Marathon

The sail to Marathon was another banner day. Again the wind direction and sea state were cooperative.   I think we may be a bit odd since the 20 kt winds (that is about 23 mph) really don't bother us.  The boat is well founded and sails well on a reach.  We reef down and let out sail as needed but that just keeps away boredom.  Maybe years of experience and sailing Hobie Cats have gotten us used to heeling.  I don't particularly care for heeling (leaning over) but as long as it's consistent and doesn't last for too many hours, I'm ok at 15 degrees.  I know David would be comfortable  sailing with a rail in the water but he wants to keep the chief cook and bottle washer on board so we stay around my threshold.
We arrived at the Marathon Yacht Club and were helped with lines and greeted by a friendly fellow named Jim.  The office staff got us all signed in and made us feel welcome.  It started raining so we thought we'd better wait it out in the bar.  We didn't want to risk melting on the way back to the boat.  The bartender was friendly as well and we heard her story about moving from New Jersey with her husband once the kids were grown to living aboard a short distance from here.  The boat is in a dockuminium, a popular type of community in south Florida.
So far, we have made the obligatory pilgrimage to West Marine, with side trips to K-Mart and Home Depot.  We both have a few projects we want to get finished before we try to jump over to the Bahamas. The sheets are once again clean as are the rest of our clothes.  Tomorrow we'll go to Mass at a parish that we have heard has a very lively liturgy.  We look forward to sharing in the experience.  After that, we clean the boat and head over to the ocean side of the island to the Marathon City Marina in Boot Key Harbor.  The place is huge and extremely well run and efficient.  I will be a very different lifestyle for us.  We'll have to  watch the weather to see when we can make the trip across the gulf stream to the Bahamas.
  I am paying for Internet service by the day so the updates may be spotty for a while.  It takes a lot to post pictures so I try for a good wifi connection to upload.  We hope you enjoy our picks of what parts of the trip are "Blog worthy".