It was a sad day, but we said goodbye to Marathon. City Marina is a vacuum and we were definitely sucked in. We could have stayed there for a very long time but we knew that we wanted to travel on the boat, so we dropped our mooring and sailed to Rodriguez Key. We were close hauled most of the day and had to motor sail. Rodriguez doesn't offer much protection from anchoring in winds but that was okay because it was only forecasted to be about 4.5 knots throughout the night. So at 12 a.m., as the winds gusted to 25 knots, we couldn't fall asleep because of the howling and the boat was pitching with the bow slamming all night. By 4 a.m., we couldn't take it. Neither of us had slept but an hour but we weren't going to so we pulled up the anchor and headed north to Key Biscayne. We knew that we wouldn't be crossing the Gulf Stream in those conditions and we certainly weren't going to spend another night in Rodriguez Key, so left.
At sunrise, we raised the sails turned off the engine and screamed north. It was sooo nice to sail!
The forecast for a Gulfstream crossing looked great if you left that night. We arrived at No Name Harbor anchorage to take Kala ashore. We then put the dinghy on the deck and fixed the high life lines. Everything was set for an ocean passage - now we just had to hope the weather would cooperate.
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| Goodbye Boot Key Harbor |
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| A regatta off Isla Morada - we had the best seat in the house as they rounded the mark. |
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| Sunset at Rodriguez. |
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| Rodriguez Key anchorage - completely exposed to east winds. |
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| Back at Bill Baggs State Park. Stella Blue in background. |
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