

We left Key West on Monday morning on a blustery day, wind 10-15 out of the north. Guess which way we were headed, NORTH. It was a choppy beat the whole way. There were approximately 250 crab pots to slalom around. David was lucky enough to snag one! We tacked and were going pretty slow when I looked behind us and saw a crab cage surfing behind us. Since David was driving when it happened we unanimously agreed that he should attempt to free it. He cut the line, but nothing popped up. So he grit his teeth, took off his shirt, donned a snorkel mask and jumped in. After a few shrieks, he dove down, did I mention it was choppy…he surfaced looking a bit freaked out, but managed to free the prop. He was the hero of the day!

We made it to Bahia Honda Key around 3:30 pm. We fiddle farted around with anchoring for 2 hours and finally got our anchor to hold. We only set one anchor since the other boats were doing the same. We enjoyed the view and hit the sack early anticipating a long night with both GPS’ and anchor alarms. We were right, the anchor ended up dragging about 30 ft total in the combined 2-3kt current with the 10 kts wind at around 2 am. David set is repeating alarm on his watch for every 15min. David and I slept (if you would call it that) on the settees, he with his GPS and me with mine. His alarm would go off and he’d say “report”. I would give him the “we’re ok” or “looks like a wind shift” or “oh my God, please hold”. We did that all night, but were able to sleep better after 0300.

The next day, we explored the island, dinghed around and snorkeled. It was a bit cold, but we had a great time. We decided, after hearing the forecast to move the boat to the Southeast side of the key. Mucho better! We enjoyed this beautiful sunset and slept incredibly well. We even saw some fluorescent jellies.

snorkeling view of the beach

snorkeling view of the beach


Sunset in Bahia Honda

Sunset in Bahia Honda

We headed then to Marathon, Florida. We met the people on the boat we took a picture of at sunset, Kim and Bob. Very nice people, drank some beer and listened to live music last night in this very friendly marina. They are making a crossing to the Bahamas in a couple of days also, but are going to the Abacos instead of our plan to go to Gun cay or Cat cay to check in.

That is all for now. We will probably be jumping from here to Bimini, Gun or Cat cays in the next two days. David or I will post the tracking of our new SPOT, either today or tomorrow. Our mom’s bought it for us. They were tired of waiting for us to call.

My Guys

My Guys

Land of a Million Dreams

Captain Hook

Captain Hook

We went directly to Orlando after dropping off Walter and Beverly at the Ft. Lauderdale Airport. We are trying to do as many cool things as possible in the “happiest place on earth”. Although, when we tried to wake Sam up the second day, it was hard to convince him. We are on a whirlwind tour. Epcot tomorrow and then back to KW. We still need some replacement parts to get in Ft. Lauderdale on the way home. We are pretty much Disney’d out. I miss my boat and am still a little land sick. When I go to bed at night, I feel like I am pitching and rolling and then sleeping on port tack. It has diminished somewhat, but I really didn’t think it would be this irksome for this long. I really don’t think the cosmos last night had anything to do with it either.
Fozzy Bear

We’re here

Thanks Chris for seeing us off!

Thanks Chris for seeing us off!


Well we made it. It was very, challenging, exciting, grueling, fantastic and rewarding. Walter and Beverly were great. Everyone got along with maybe a couple of disagreements between David and I (which were minimal compared to our usual fights). David masterfully navigated us across the Gulf. He probably got the least amount of sleep due to our hesitancy to do anything major without a discussion including David. The shifts were nicely planned out according to all of the crew. Beverly and I were opposite each other doing 10-2, 2-6, 6-10. The boys were 8-12, 12-4, 4-8. They cool part of this was that we all got time together around 5-6 pm and our strengths were maximized.
Beverly and Walter

Beverly and Walter

Chris Kelley took pics of us when we left Galveston from a plane. Very cool. See above.

Key West was great. I got a henna tattoo of a flying fish.

Beverly chickened out!

Beverly chickened out!

Walter helped us learn all of the words to “ A flying fish Sailor”. Sam was the best and remembered all of the words. We sang it quite often and Walter, Beverly and I sang it all night long on Saturday night. David decided to stay with Sam while I let loose. Good call.