Tag Archive | Catmandu

Uneventful

May25

Sailing is 90% boredom punctuated by 10% sheer terror.
–Author John Casey

Even though our sail repair parts were sitting in the same port just a few miles away from us, it took eleven days to convince FedEx and the Bahamian customs officials to hand them over. Phil repaired the mainsail in a couple of hours, and we left Port Lucaya early the next morning bound for Great Harbour in the northwest Berry Islands.

When traveling for pleasure, one doesn’t usually wish for “boredom” or for a trip that is “uneventful.” But for us, it is a victory when we get where we’re going without breaking anything. We didn’t.

Port Lucaya to Great Harbour

We motored out of Bell Channel and put out the jib before raising the mainsail, putting a happy grin on Phil’s face. But as the mainsail reached the top of the mast, a loud bang rang out and I ducked, thinking something heavy would fall on my head. We looked at each other.

“What now?” I said. Phil inspected the sail rigging at the mast and came back to the cockpit.

“I broke the boom vang,” he said.

Phil is finally able to sail with all the sails up. This is his happy face.

A month ago, I would have said, “The what?” But we had seen one of our Youtube sailors break his boom vang just a few weeks earlier, so I knew. Phil tied it up for stability and I asked what it meant for our setup.

“Not a thing,” he said. “I never use it.” We will ask our rigger to repair it when we get back to Florida, but until then, it’s just another broken thing on the boat. We keep a list of “broken things.” During the afternoon, we noticed that the wind instrument was not working and that one of the three filaments in our Dutchman Flaking System had snapped.

With all the sails, slightly heeling, Catmandu is underway.

The rest of the 60-nm trek to Great Harbour was uneventful, motoring with full sails to keep up a speed of 5.5 to 6.5 knots so we could arrive in daylight. The chart plotter noted that it was ten hours between waypoints. We had calm seas with a current that ran against us in the morning and with us later on as we approached the Great Harbour anchorage.

The islands to the west of the anchorage are used as playgrounds for cruise ships, and we saw three of them on our way in. Royal Caribbean calls Little Stirrup Cay “CocoCay” and leases the island for its passengers to enjoy their “Perfect Day,” with a water park, skidoo rentals, snorkeling areas, beaches, aerial ziplines, and a full-size helium balloon that takes passengers 450 feet into the sky on a tether. The water park has towering water slides, the Caribbean’s largest wave pool and a lazy river, all watched over by more than 100 lifeguards.

There were two other boats anchored off of Goat Cay when we arrived. We looked for a large sandy area to drop the anchor, and when Phil found the perfect spot, I took the helm. He went forward and lowered the anchor. Then when he asked me to reverse, I shifted and somehow got it stuck in reverse (it was revving too high to shift) so I could not get it into neutral.

Going in reverse, I ended up pulling the anchor out of its perfect spot and dragging it along as I struggled with the transmission in a panic. Phil yelled for me to slow the engine as we were in danger of plowing into the boat behind us, and with that I was able to shift to neutral. Of course, we had to start all over. That was my 10% of terror.

Sunset behind CocoCay, with the Utopia of the Seas on the right.

Safely anchored, I apologized to Phil and we both decided I needed more time at the helm so it would become second nature, like driving a car. A cocktail or two went by and we watched the sun go down over CocoCay. We turned to the east, anticipating the appearance of the full Pink Moon of April. It rose above the trees just a few minutes past sunset, and it wasn’t actually pink. Native Americans called it the Pink Moon because of the pink flowers that bloomed in early Spring.

The rising of the “Pink Moon,” from our anchorage at Great Harbour in the Berry Islands.

That wasn’t the end of the fun in the sky. There was a SpaceX Starlink launch from Cape Canaveral later that night, so we went out to watch. We could see the glow of the second stage as it crossed overhead, a plume of light gray and white mist surrounding the speeding spacecraft. The bright flare of the re-entry burn lit up the sky as the first stage made its turn to descend to a drone ship east of the Bahamas. It was a show worth watching.

The next day, Phil repaired the filament on the mainsail’s Dutchman Flaking system and re-folded the sail. It was a day of rest, brilliant and calm. We watched an impossibly large turtle lift its head out of the water, take a breath and descend. We both saw it. Usually only the first person sees the turtle. By the time the second person looks for it, it’s gone.

No Foreign Land shows our track from Port Lucaya to Great Harbour in the Berry Islands to Royal Harbor just west of Eleuthera. The sailboat icon is shown at Grand Bahama Island, and the tiny island in the center represents the Berry Islands. Marsh Harbour is on Great Abaco Island. Our destination, just above the “Bahamas” label, is near Eleuthera. See charts below.

