Distance: 62 nm/Time 8.5 hours
I weighed anchor at 5:45 am, a bit earlier than planned, and headed in darkness out of the anchorage and into Hawks Channel, southwest bound. Although I was still limited by the engine overheating issue to 1750 RPM, I was pleasantly surprised to see a ground speed of around six knots, which held constant all day. Evidently, there is a Gulf Stream counter-current along this stretch. That would be fortuitous; before the day was over, I would end up needing every spare minute I could get.
The winds were calm all day. (The strong southeasterlies were forecast to start later.) The seas were also pretty flat and the autopilot held well, so it was a pleasant, beautiful cruise along the Keys. At times I set my chair up near the bow to be away from the engine noise and read or listened to music. Mid-morning I called the City Marina to see if they had any open mooring balls. The lady said that she wasn’t sure as they hadn’t done their daily “inventory” of the balls to see if any were open. (I guess because sometimes people just leave without telling them? Or stay past their end date without telling them?) Anyway, she said they send someone around physically each day to check out all 226 mooring balls and they usually finish in the afternoon, so said I should call back later in the day to check. Great. So now I had to plan for all contingencies.
I arrived at the outside anchorage ahead of schedule–around 2:30 pm–and called the City Marina back. They said the inventory was complete and there were no balls available. Big bummer. She did say, however, that the waiting list was empty, and so if I came in and paid for the week’s worth of dinghy privileges, I would be first on the list. Well, at least that was something. But how to get there?
Again, if I anchored outside the harbor, it was 1.7 miles to the marina office. Way too far to paddleboard, and there wasn’t really enough time to deploy my dinghy and motor and get to the office before it closed. (The entire harbor was a no-wake zone, so the dinghy wouldn’t be much faster than the paddleboard.) Anchoring where I was on the outside of the harbor to go in first thing in the morning wouldn’t work because the winds were going to be picking up to 20-25 from the southeast, and there wasn’t much protection from that direction. So that meant continuing on another hour or so through Moser Channel/Seven Mile Bridge and around to the north side of Marathon where there was an decent anchorage (Fanny Keys) near a couple of restaurants that looked like they had dinghy parking. Hopefully, I could anchor, paddle the quarter mile ashore, then walk a mile and a half to the marina and make it before 5:30 pm. I really wanted to get my name on that list to hopefully get a ball before the cold front hit. It was going to be close!
So around I went, dodging the shallows and anchoring in a very touristy spot. The Fanny Key anchorage felt very exposed to a pretty strong current along the shore and a lot of boat traffic, but I’d only be staying for two nights (before having to move to an anchorage 13 miles away to the northwest that was protected from the cold front winds).
Everything went pretty well. The anchor set firmly in the westerly current, I inflated and deployed the paddleboard, then paddled to the Mile 7 Grill’s dock, getting to shore at 4:35. Then I started walking up U.S. 1 to the City Marina as fast as I could. It looked like I was going to get there around 5:15 pm, so I called to confirm that they were open until 5:30 pm and also that the mooring ball waiting list was still empty. Affirmative on both.
After ignoring Google Map’s attempts to have me cross U.S. 1 three times for some reason, I finally arrived at 5:15 at the city marina, walked toward to the desk, and just as I was about 10 feet away, a lady strode up to the desk, and I heard her day, “I’d like to be put on the mooring ball waiting list.” Doh! Oh well, that only meant that I was #2 on the list.
After all the paperwork was done, the staff informed me that they way it worked was, when they had an available ball they would call me. They’d only attempt three calls, and if they couldn’t reach me after the third attempt, I would be put at the bottom of the waiting list. (Of course, technically, I already was at the bottom of the list!) lol. If I was called and refused the ball, I’d also be put at the bottom of the list. I assured them that I would be waiting breathlessly for their call.
After all this was done, I felt a huge sense of relief and also extreme fatigue. It had been a stressful and busy few days, and I still hadn’t caught up with any of the sleep I had lost by sailing overnight from Lake Worth to Key Biscayne and I had another mile and a half walk and a 1/4-mile paddle before the day was eon. I decided to hit the Mile 7 Grille before paddling back to the boat and treat myself to a nice dinner and glass of beer before heading out to the boat.
After getting back to the boat, I updated my weather forecast and had time to think things over in detail. It still called for strong winds out of the southeast starting this evening and continuing through Sunday. But, the front was going to pass through early Monday morning–like 2 am–with the winds rapidly switching from strong southeasterlies to strong northwesterlies. This anchorage would be totally exposed to miles of fetch from the northwest. The problem was, the only appropriate anchorage with protection from the northwest was in Big Spanish Channel, 13 miles to the northwest. But it was totally exposed to winds from the southeast. There was no way I was going to move my boat at 2 am, so would have to venture out on Sunday in probably 3′ seas with a sketchy engine to an anchorage that was even farther away from the Marathon harbor. Then I’d be anchoring in rough conditions which would last 12 hours or so before the wind would veer. There really weren’t any other options.
Unless I got a ball at Marathon by Sunday. But, after thinking about it clearly, I realized there wasn’t much chance of that, even being first or second on the waiting list. I couldn’t imagine anybody leaving a the fully-protected Boot Key Harbor to venture out anywhere with a cold front coming through. The winds weren’t forecast to abate for at least five days, so I’d likely be having to play musical anchorages after all. With that happy thought I crashed and got some much-needed sleep.