A few days ago we had the great pleasure of spending the afternoon with a friend we know from SpiritFire, the fire festival in New York we attend every year (also the place where K. and I met). Katherine, a warm and generous woman who is a kick-butt drummer, has connections in the Keys and had been here for the last few weeks. On her last day here we finally managed to connect up with her and she drove us around in her car so we could run errands that are difficult to do on foot or bike. So we went to Home Depot and got big pieces of wood we are using to create new hatchboards and cockpit locker lids, and tons of groceries, etc. She was an angel to us! We have been missing our “fire family” so much, and to make even a brief connection with someone from our fire tribe was food for our souls!! Thank you Katherine!

So Katherine is also a sailor, and a hardy one at that! She made an epic trip to Antarctica on a sailboat a number of years ago. Since then, however, she has been mostly kayaking, and we were talking about the simple pleasures of wee boats that paddle. A lot of people around here have kayaks on their sailboats, and we have been looking enviously at lots of them for awhile now. There are tons of very shallow areas around tiny islands here that are perfect for exploring in a kayak. The other day, K. went to West Marine to get a few bolts, and came back with a brand new tandem inflatable kayak that was on sale for half off! It’s a truly marvelous thing: it’s very lightweight, it collapses very small when not in use, it’s surprisingly durable, easy to use, and it was really cheap!….in short, we are absolutely in love with it and are going out this afternoon to paddle to our hearts delight.

AND, it’s an extra perk for anyone who comes to visit us! Stephanie, my sister, has just booked her flight and is the first lucky person to be coming to stay with Wee Happy! Stephanie, get your paddling arms ready –you are gonna love this thing!

Found this sweet little tool today. There is a live webcam of the harbor! Use this link to tune in: Marathon Webcam. Can you spot Wee Happy?

View Wee Happy in a larger map

It’s amazing what you can see with Google Maps! This picture shows how many boats are here in this “hurricane hole” known as Marathon. Wee Happy is marked on mooring P5. You can zoom in or zoom out with the “+” and “-” buttons in the upper left-hand corner.

Contrary to our last post, it’s actually not sunny here ALL the time. Today a freak patch of thick fog rolled through for about an hour. We were just getting in our dinghy returning from a trip to the store when it rolled in, and could barely find our way to our boat among all the boats in the harbor. A cold front is moving through and tomorrow there is supposed to be a low of 50. Whatever will we do?!?

So if there isn’t perfect weather 24 hours a day, why did we choose to sign up for a whole month in Marathon? You may be asking this, so here are a few of the reasons why we said “heck, yeah, sign us up for a month!”

Well, first of all, we have been traveling for 3 months straight and we need to just stop and chill out, as well as do some work on our boat. AND, it turns out this is the best place in the Keys to get work done on our boat, as it is THE SAILBOAT MECCA of the region. This is the winter destination of many snowbird cruisers, and most of the 200+ sailboats here in Boot Key Harbor are staying for anywhere between 1 -6 months. Some people have even just made this their permanent address and have been here for years. So there are tons of businesses that cater to boaters and any type of supplies or work that anyone could need are near at hand. At the marina here they even have a workshop available to boaters renting space in the harbor, where one can set up projects on a large table that is not rocking on the water. I think that is what really sold Capt’n K. on this place — when we walked in and saw they had a workshop available, his eyes widened and I think he even started salivating.
The Marathon City Marina decided to try a different attitude towards cruising sailboats than the attitude we have found in the rest of Florida: they are welcoming people who live aboard sailboats and making a space for them to exist well within the system. The marina has reasonable rates for long term mooring, and provides all the facilities people need; in addition to the workshop space, they have a community room that includes two mini “movie theaters” with televisions, a large library, internet access, a community bulletin board, etc. Awesome!
And then there is the supportive, grassroots nature of the boating community itself, which continues to amaze us. The Marathon boating community has set up a “net” on the VHF radio (the type of radio all boaters are required to have on board), and at 9:00 every morning, there is a “cruisers’ net” meeting that occurs through the facilitation of a volunteer moderator. During this time people can make announcements of all kinds, such as “does anyone know about wind generators because I’m having a problem with mine”, or “I have a used winch for sale”, or “I’m going to Rodriguez Island, does anyone know of a good anchorage there?”, to “This morning there will be a free yoga class at 10:00”. One person was even having a “yard sale” on their boat with all kinds of stuff for sale!