Great Harbour to Royal Island

The wind was blowing out of the northeast at around nine knots when we left the harbor early the next morning. I took the helm as Phil pulled the anchor at 7:30, and needing the practice, I drove for a while as Phil put up full sails. It was a perfect partly cloudy day with bright sun and temperatures in the mid-seventies. We motor-sailed through the morning. This was a long passage and we wanted to arrive at Royal Island in the daylight. It’s dangerous and scary to anchor in unfamiliar waters in the dark, so we try to time our trips in daylight hours.

 As the wind was building, we turned off the engine to see if we could sail fast enough to make it to our destination by 6. We couldn’t; the speed slowed to 4.5 knots under sail alone, which is a great pace if you don’t have a deadline. We enjoyed the few minutes of quiet and reluctantly restarted the engine.

Northeast Providence Channel can get rough at times. We crossed through on our way to Egg Island and Royal Island, shown to the right.

By mid-afternoon, as we crossed the open waters south of Great Abaco Island, the seas began to build and the wind picked up. Phil expected this to happen, as we were in the middle of the Northeast Providence Channel, a passageway known for heavier wind and currents. To our south, New Providence Island, home of Nassau, was more than 60 nautical miles away.

We started to speed up and heel over, with winds picking up from 15 to 19 knots with gusts over 20. The sails were full and the waves were exceeding three feet, with some building to four feet. Catmandu leaned into it, heeling over 15 degrees with an occasional 20. We were overpowered and started to think about reducing our sails. The speed was fun, but a little scary as we slid down the higher waves and pounded into the white-capped ridges. The clouds rolled in and we started to feel chilled.

******
Heeling: a basic process affecting all sailboats
which begins with the boat leaning over…
and ends as the sailboat finally exhibits its natural tendency
to come to a state of rest on the sea bottom.
–from Sail-ing, by Henry Beard and Roy McKie
******

Phil decided it was time to furl the jib completely and spill some air off the main, which made it much more comfortable. We rounded Egg Island and Phil hand-steered through Egg Island Cut, a narrow gap between the small cays. Egg Island was named for the many birds nesting there, where early sailors could go ashore and gather eggs for food. But someone had the bright idea of pasturing goats there, and that was the end of the eggs.

We crossed the cut between Egg Island and Little Egg Island and then on to the well-protected anchorage in the middle of Royal Island.

Early in the day, Phil had texted two boats anchored in Royal Island Harbour (found on the phone app, “No Foreign Land,”) asking if there would be room for us. Both captains assured us there was plenty of room. We dropped the mainsail and pulled into the small harbor at 5:30pm, finding just a few other boats. I was anxious to redeem myself as a good first mate as Phil went forward to drop the anchor and I took the wheel. The anchoring was uneventful — the anchor set right away and held.

Royal Island Harbour, looking southeast toward the narrow opening. We anchored here after a bouncy crossing from Great Harbour near Great Stirrup Cay.

After the wild ride in four-foot choppy seas and high wind, we were ready for a rest. A small green turtle wandered by, this one in no hurry to dive. We sat in the cockpit with gin and tonics and watched the sun go down. Our new surroundings in Royal Island Harbour were quiet, calm, and lovely, protected on all sides. We don’t consider this boredom; we think sailing is 90% peaceful. We will sit for a time while the sky fades into pink and periwinkle, and wait for the ibises to gather in the trees.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?”

–Mary Oliver

Ghost Town to Boom Town

Aug11

Leaving the Keys

“Life moves on and so should we.” – Spencer Johnson

Day One: Marathon to Indian Key

After waiting for more than a week for wind and waves to die down in Hawk Channel, we picked a departure day and got ready to leave. We rented a car for a day and drove up to Loggerhead Marina in Hollywood to drop off the Prius – a five-hour round trip. We planned a four-day sail to get to our new home, leaving on Thursday and arriving Sunday afternoon.

When we started up the engine on Thursday morning, there was a problem immediately. The tachometer was reading 0, and the alternator would not go on. Phil checked connections and pulled out his trusty ammeter – which confirmed no output. Phil decided we should go anyway, but as a precaution, he fired up the Honda generator as we left the harbor. The alternator kicked in intermittently after a few miles, and we turned off the generator.

