Juan Iguana swam up to wish us a Buenos dias.  My Iguana spanish is very limited but I believe he was requesting breakfast.  We were preparing to put our (still nameless) dinghy up on deck before heading out of Marathon.  I knew that iguanas were land and sea creatures but I have never seen one in the sea before.  He was a funny and awkward swimmer.  Juan made it very difficult for me to focus on my tasks, but so does breathing.

Did you know Iguanas were great divers and swimmers?  Iguanas can stay submerged for up to an hour but usually do so for five to ten minutes.  They are mostly herbivores and eat leaves, algae and seaweed.   They are cold blooded so they love to sunbathe.  There was an article in the local paper this week reporting that iguanas, like me, can’t handle the cold. They were falling forty feet from their tree houses during this last cold snap.  The article said, It is raining iguanas!  It has warmed up now.  I hope the poor fellas thawed out.

We motored into the wind on the atlantic side of the coast for a beautiful ride to Fiesta Key after a diesel and water stop that went medium well .  It was warm, sunny and unexciting, just the way I like it.  It continued to be transformational as Echoes worked her magic on me.  In fact, a lot of magic had already occured since our cosmic elevator ride to the sea in the cold Everglades.  Echoes is a twenty year old boat and her few mirrors are a bit tinted and slightly warped.  Even wind whipped and disheveled, I have never looked better.  Echoes has graciously shaved fifteen pounds and fifteen years from me.  I wink at myself in the mirror while smiling coquettishly and turn from side to side.  Magic on the sea is very powerful but it is slow to transfer on land.  I went to the restroom in a restaurant last night and their mirrors lied like the scum on the sea.  Apparently it will take a little while longer for the mermaid magic show on the hard.

My new mermaid mystique has its drawbacks.  It is either that or Captain I’mtwelveyearsold’s humor, or the common Bored Man in a Boat syndrome.  But I’m pretty sure it is because I am entirely irresistible that I have suffered through Captain Needsanewjoke’s endless pestering.   He never tires of his same old jokes, or in this case, bets.  He said, I’ll bet you (fill in the blank a certain intimate act) that we will be at that marker in twenty five minutes.  What fill in the blank do you want to bet?  To which I replied, John, your continuous betting jokes stopped being remotely funny well over a week ago.  He answered, I bet you (fill in the blank) you will have wine tonight.  Annoying.  And.  Not.  Funny.  At.  All, said I.  And he came back with, I bet you (fill in an extremely raunchy and wildly imaginative blank) it is, which cracked me up.  Then he declared, I win! and chased me around the boat.

We anchored in the middle of crab/lobster pots as far as the eye could see after another long day of dodging them.  The fisherman sink wooden boxes with a one way door for crabs or lobsters to wander into.  They tie these boxes to a line with a little styrofoam floating ball on top.  The ball is the marker and the line what they use to retrieve the trap.

We have past probably hundreds of thousands of these. They set them willy nilly so it interrupts sailing in a straight line and my ability to use autopilot.  This is frustrating to no end because I can not set Echoes on autopilot, sit on my princess’ perch and do what I do best, daydream.  Instead, I have to stand at the helm and drive in zig zags.  I am an expert and proficient daydreamer and have the grades to prove it.  I am usually the helmsman because Captain Onit is charting plots, plotting charts, or fixing things.  If you run over a crab pot it can do serious damage to your engine if it wraps around your propeller or gets your sailing parts in a tangle.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset in Fiesta Key after a warm and wonderful day.  The following day we cruised the intracoastal to Tarpon Bay.

I am uploading my photos and came across a strange one.  John, come ‘ere a sec.  Ya? he says.  What is this?  I point at my screen.  I took a picture of my meat for you, he said as he wiggled his eyebrows at me and then went back to his project.

 

 

 

 

The cold witch of winter cast her spell upon us.  We tried to escape her by leaving Minnesota behind but her frosty breath and her bone chilling cry in the wind followed us to Florida.  We sailed out of Marco on a chilly day.  Seven hours later we anchored in the Ten Thousand Islands off of Indian Key for a cold night.

I had pre negotiated a deal with CaptainletsleaverightafterChristmas.  We could leave Minnesota earlier than I would have liked but I needed a day holed up in the middle of nowhere with a book and peanut m&ms to get my head right.  I am a person of transitions.  I ache from saying goodbye to friends, my boys and my daughters in loves, my beloved pet parrot, my in-laws, my parents, my large seated, warm toilet, my fluffy toilet paper, my big, beautiful, bright fridge and the most pleasurable varieties of my wine rack.  The cruising life leaves me isolated and we often do not have cell or email coverage.   It also leaves you generally uncomfortable and in constant continuous contact with your husband who finds great satisfaction in farting loudly.  I need some space to talk myself into all of this.  The best way I know how to get my head right is to get out of my head and then ease back in it as a new person.  Reading is my vehicle.  So I gobbled up an entire 400 page novel from one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, within twenty four hours.  Can I tell you a brief quip from “Anansi Boys” to show you why I love Neil so much?  A dragon flew up to a man and said, Mmmmm, you look delicious.  I am going to eat you.  The man tried to scare him off but the dragon laughed at him.  I am afraid of nothing, he laughed.  Nothing? asked the man.  That’s right! said the dragon.  Well, said the man, I have two pockets with nothing in them.  The dragon looked very uncomfortable and flew away grumbling.   I surfaced  from this book a better human being and was more prepared for boat life.   But it was damn cold.

