In High Spirits

Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida

We were supposed to tour Lignumvitae Key today but that didn't work out. Too bad. But it didn't ruin our day. Instead we unfurled the jib and Tarwathie flew across the turquoise waters of the bay riding on a stiff breeze.

We could have gone under the highway at Channel 5 to sail The Hawk Channel, but we didn't. It was kind of a thrill sailing on the Bay side where we've never been before. The turquoise green water and the shallow depths riveted out attention.

Actually, the feared shallow waters on the bay side were not a problem. We never saw anything less than 6 feet at low tide. If we had stuck to high tides it would have been 7 feet or more. Most places, the water seemed one foot deeper than charted. In fact the charts scared us in several places because they said that the channel led through 5 foot shallows. False, the channels were all much deeper.

Once near thee trance to Tavernier Creek, I got confused by red green markers for a side channel and got us into 5.2 indicated depth. Another time we bumped at 6.1 feet indicated depth at low tide. It must have been a rock.

Anyhow, it turned out to e a splendid sail today. To cap it off we picked up a pod of dolphins who escorted us the last few miles to The Seven Mile Bridge. Cool.

We are safely tied up on mooring Quebec-3. More on Marathon later.