Its been a very busy month or so and a lot of fun! We very much enjoyed our stay in Marathon, swimming almost every day and taking a lot of bike rides as well. I also got a fair amount of boat projects completed.
We had a good super bowl party with the resort letting us use one of the empty units for the party. The wrong team won but Jean did well with the pool, having the right score two quarters and for the game. We had about 25 people in attendance.
We also had a surprise birthday party for Jean on Dubhe III. It was one of those milestone birthdays. Later we had a pizza party to celebrate Tim’s birthday and followed that with a Mexican night. Our cooks are certainly versatile! Combine this with several pot luck dinners and a number of trips to Sparky’s as well as a few dock parties and you can see there was no lack of entertainment!
While in Marathon we had some company as well. Our friends Larry and Cathy Clough and Dick Hodskins visited us from Maine and Son Bill and Stephanie visited us as well. Bill and Steph traveled with us from Marathon up to Ft Lauderdale
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| West End Marina |
On March 1, we left Marathon, accompanied by Gypsy Time, Lamb Chop and SueSeaQ4. Our destination was Fort Lauderdale where we would wait for an opportunity to cross to the Bahamas. We traveled inside of the Keys from Channel 5 all the way to Miami. It was a part of the trip we had been unable to do with Trader 2 years ago as the water was too shallow to travel on the inside and we had to use Hawk Channel on the outside the entire way. Water depths have not improved and we kicked up a lot of sand as we traveled.
Our first stop was an anchorage in Tarpon Basin which is near Isamaralda. It offered good protection from the NE winds and we had a nice quiet night on the anchor. The next night we spent in Hurricane Harbor near Miami. It seemed full of boats when we went in but by the time we had sat a while there, there were only a few other boats.It was another nice night on the anchor.
The weather was threatening the next day so we went to the Haulover Park Marina in North Miami. We could see heavy clouds to the north and the weather radar showed heavy rain over Ft. Lauderdale. At the park, we walked the beach and had a good party on the dock. The next morning we traveled the remaining 15 miles to Ft Lauderdale, spending a night at the (swimming) Hall of Fame Marina to reprovision and get prepared for the crossing which was planned for Thursday. We had a good party to see Bill and Steph off that evening. The next day we picked up moorings at the Los Olas Municipal Marina which is my favorite jumping off place for the Bahamas.
In my last update, I reported that we had officially closed the loop when we crossed Trader's wake in Marathon. When we reached Ft. Lauderdale, Sun Cat crossed her own wake. Thus Sun Cat has now done the entire loop as well as the crew. During this time, we traveled 5613 nautical miles which includes approximately 500 miles to the Bahamas and back.
Thursday started early as we were up at 0430 and moving before 0500. We were crossing with Lamb Chop and Gypsy Time and the forecast was good until late in the day. The trip started out very smoothly and we were quickly into the Gulf Stream where we picked up 1 to 2 knots of speed for most of the rest of the trip.
The last 20 miles turned out a little lumpy with 1-2 foot rollers coming at us on the beam. All in all, however, it was another very good crossing and we arrived at West End around 1330.
Our plan was to only spend one night here but the weather has not co-operated. The winds have been averaging over 20 knots since and are close to 30 today. The accompanying picture shows why we are staying put for another day! It’s a nice resort with a great pool and good walking and biking. Yesterday there was a “manager’s party” at the beach bar with free drinks and snacks. As you can see we are not suffering by waiting !
Still having a great time!
Steve & Jean
M/V Sun Cat