The day after book gorging day was a howling frigid day of haunted banshees.  We had no cell service but could pick up a lone radio station.  There was a frost advisory with temperatures of 32 and a wind chill of 25.  It was interesting how the DJ was helping Floridians understand the dangers of the cold.  I did learn from freezing on the boat last year and brought my new down jacket (God Bless you, Caryl), hat (God Bless you my knitting smelly work friend, Cheryl), mittens, warm blankets and wool clogs.  We lived in layers upon layers for 5 days.  There was a small craft advisory as well as freeze advisory so we stayed put two more days.  I read the Bahamas chart guide cover to cover while listening to the radio.  I am surprised to discover that I quite like elevator music.  I felt like I was caught between two realities on a cosmic elevator ride back to the sea.  Who knew a B singer singing Barry Manilow covers and fluffy instrumental Beatles music was so magical?

We spent three nights at Indian key and then sailed a frigid seven hours to the Shark River.  We came upon a pod of about fifty dolphin.  They came to play in the bow of our boat and to restore my faith in sailing and transitions.  Shark River was cold but pretty and no need to worry about bugs when it’s damn cold.  Plus, I shivered that extra five Christmas pounds right off!

The following day we motored most of the ten hours to Marathon in the middle keys.  We kissed the bottom, or hit a log, on the way out of the anchorage but it caused no more damage than heartburn.  It was during these ten hours that I realized how much John reminds me of my boys when they were toddlers.  You would crack up if you saw a fast motion video of us on the boat.  I would be continually perched in one of my queen seats looking forward, standing at the helm, or huddled out of the wind in the sun.  John would be up and down the companionway stairs fifty times, at the bow twenty times, working on sails or other projects or just spinning around like a whirling dervish.  In  between his three meals he would be snacking pretty much always.  When he doesn’t know what to do with himself he turns in circles.  Then I say, why don’t you go play with your legos? (fix something)  Or, why don’t you play a video game?  (look at your navigation charts)  Or, I think someone needs a nap, in which this day he agreed and went and crashed for an hour.  The only time he is quiet and peaceful is when he is sleeping or when he has his bottle.  My Captainnotlazy.

Six foot long Ricardo Tortardo Turtle, with a pencil thin mustache, welcomed us to Marathon.  Again, Ricardo helped me realize that maybe I really do like sailing.  We are currently anchored just off of Boot Key.  It has warmed up considerably but I am still complaining.  The anchorage is very roly poly meaning that the boat is popping around like a cork in the ocean.  It makes me a bit queasy as I have not yet found my sea legs.  This is our seventh day on the boat and we still have about a third of our water.  I short changed us on a previous post.  We did not get off the boat at all for six days straight.  Tomorrow, we plan to water, diesel and then to sail up to Fiesta Key and then to Key Largo the day after that.   There we will sit and wait for calm weather to cross the gulf stream over to the Bahamas.

 

Robert Kelly, my dad, is a lover of sea and sails, a lover of people, a lover of life and a lover of, well, love.  Case in point, my girlfriends have been coming to Marco Island with me for over 15 years for a girls annual getaway.  They call him Dr Love.  Dad is an avid traveler and adventurer.  All through my brothers’ and my childhood dad and mom took us skiing on many a mountain, whitewater river rafting and wilderness camping down the Grand Canyon, fly fishing in the backcountry of Colorado and, most life changing for me, sailing in the Caribbean.  Dad is an encourager extraordinaire and a most enthusiastic follower of John’s and my sailing adventures.   Dad is eighty eight years young and a mature salty sailor.

Dad has done most of his sailing with his boyhood friend from Chicago, Richard McClow.  Dick made a canoe from scratch in his youth and his love of water took hold of him from that point on.  Dick spent over ten years living on his sailboat and sailing around the world.  My dad would catch up with him in various parts of the world and jump on board.  My folks even sailed the Bahamas with Dick.  Dick and my dad crossed the Atlantic together at the age of seventy.  It took over three weeks at sea before they saw land.  On that passage they encountered fierce storms, foreign strangers who intended to come aboard their boat in the middle of the sea and engine failure.

