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Arrived in the Keys
After our nice little pause in Palm Coast, we decided that we were ready to just get down to the Keys and settle for a while. We have a big list of projects that we're anxious to start, so we left Palm Coast early on Saturday morning (after a very nice send-off from a few friends there) and ran to Titusville, near the Space Center.
White pelicans are unusual, but there's a colony just north of Titusville and I finally had a chance to shoot a few photos of them in the fading afternoon light.
It was a long day down to Titusville and another one down to Fort Pierce, and it was dark by the time we got the anchor down both nights. We've been spoiled by our meandering pace so far this trip, so we weren't used to running long days! The next day we had a shorter run to N. Palm Beach to visit our DeFever friends Hank and Nancy for an evening.
Tuesday morning was another early one - we left just after sunrise, through our last bridge, and out into the ocean for an 85 mile run down to Key Biscayne. The ocean was a little lumpy all day, but it was a decent ride and we were treated to the Goodyear Blimp right overhead for a while. We dropped the anchor just outside of No Name Harbor after dark, and we got to see Miami light up as the sun was setting. Nature still has the best light show.
Some weather systems were moving in on Thursday and would persist for a while, so we decided to make the long run to Marathon in one shot yesterday (Wednesday). We knew we would have some lumpy conditions for a few hours in the morning and we expected some rain and cloud cover - an advantage for the later afternoon when we're pointing directly west and trying to dodge crab pots.
We left in the dark through the narrow Cape Florida channel, and the shallow water and brisk wind directly on our nose gave us a lively ride for a while, until we could get to deeper water and turn southwards. The dawn sky was fiery red with billowing clouds, but our ride was too lively to try to get a photograph.
The seas settled down nicely for most of the later morning and early afternoon, though we had a few rain showers - some quite hard - to rinse the salt spray off the boat. We kept watch on the weather radar online as well as with the boat's radar, and we could see squalls well to the west and north of us. Unfortunately, we coudn't avoid the last squall line - though we could see that most of it would pass while we were out in Hawk Channel, before we made the approach to the marina. We named this simply "The Ugly".
This photo was taken about 10 minutes before the leading edge hit us - the temperature dropped by 10 or more degrees and the wind piped up at 5pm to 30-35 knots sustained. We were in touch with friends at the marina, so they confirmed that the worst of the front had already passed. We got into the marina after dark, but also after the storm - winds were 10 knots and we just had a bit of spitting rain. We were tired but glad to be settled, and Heidi and Peter were waiting to catch our lines and feed us a nice lasagna dinner - perfect!
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