Marathon - Marco Island

While waiting out the weather in Marathon, we breakfasted at the Stuffed Pig. The restaurant is decorated to the absolute max with porky paraphernalia. I had the Pig's Breakfast; Joanne had a somewhat leaner selection. We also had a fine dinner at the Marathon Yacht Club and cooked out one night on their grill. Cruisers on Maxine, a Gulfstar 37' sailboat with home port of Tarpon Springs, who also have a cat aboard shared stories about loberstering in the keys in years past. Once they caught 145 lobsters in one night! They will be at the Iles Yacht Club later this week to enjoy a life in Punta Gorda, a place to which they hope to relocate.

We cast off our dock lines at 6:20 AM May 21 headed for Little Shark River. Two If By Sea left at 6 AM from Burdines Marina located on the far side of Vaca Key, caught up and eventually passed us. We anchored in Little Shark River with half a dozen other boats.

Manatee, a trawler, a Cruisernchored in front of us. It sported an amazing industrial strength dinghy. You have to see it to believe it!
There's Ed in the dinghys on the way to chat with David in Two if By Sea.
The dinghy loaded with fuel weighs 1100 pounds. It can be bolted to Manatee's stern and push her at five knots if needed.

Before heading to Little Shark River, we had our heads filled with mosquito horror stories. Won't insect repellent work, we asked? "Dinners on boys, come and get it" exclaimed our friends. We bought mosquito repellent anyway; we also had noseeum screen for our hatches. No mosquitoes! We did pickup a few deer flies that joined us beginning a few miles off the coast. These flies bite if they get the chance but our fly swatter get the better of most of them.


At 3 AM , I awoke and watched far off lighting flicker all across the western sky. I thought to myself that the low pressure system that was moving off Florida to the northwest was bringing more storms to the coast. We delayed our 6 AM departure to evaluate the stormy situation. By 7 AM, we concluded that a good sized rain shower has passed mostly to the northeast and that the sky was clearing out over the water.

We motored sailed at over 6 kts most of the way to Marco. Two if By Sea took a short cut through the Cape Romano Shoals; I elected to go around and arrived a little behind at Factory Bay to complete the 58 nm trip. After a little anchoring dance, we found a spot, showered and then celebrated with pina coladas.



Coming into Marco, I just had to photograph Never Again being towed in by Boat US.

The bottom of Factory Bay seems to be of the same consistency as that of Offats Bayou, very soft mud. This mud smells bad too! Anyway, we slowly dragged anchor and had to reset twice during the night. In the morning we decided to head up the coast a few miles to Naples. Two if By Sea plans to spend the night at the Ding Darling anchorage north of Fort Myers before returning to Burnt Store. Cantagree, also anchored in Factory Bay, headed to a marina up the Caloosahatchee River.