Sunday we enjoyed the nice weather and again biked to Sombrero Beach which is the local gathering place for beach folks. Today we spent biking to do errands but after lunch we biked down to Pigeon Key.
Pigeon Key is about 2 miles down the old 7 mile bridge. The new 7 mile bridge bypasses it and you can see it in the background. Don't know if there was a station at Pigeon Key during the railroad days but here is an old wooden ramp from the Key up to the road that is currently closed for repairs. Now the only way to get there is by water taxi from the end of Marathon. But then I'm always looking for a faster way to get places.
The new bridge was built in the late 70's to replace the old highway built on the foundation of the Flagler built Florida East Coast Railroad the featured a New York to Havana train service. The train ran from Penn Station in NYC to Key West with the station right next to the dock and the trip was completed by steamship from Key West to Havana.
The old bridge is now cut in places after having been shot up in the movie True Lies and we saw the end of the road. The guard rails on the old bridge are railroad rails presumably from the original railroad. The railroad bridge was destroyed in a hurricane.
Tuesday we enjoyed a very nice dinner at the Barracuda Grill in Marathon to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We shared the event with Sunny and Ralph Hernandez who are enjoying a brief respite from the northern Illinois winter with a 2 week vacation here. We've hung out together for most of the past 2 weeks. We'll miss them when they leave Friday.
But the major event we started this week (along with continuing to do boat chores) is planning for our trip in a little over a week up the southwest coast of Florida to Naples and Charlotte Harbor. I've been studying the charts and Active Captain notes to determine where we want to go. Naples will be a 2-3 day port call with a chance to reprovision at Whole Foods and Trader Joes. In Charlotte Harbor I have a college classmate and we have 2 friends from HHSA who are there for the winter. So we will have a great time when we get there. Maybe we'll even get to see Jim Morris at the Navagator.
We have generally concluded that we will do an overnight passage to Naples. It is about 95 nm from here to there which is about 13-14 hrs. So if we leave about 3 in the afternoon we should get there around dawn the next day. That way we can go through the channels in daylight. Still need to check the tide data but in either location tide isn't too critical as it is in some locations. As we get closer we can also focus in more on the weather to pick a departure date because it is still too early to identify that. When we leave Charlotte Harbor we plan to go straight to the Bahamas so I will engage a weather router and probably use the Clarks since we will be in the Gulfstream as we go east along the Keys until we get to the Bahama Bank.
To learn about new destinations I engage numerous sources to gain familiarity to avoid showing up and not knowing anything. The first thing I do is go to Google Earth and take a look at everything. Usually the satellite view will provide a good overview of the layout and where things may be. Also at a high enough resolution you can see marks and physical details of marinas. Next I look at maps and google information to see where things like West Marine or grocery stores are that may not be apparent in the satellite pictures. I then look at Active Captain to see what general information I can get as well as highly rated marinas or anchorages and then see where they are in relation to destinations we may need to visit.
While I'm doing this we will be looking at guide books and asking on email lists for any information or comments from others that may have been there.
In the case of Charlotte Harbor I got a lot of information from my friends there. In fact we may be able to stay at a yacht club through their auspices.
Once we have fairly well established our destination and gotten a good overview of the environment I use the charts to plan a route and then develop a route plan with waypoints and relevant climate data. From that point it becomes a simple issue of selecting the best weather window for departure. Because of the sailing characteristics of our boat we can be more flexible in selecting weather conditions than someone with a less comfortable vessel. While we don't want to be stupid or sail out ahead of a storm, big wind and seas in the right direction will make for a good trip while others might pass waiting for a calmer time. What we need to avoid is big wind and seas on the nose or no wind as we've already had a lot of. The big paradox in waiting for weather is the right one may not come so as I've written before, it comes down to waiting for Mr Right or looking for Mr Right now. So there is a fine line between taking some risk and being stupid. We're willing to take risk but try to avoid being stupid.
So the boat chores and planning continue.
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