This was a bouncy day with 2- to 4-foot seas and winds from the east at around 15 knots. With the wind on the nose, we couldn’t sail, so we motored, beating into the wind and waves from 9:20am until 5 in the afternoon. Maggie the cat got sick in the salon, poor thing, and lay flat on the salon floor most of the day. We arrived at Indian Key, an historic site we planned to explore, expecting to grab a mooring ball. The only mooring ball in water deep enough for our boat was broken. There was no pennant for us to grab. So, Phil dropped the anchor in 7 feet of water, knowing that it was a little shallow for our 5’8” draft.

“We might sit on the bottom for a while at low tide,” he said.

“When is that?” I asked. He looked it up. In our old boat, “sitting on the bottom” meant leaning over at a precarious angle, waiting for the water to float us upright again.

“About 1am,” he said. “But it’s a sandy bottom and the wing keel will keep us upright.” There was only one other boat in the anchorage overnight, a motor yacht that had snagged the only working mooring ball.

Indian Key, with its decrepit dock that is no longer safe.

All day, we had only been able to motor at around 4 knots, so Phil was concerned about the condition of the propeller. He jumped into the water with his snorkeling gear on and checked the anchor, then took a paint scraper to the propellor. It was covered in growth and barnacles, so he worked at it for a while.

When he came out of the water, I told him I could hear bird songs from the island.

“I hear redwing blackbirds and ocelots,” I said.

“Ocelots!” he said and we both cracked up. I sometimes say ocelots when I mean ospreys. Chalk it up to early dementia. We would soon find out there were other improbable sounds coming from this deserted ghost-town key. Probably not ocelots.

Sunset, looking back toward Lower Matecumbe from our Indian Key anchorage.

We decided to explore Indian Key in the morning if we were up early enough. The sunset was perfect, and we ate mac n cheese in the cockpit. We had motored all day, so there was hot water for showers after dinner. On our boat, engine coolant is circulated through the water heater, so a hot shower is a consolation prize for having to motor all day.

Indian Key sunrise.

Indian Key State Park

Early the next day, we decided to take the dinghy over to the little island and explore. Indian Key is an uninhabited, 11-acre key that was once (briefly) the county seat of Dade County. Dade County includes Miami, which is many miles to the northeast. Indian Key was inhabited in the 1830s by wreckers (who made their living off of salvage from ships wrecked on the nearby reef) and a few other settlers and their families. In 1840, a small band of Native Americans (Mikosukee) attacked the tiny settlement, killing 13 settlers, burning buildings, and scattering the survivors. (Read its history here.) Soon afterward, the little island was deserted, but the sandy roads, street signs, and stone structures remain.

It was a short distance so we used our Electric Paddle, a small lightweight alternative to our usual outboard motor – a heavy 15hp Tohatsu that requires a crane and pulley to lower onto the dinghy. The electric motor is not working very well and Phil has to smack it repeatedly to get it going. I’m hoping we won’t be rowing back to the boat.

As we got into very shallow water near the shore, I jumped out and dragged the dinghy through the sand. As I tied the painter to a tree, we started hearing some strange animal noises. It was a low-pitched grunting sound, and we started to make guesses.

“Baby alligators?” Phil suggested. “Or bullfrogs?”

“I think it’s wild boars,” I said, half joking and feeling a little spooked. We were definitely the only humans on the island.

“Chupacabra?” he said.

Phil and the tall “cactus” trees on Indian Key.

As we followed the sandy path to the entrance sign, Phil pointed out some strange tall trees that seemed to be growing cactus-like leaves. There were some large spreading shade trees (tamarind), and I could hear lots of birds: mourning doves, blackbirds, and one very loud osprey who wasn’t happy about our presence under his nest.

Phil, being the man he is, tucked the state park entrance fee into the supplied envelope and dropped it into the wooden box at the corner of the town square. (It didn’t matter that we were the only people within miles.)

Phil on the sandy gravel trails of Indian Key.

We walked the neatly maintained trails, reading the signs that explained what we were looking at: a cistern for collecting rainwater, house foundations, places where a courthouse and post office once stood, the warehouse where salvaged goods were stored, a blacksmith shop, and a wide-open square of grass that was once a central market. It was eerily empty, quiet except for birdsong and our footsteps on the gravel paths.

This is what’s left of the warehouse foundation. These sites were labeled with detailed signs, as shown.

When we were ready to return to the boat, I sat on the dinghy listening to the spooky grunting sounds in the dense mangroves. I took out my phone and looked up Chupacabra: gigantic goat-sucking lizards, the stuff of nightmares. Phil took a photo of me with Catmandu anchored in the background. That photo was selected as photo of the week for Cruising Compass magazine and was featured on the cover. Here it is:

Phil’s photo made the cover of Cruising Compass Magazine. Does that make me a Cover Girl?