After sailing around the world, Dick traded in his sailboat for a troller (engine powered boat) and he continued to travel the seas, often singlehandedly, until after 80 years old.  You can image what a wealth of knowledge he has and what a tremendous resource he continues to be for us.

Dick doesn’t spend as much time on boats now as he is traveling all over the United States in swimming competitions.  He took the US first place championship last year in his age group.  I believe Dick is eighty seven.  He is training with olympic experienced coaches to improve his technique and cut down his time.  His goal?  To break a world record in speed for swimming at age ninety.

Dick and his lovely girlfriend Jill were visiting my folks just days before we departed.  We took the group out on Echoes.  We checked the weather and it seemed perfect for a day sail.  By the time we got out to the gulf the winds whipped up to over twenty knots and the seas were choppy.   We were unable to get the sails up because of the conditions but dad and Dick were grinning ear to ear.  My mom (and my best first mate, Kay) and Jill were excellent troopers and smiled through the wild bucking ride.  Just a bunch of seventy something to eighty eight year olds out in a small craft advisory for a joy ride.

Thank you, dad and Dick, for your example and your encouragement.  You are two extraordinary people and you are my heroes.  May fair winds and following seas always be yours… and a world record.

 

Greetings from chilly Florida.  I heard a collective grumble from my Minnesota friends who are suffering through -14 weather.  Perspective is everything.  Yours?  You have heat.  Last night it was 42 degrees on the boat.  Mine?  I’ll gladly take 42 degrees and sleep with cold toes and nose.

We hope to untie the dock lines and head out in the next couple of days.  We are going to meander to the keys where we will wait for appropriate weather to make the passage to the Bahamas.  Once again, we are on the slowest race to nowhere in particular.

We have spent these last ten days on Marco Island tidying up loose ends.  Ladies and gentlemen!  We have a working anchor light and a happy wife!  The captain pulled himself up the mast with his climbing gear for a bit of electrical work and installed a new light.  He had an audience of people in the neighboring condos watching and commenting from their balconies and a few curious pelicans who flew by.

He has also added water level sensors to our water tanks so we can monitor water usage more carefully.  Water is gold on a sailboat.  Echoes carries 110 gallons of water which we can ration to five days.  That means we can be out on the hook or cruising for 5 days before needing a marina to fill back up.  Let me put this in perspective.  110 gallons divides out to 11 gallons a day per person.   According to USGS, the average person uses 1 gallon of water a day to brush their teeth, 35 gallons to take a shower, 18 gallons to hand wash dishes (we, of course, do not have a dishwasher, which take 16 gallons of water on average.)  You should drink a half gallon of water per day.  Each toilet flush uses 3 gallons of water (average use 7 flushes) and hand washing another gallon per wash.  Some sailors use sea water in their heads but we choose to use precious fresh water as it keeps the heads free from smelly microorganisms making their home there.  This totals 78.5 gallons a day on average per person.  This does not include the many miscellaneous uses of water daily.  Incidentally, a washing machine uses 25-40 gallons per load.  So, you see, 11 gallons a day is quite sparse and it is imperative to know where you are at so you can bathe, flush, and not die of thirst.  However, there is always wine.  John jokes that he can shower with a thimble full and I with a cup and a half.  I cut my hair for this reason.  We get greedy and critical with each other’s water use.  John uses more fresh water to rinse off his fishing poles than his body.  He complains that I am an exuberant flusher and prolific showerer.

Provisioning the boat is quite an undertaking.  We live on 41’10” of length (that is tapered, mind you) and 14’10” beam at the widest part of the boat.  There is not a lot of storage and, I must add, we have more tools aboard than Home Depot carries.   I found wrenches in my underwear drawer.  I did put on a few Christmas pounds. We have been told that we will be lucky to find a paper towel roll for under $7.00 and that a case of Miller Lite is at a minimum $48.00 in the Bahamas.  We are buying as much supplies as we can carry.  I put things inside of things inside of other things and then forget where I put them.  I should make a spreadsheet of provisions and their whereabouts.   Pffft, who am I kidding?  I will certainly remember where the ample amount of wine is and anything else is incidental.

We have become known regulars at Bealls discount store as well as the hardware stores on Marco.  We have a favorite cashier at Bealls.  She is pushing 60, friendly, has a warm smile and grandmotherly appearance.  We were chatting about different geographical nomenclature such as pop vs soda, water fountain vs bubbler, etc.  She mentioned that the English call swimming suits costumes.  John told her to be careful with the English as they refer to a lady’s most essential parts as fannies.  So, he warned, do not refer to the thing you carry your water and lunch in as a fanny pack!  Well, she said, it might be lunch to someone.

Ta ta for now.  Captain Wegottagetgoin is barking.  I hope to tell you a story before we go.  Blog with you soon!