Marathon, Key West and points beyond

Well lots has happened since my last blog page. We made our crossing from Varadero to Marathon in just under 18 hours. We had lots of wind and weather and it was super bouncy. Not much sleeping on this overnight! We had all 3 sails up and decided to lower the main sail to help with our rolling. Of course as soon as you lower a sail the wind dies. We decided to raise the main sail again (remember this is at night – way more challenging) and wouldn’t you know, we headed straight into a storm front. We went from under 10 knots to over 20 knots in minutes. Mark got wet from the rain and I got wet from peeing my pants as our speed toppped 10.5 knots (we normally do 6 – 7 knots)!!!!!

Our landing stop in Florida was Marathon Municipal Marina – a very interesting place. It has a huge mooring field and dinghy dock but very little dock space for boats. We enjoyed our brief stay there and were able to do some real grocery shopping (not Cuba style shopping), including some nice wine! Love the US for one stop shopping – food, wine, beer all together!

So we get to Marathon and of course we have to check in with customs – always an exciting process. Mark made many phone calls trying to find out where we clear in and we are told to go to Key West within 24 hours of our entrance – oops. We’d already been in Marathon 5 hours by this time. Well let’s just change our arrival time to the phone call time which is 4 pm Friday, July 14. 
We travel to Key West – an iconic southern city – on Saturday afternoon. We clear in with only a few issues (like finding the customs office) and had a very nice dinner near the waterfront. We did visit a bar called Margaritaville and Mark had a margarita. It’s a very interesting city with tons of tourists!

Our journey north was windless so we motored all the way – 4 days in total. We stopped near the Everglades National Park, Naples, Boca Grande and finally at the dock at Charlotte Harbor Boat Storage. We finally caught some fish worth eating – 2 Spanish mackerels and saw lots of pelicans (I love pelicans), some dolphins and one alligator! Crimson Kathryn will be hauled out soon and stay on the hard here for the upcoming year. She will rest easy and wait for our return in July 2018.