We climbed in the dinghy and Phil beat on the electric motor for a few minutes. (I started rowing.) He soon had the little motor going again, and we got back to the boat. We weighed anchor at 11am, and had 16 nautical miles to go to our next anchorage. There was a light breeze and the ocean was calm, so we put up full sails and turned off the engine as we left Indian Key in our wake.

Day Two: Indian Key to Rodriguez Key

We spent an idyllic afternoon doing five knots under sail with just the power of the wind. The Middle Keys lay to our left, and we scanned the ocean to our right for wildlife. At 3:15 the dolphins came. Four large adults swam alongside the boat in great arcs through the surface of the green water. Phil took video as they followed the leader toward the bow. We heard the big dolphin huff as he dove under and the whole pod disappeared. I kept watching from the cockpit, hoping they would come back.

Phil took a short video of the dolphins swimming alongside our boat.

An hour later, we rounded the southeastern end of Rodriguez Key, and were surprised to find no fewer than a dozen boats anchored in the large area to the east of the island. There was plenty of space here, so we anchored about a half mile offshore in ten feet of water. Rodriquez Key is an uninhabited mangrove island lying south of Tavernier. It looked so dense as to be untraveled by humans, with no beach areas and no discernable paths. I tried to imagine landing here hundreds of years ago, hoping for fruit or fresh water and finding impenetrable, inedible mangrove trees.

By sunset, there were still 8-9 boats here but it’s a large anchorage with good protection, so the wind and water were calm. Phil made boat drinks and I made rice and beans for dinner. We stayed outside in the cockpit for as long as we could. It had been a perfect cruiser’s day: full sails, dolphins, a calm anchorage, and the exploration of a deserted, historic and spooky island. I couldn’t stop thinking about the sound of wild boars grunting in the underbrush.

Day Three: Rodriguez Key to No Name Harbor

For some reason, I was awake before sunrise and out on the deck with coffee before six. It was a great night for sleeping, with cool temperatures and softly rolling ripples to rock the boat. Phil was up early too, and we had our longest day planned, 44 nautical miles to No Name Harbor, just south of Miami Beach.

We refilled our coffee cups and pulled up anchor at 7:05. The sun rose as we set off, and I took the wheel as Phil set the mainsail. I checked on the cat – She was calm, lying on our bed in the aft cabin. Poor thing. She’ll be 20 years old in 2 months. I don’t think she will ever get used to her home moving around like this, the engines roaring in her cabin. 

Once again, the wind was almost directly on our nose, so we motor-sailed with just the mainsail up for a while, then as we turned more to the north, we raised the jib. We sailed past Key Largo, noting John Pennekamp, where we explored with old Catmandu a few years ago. We made our way up the coast of Elliot Key, and at around 1:30 we saw a pod of playful dolphins on our starboard side, cavorting, dancing, and circling. They were smaller and more active than yesterday’s group, actually jumping up out of the water and spinning around.

An aerial view of No Name Harbor, center front, showing how it used to be.

No Name Harbor was already jammed with big boats at 3:15 pm, so we anchored just outside. It was a Saturday night and we anticipated loud music and partying within the harbor, so we were happy to find a quieter spot. Our friends Karl and Angela on Shangri La anchored just behind us, us but neither crew wanted to deploy a dinghy from its stowed configuration for a happy hour visit. We ate leftover rice and beans for dinner and prepared for an early departure.

For other cruisers, this is a great anchorage, with a good sandy bottom in about 11 feet of water. There is a loud Cuban and Seafood Restaurant with dinghy access inside the harbor, and an outdoor bar and grille closer to the entrance. We could hear live music coming from the bar at night. The anchorage is within sight of the seven Stiltsville Houses, but don’t venture over there in your sailboat, as the water depth is only about 2-3 feet near the houses. Also, these are private property within a national park and well protected.

Day Four: No Name Harbor to Our New Home: Loggerhead Marina, Hollywood

Phil pulled anchor even earlier today, at seven. The wind was supposed to increase to 15-20 knots in the afternoon, so we opted for an early start. I went below to make coffee and check on the cat. When I returned to the cockpit, Phil had set the sails for a little “wing on wing” sailing and turned off the engine. It was a light breeze on our stern, but as we turned more to the north, the wind died a bit and we turned on the motor. We averaged 5 or 6 knots for the whole day, with full sails out most of the way.

