Final Status Report - Marathon

Marathon: the drive-thru key

At last our last night in Marathon (please, God, please, God)!  When we first came back to The States, we were moored at the Garrison Bight Marina in Key West.  Our hope (and therefore my plan) was to spend a few days there before making our way over to Marathon for our many and much needed repairs.  We were there not more than 36 hours when The Good Captain Jane noted that we had but a brief, one-day window of favorable weather by which to sail to Marathon.  As of the following day, and for something in the neighborhood of six days thereafter, the wind would be right on our nose.  Our abiding commitment to sailing when at all possible induced us to leave Key West early the next morning and make for Marathon.  I was not happy about this in the least.  I knew with the deepest possible intuitive certainty that a--wait for it--month in unscenic Marathon with technicians crawling all over our boat would catapult me into a state of serious antijoy and I was not at all amenable to starting especially before getting a few more days of the therapeutic benefits of Key West.  "But," offered our skipper, "the sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave."

...Oh, really?

Part 2: Escape from Marathon and Hurricanes

A quick recap from Part 1.  Assuming (hoping, really) that we can eventually overcome the inertia that is keeping us here in Marathon, we will spend the hurricane season south and west of the "hurricane box."  We're thinking to visit Cartagena, Colombia; Guna Yala, Panama (aka the San Blas Islands); and Rio Dulce, Guatamala.  Mas o menos.  We will aim for Cartagena first, then let the winds and currents push us to Panama and then to Guatamala.

If we could plot a course straight to Cartagena from here, it would be just a squooch east of south.  We would sail about 900 nautical miles, and Bob's your uncle.  But we must contend with Cuba.  Okay, we don't really have to contend with it, we just gotta go around it.

Part 1: Planning Our Escape from Marathon and the Hurricane Box

As of tomorrow, we have been in Marathon for seven weeks.  Holy Mackerel.  We have got to get out of here.

So we've started to plan our escape.  Yes, it's about making lists and doing a few more boat chores and projects... buying those last couple of crucial items -- the spare propeller for our outboard, the extra can of non-stick baking spray (do they have Pam in foreign lands?)... reading all our new owners' manuals, so we understand (to some small extent) all the new stuff we have on board.  But it's also about deciding: Where shall we escape TO??

This is "the hurricane box," as plotted by Ean

The Power of Yes

Just a couple of things to add to Ean's update.  I'd like to offer a public apology and thank you to René and Steve, former owners of Joy, who have been so patient with us.  They are keeping track of our progress (or lack thereof), and they are surely worried that we’re going to kill their boat.  But we continue to learn from them.  It was René who suggested that if we were stocking up on meat, we should ask the butcher to FREEZE the meat for us, so we don’t tax our reefer.  At the Piggly Wiggly from Port Royal, SC, we put her advice into action.  Now, first, I have to admit that we, as urban dwellers, have always viewed the presence of a Piggly Wiggly as a sign of the end of civilization.  But shame on us.  Paul from Piggly Wiggly was AWESOME.  He agreed to freeze the meat, introduced us to his accommodating manager, and picked out the best cuts of meat to put into our box o’ meat.  It is SO easy to say NO, and often times, people enjoy exercising the power of NO.  Paul could have easily said, “No, sorry, we can’t do that.”  But the people who use their power to say YES are so inspirational to me.  Paul said, “This is what we do at the Piggly Wiggly.  It’s all about customer service.”  How cool is that?  I LOVE LOVE LOVE Paul.  Paul is why life is worth living. 

Cleared for Take Off!

Port Royal Landing Marina,
the last time we set our feet on American soil?

We've made our way to beautiful Beaufort (that's byoo-fert, remember?), SC.  Spent last night at Port Royal Landing Marina hoping we would be able to detach ourselves from the damnable ICW and exit the U.S. from Port Royal Sound.  Jane made arrangements with noted weather guru, Chris Parker, for a new forecast with an expected departure date of Friday the 16th or thereabouts.  We've topped off our fuel and water and emptied our holding tank.  We found an anchorage in Stations Creek, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the ocean.  We've attached the jacklines, tied down the fenders, tested the tethers, put the ditchbag in the cockpit.  We even performed the renaming ceremony (thanks, Amy--  I'm pretty sure Neptune/Poseidon and Aeolus are as ibreniated as we are.), all while waiting to get our forecast from Chris who'd already contacted us to say that Saturday was looking good.  (It's just as well that we had to wait until Saturday.  Every mariner knows with what certainty disaster befalls any vessel that embarks upon a voyage on a Friday.)

Our weather forecast has come in and Saturday is a go!  You should have seen us doing our happy dances.  (On second thought, maybe not: what they displayed in delight they lacked utterly in grace.)  So, we finished off the rest of the god's booze and had a steak dinner with ice cream for dessert.  Jane is napping; she'll probably be up long before dawn making last-minute preparations and taking last-minute Dramimine.  We'll weigh the anchor and tie it down at first light and then big, blue water here we come!

Our last ICW buoy?

Owing to the fact that we're on the Sprint network, we probably won't have Internet capability once we get a few miles offshore, so this will likely be our last post from the United States of America.  You can still follow our progress by going to the "we are here" tab here on our blog.  We expect to arrive in Treasure Cay on Tuesday, whereupon we will commandeer Jane's mom's Internet connection to report on our arrival and recount all of our adventures at sea.  It looks as though we may get Tipsy Turtles for Christmas, after all.

New Old Home Week

Remember Michele on Catito, the French Canadian who rescued us from our first grounding during our first day on the ICW?  We were sure she had long left us in her wake.  Jane just happened to be looking out toward the channel at the exact right moment and saw Catito cruising by.  No way?  How on earth did JOY pass her?  Jane hailed Michele on the VHF--we do still owe him a bottle of wine and homemade chocolate chip cookies.  It turns out that Michele had docked Catito in Beaufort for three weeks, flew home, got his wife, and they are now continuing on their way south. They are also headed for the Abacos, but aren't as confident as we are of good weather (or, more accurately, feel differently than Chris Parker does about the forecast) which means we may get there before they do.  We'll have his cookies and wine waiting for them when they arrive.

And speaking of the other B-e-a-u-f-o-r-t, got a call from Craig from Eastern Marine Diesel.  They're the guys who fixed our stepped-on fresh water pump over the Thanksgiving holiday.  He hadn't seen a blog post in a few days and was worried about us.  I mentioned having been saved by another cruiser and out of the blue he asked, "Was he Canadian?"

Wow, what does that say about us?

I have one more call to make/email to send before we lose touch with the land of our birth (Tommy  & Amy, if you read this, we're thinking about you.  Thanks for the renaming ceremony, wish we'd done it before we left.)  We are deeply grateful for the new friends we have made and equally grateful for the friends still back in the North.

Cheers.  See  you in The Bahamas...yee-ha!