The mooring field is set up in a grid, so there are “neighborhoods”, and your address is your mooring ball number. Ours is P5, so we are in the same neighborhood as M’s and O’s, but “blocks” away from A’s and J’s.
There are two large “parking lots” for all the dinghys, and it is a fun activity just to watch the steady stream of people coming and going at the dinghy dock at all hours of the day.

Most of the people, as could be expected, are retirees: healthy, happy people in their 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. But there are also young couples with young children that are being home-schooled on the boat, and a few couples like us who are Gen-X’ers bucking the system. One such couple, Charles and Hilary, have been here “for a few days” since last April, meaning they arrived last April and planned to stay a few days, but have never left because they like it so much. Hilary befriended us our first hour here on the dinghy dock because she was excited to see another couple their age, and we have been enjoying getting to know them.
They have introduced us to lots of people, namely, the “long term live aboards”, who have been here for several seasons.

My first impression of this place when we arrived, was that it was like an RV park for sailboats, which turned me off. And the town of Marathon itself is nothing to brag about — it’s pretty much the same highway strip mall as the rest of the Keys….but the amazing community aspect of the Marathon City Marina is what is keeping us here.
Oh, and there are beaches! Actual beaches!
And another thing: there are friendly iguanas here!

We’ve made it somewhere to stay for a while. Wee Happy is Happy on a mooring among over 200 other sailboats. She is well south of all of the closed airports and sliding cars. The winds are light and the days warm and mostly sunny.

That’s every day.

We see the weather maps show the terrible weather passing north of us, and we sympathize deeply, stop for a moment of solemn reflection and even prayer for all of our loved ones. Then we jump up and down and say “yay! We did it!” Only problem is when Lala does that in the cabin and throws her neck out! There’s only 5-feet 8-inches of headroom, you see. Capt’n K has a permanent hump on his back now.

So we have to have a permanently installed marine toilet with holding tank and external pumpout port in order to stay here. Marathon is a clean harbor!

Today we had Wee Happy on the dock for 15 minutes filling up her water tank, and a young couple who had been wandering around the hartbor in their new old used 27 foot Catalina sloop came towards the dock. The staff urgently came out and basically told them to turn around and leave and “Have you called in?” and all that. We on Wee happy were on the list for the water dock at that moment and they hadn’t called in! Just then their little 2-stroke Nissan outboard quit while they were in the middle of a u-turn in the middle of a tight area about 40 feet from dock to dock. There was no room on the dock anywhere and they were being told to leave.

A panic ensued on “Sail Away” that made all gather at the railings to watch. We cast off our lines and started up the motor and went out to get them. They were making good speed right towards a nice 35 foot sloop and a piling and the mangroves. We crabbed over through the wind to their aid and thhen backed down slowly to them while Lala readied to heave the stern line to the new bride-to-be on the foredeck on her third day at sea. Lala remembered vividly just a few short months ago when she was equally clueless as the new sailor she was throwing a line to, and felt proud to now be able to tie a line to a cleat of the boat like the best of them!

Towed them ever so gently away from danger and back out into the waterway. Told the skipper to radio in for a mooring assignment. left them into the safe hands of a stout mooring ball on the other side of the grassy shoal area.

Lita went to the beach on her gleaming gold origin-8 bicycle and fortified her vitamin D reserves while digging her toes into the sand and coating her skin in sun and salt.

Wee Happy has reserved a mooring for a month. Close friends are invited to wisit during her stay! It’s a 2-hour shuttle van ride from Miami and a 3-dollar ride from here into Key West. The Marquesas and Tortugas lie waiting to the west, just a daysail and an overnight away –with waters that change from aquamarine to true blue.

So if you read this then please let us know you were here! Post a comment every time and then check back to see our replies! This place acts just like an online forum that way! We supplement our diet of fish and rice with your comments for desert.

Thanks for checking in!

Now seriously! post a comment! If you are concerned about anonymity, your email address stays between you and us, and you don’t have to sign the post anyway. We just get it as an email, you see! You can send us an email simply by posting a comment.

can’t wait to hear from you or maybe talk to you about coming down for a weekend visit or something.

“All rights reserved. Copyright Wee Happy 2011.”

Capt’n K & Lala.

(Just joking about the copyright baloney..or is that bolagna…or balooneeey? 😉 Time for dinner. Talk to you soon Wee hope!

We have been anchored the last two nights in a large bay called “Long Key Bight”, (does anyone know what “bight” means?) where there are an unusual number of “flying fish” that leap out of the water. Pelicans, my favorite bird, seem to love these fish, and are busy diving for them here. These fish are most active at night, and last night we were startled by loud splashing outside on otherwise calm water, and went to investigate to find our boat surrounded by hundreds of jumping silver fish. We then went to sleep and both had very strange dreams all night….maybe it was the influence of the flying fish….They have been so enchanting, that I was inspired to write this wee poem that I am daring to share with y’all. Enjoy.

