12/12 – 12/13
We moved to the beautiful Conch Harbor Marina, next to the city docks in Key West Bight, a case where the marina next door was much more desirable than the one we were in. More expensive, too, but most of them here are more than we’ve paid so far. This one was $2.00 per foot now, but increasing to $2.75 per foot on January 1. It has just been renovated with new pool and building with spaces for lease. We had a good time here, easy walking or biking distance to nearby Old Town. While here, we dinghied to Mallory Square at sunset to watch the very unusual performers. Mallory Dock is also where the cruise ships stop when Key West is one of their scheduled ports. We passed two cruise ships as we left Key West on Friday, the 13th. Note the date. This was a genuine Friday, the 13th! The wind and currents were strong enough to keep us rocking and rolling and unable to even think about standing up. During our trip we’ve been amazed at how little we’ve had to “put down” or rearrange in the way of knick-knacks, candles, and such while we’re moving. Until now. Things seemed to be flying everywhere, especially on the aft deck and bridge. The only plant on board, a small cactus, fell over and the black dirt spilled and spread, appearing to be a whole bag instead of half a pot. But that was only the beginning. At some point the grill slid from its storage spot on top of the aft deck right onto the new laptop and cracked the screen. By now we had gone far enough that it would have been worse to go back than to keep going, so we continued around the southernmost part of our country. A severe case of seasickness and our sons’ time constraints forced the necessity of having them rent a car to drive to our destination of Delray Beach after we made a brief stop at Stock Island. The two of us continued on to Marathon as the weather deteriorated, only to find that our depth finder wasn’t working. And, of course, the laptop was out of commission, so we did not have our map program running. We pulled in to the Marathon Marina and Boatyard in the rain to fuel up and arrange for dockage for the night. The fueling went okay; the docking didn’t. Our slip assignment was quite narrow and between two boats, even though there were plenty of bigger, open slips and, of course, the wind had kicked up by then. Docking in our slip was impossible, so they finally told us to move to a bigger one, but in the process we hit a metal hull work boat. No problem for it, but we damaged the rear starboard corner of ours. Finally docked for the night, we were glad this day was almost over.