Strange Night in Long Key Bight

Darkness descends through a blaze of fire
New moon sliver rises higher
Flying Fish flash silver
splish splash splish splash
Silver flash of flying fish
splash splish splash splish

Darkness drives us into sleep
and dreamtime comes like a circus train
Vivid dreams flash in and out
and back in again

Strange night in Long Key Bight

Morning light rises through a blaze of fire
Warm breezes lift my spirits higher
Out of darkness dreaming

Another day dawns serene
surrounded by aquamarine

This morning we said good bye to our friends aboard Good Goose, the boat we have been traveling with since North Carolina. The crew started out as Roark, a good natured, intelligent computer programmer from Vermont, and his new girlfriend Sherri, who he had just picked up from the airport when we met them. Sherri stayed for about 3 weeks, braving incredible days of cold wind and long miles motoring through swamps and marshes on the ICW. She thought she was going to be sailing in tropical sunshine, so what she ended up enduring was admirable!! Then Roark’s mother Claudette came for Christmas, followed by Roark’s daughter Aishling and her fun friend Morgan. We have loved all the members of the changing crew aboard Good Goose and have really appreciated getting to know all of them. We’ve shared some good times and some challenging times, and through it all we have watched out for each other, traveled amazingly well together, shared food and beers and probably too much wine! Our boats rafted up together for weeks on end, and I think that even our boats will miss each other, as they were a bit like sister boats, both being the same size and style of boat. It was so wonderful to make such good friends, and we are looking forward to meeting up with Roark again back in Vermont, or next fall in the Bahamas!
Traveling together made figuring out all the details of navigating so much easier. Sharing the planning of deciding where to anchor, sail trim and boat details, warning each other of shallow areas, etc. made our trip so much richer. We thank Roark for his great companionship! We have met a lot of great people on our trip, but I don’t think we could have traveled so well for weeks with any of them like we did with Good Goose. (although we know he was just putting up with us so he could use our big powerful dinghy!)

Some of the highlights of our time together included eating oysters in the middle of a great expanse of marshlands, surviving gale winds and storms, enjoying a marvelous Italian dinner on Christmas, sailing our spinnakers together on sunny days, and last but not least, on one of our last nights together, we spun fire on our dinghy and introduced Roark to fire spinning!
Here are some photos of our Good Goose friends:

We thought we were going to the land of endless sand beaches when we decided to go to the keys!

Turns out we were completely wrong. There are no beaches here. There often is no land. Many of the islands are just solid mangroves, a pictured above. They are so dense that you can not walk through them. They are an impassible tangle of thick brush. They don’t need soil above the water line, so they aren’t even technically on “land.”

We are hungry for a beach and for easy places to go ashore,but the mangroves make this territory very difficult to touch!

Capt’n K & Lala

We’ve been pretty happy about our recent upgrade into glorious weather, and our arrival into aquamarine waters and gorgeous sailing grounds. A few weeks ago, I was convinced that perhaps somehow we had angered the wind gods, and we were doomed to forever be attempting to sail in winds going in the wrong direction, or no wind, or too strong of winds…..but the last few days have been perfect and wonderful winds on calm waters. Just my kind of sailing! And the sun has been shining, the air is warm, and even at night the temperature is just about perfect. We were so happy to have all the hatches open when we went to bed last night, and fell asleep with the warm breeze caressing our faces. Ahhh, bliss! Perfect paradise!

And then we were awakened by buzzing. The unmistakable buzz of mosquitoes. Wee Happy was invaded in the middle of the night by a bloodthirsty army of huge mosquitoes! It felt like a nightmare, but it was true.

We did not passively submit to their terrorism. Blood was shed on the walls of Wee Happy as we aggressively fought back. Today we rigged up a screen over the door and hatches, and are further scheming ways to defeat the bloodsucking offenders. How dare they invade our happy space!!

Tonight, we watched a glorious sunset, and then as darkness fell we were immediately attacked again…..perfection is elusive.

Well, our windvane blew off in the last gale. So Capt’n K went up the mast to install the replacement.

We’re in Key Largo now, and mangroves are everywhere. Land access is difficuult because there are no beaches. There are great coral reefs, but the water is cold if you don’t have a wetsuit. The reefs keep the ocean from bringing sand ashore to create beaches. So we are just enjoying the nice sailing!