Sailing north, wing-on-wing.

We motor sailed toward Port Everglades inlet, entering familiar territory where we could pick out features on the beach to our left. We saw the Margaritaville resort, Dania Pier, and the giant cranes used to load container ships as we approached the inlet. Boat traffic increased as we neared the port, and there were seven very large container ships and tankers anchored out, just waiting for their turns to enter.

With all the huge ships around, we decided to take the sails down before entering instead of in the turning basin. The small to medium motor yachts roared all around us, passing too close to our route and causing lots of wake. The water in the inlet was churned up like a washing machine and it was extremely rough trying to dodge motor boats and keep out of the way of the working tugs. As we entered the turning basin and headed south, the wind picked up to 17 knots. 

With the wind, the roaring of the motors, and the noise of a busy port, we knew we weren’t in the Keys anymore. As we made our way down the Intracoastal Waterway, a mentally disturbed citizen yelled at us from the park beach on South Lake, “Welcome to Hollywood! Now go the f&*k home!”

Going home was exactly what we were doing. Yes, it was noisy and sometimes ugly, but this is where we have friends, familiarity, and some roots. It’s a boom town near Port Everglades, with more and bigger cruise ships and commercial mega-ship traffic. We are close to two major airports, dozens of world-renowned hospitals via I-95, and though we will miss the slow pace and the peace of the Keys, this is where we need to be right now.

Sailing cat Maggie in the cockpit
Maggie, in a rare trip to the cockpit. Once in a while, we have to air her out.

We pulled into our very familiar slip on dock 500, right where we had spent three years during and after the Covid pandemic. It is a tight space, and through the muscle memory and sheer skill of my captain, we slid into slip 509 with inches to spare on the stern. We tied the dock lines, hooked up the power, and headed out to our favorite pizza place. We were home, again.

Guide to Tiki Bars of Marathon

Oct14

Since Kay and I moved to Marathon, Florida, over a year ago, we have enjoyed exploring many of the tiki bars in the area by dinghy and by car. Why tiki bars? Tiki bars are bars in tiki huts. Tiki huts, in general, are magical. The Florida Keys are very hot in the summertime, and somehow the air under a tiki hut is always 5 – 10 degrees cooler than outside. Plus they look exotic and you feel like you are on vacation whenever you are hanging out in a tiki bar. Tiki bars do not have air conditioning, but they all have ample air circulation on all sides and fans are installed so they are comfortable all year around.

What defines a tiki hut? A tiki hut has a cypress log frame, open sides, and a palm thatched roof. Traditional, native American “chickee huts” are the same, except a chickee hut has a raised wooden floor. Fun fact: tiki huts or chickee huts built by Florida’s Seminole and Miccosukee tribes are exempt from the Florida Building Code and can be built without building permits. 

Disclaimer: not all of the bars reviewed in this article are actual “tiki” bars, but they are still fun places to visit. Also, the list is not complete since there are so many of them and we have so little time. So please enjoy this article with a cold adult beverage in hand, and it will be okay. 

Here is our guide starting — roughly — with our favorite bars in Marathon that are close to Safe Harbor Marina / Boot Key Harbor, and then expanding outwardly. Look for the hyperlinks in this article and click on them to get more information, like their web addresses, street addresses, phone numbers, and menus. Note that every restaurant in the Keys seems to specialize in seafood since it is so abundant here. 

Sunset Grille. Located at the eastern end of the Seven Mile Bridge, Sunset Grille offers perfect sunset views, a huge menu of food and specialty drinks, its own pool, and a pool bar. The sturdy dinghy dock was rebuilt after Hurricane Ian last year, and is about a mile by dinghy from the marinas. The restaurant plays Jimmy Buffett’s Radio Margaritaville in the background all day. Service is always fast and friendly. Sunset Grille is the perfect place to go with friends and family. 

Burdine’s Waterfront. Burdine’s is a smaller tiki bar restaurant with simpler fare on the second floor of a marina and fuel dock building. Burdine’s is best known for having the best french fries in the world. On the menu, they are “fresh hand-cut fries sprinkled with their special fry dust.” Burdine’s also has some tasty vegetarian entree options, and deep fried key lime pie. The restaurant is directly on the channel leading from the ocean to Boot Key Harbor, and boasts a floating dinghy dock. Sunset views are also amazing from this second floor tiki bar, and one can often see dolphins transiting the channel.

Castaway. Down one of the canals around the corner from Burdine’s is Castaway. To get there by water, you have to already know where it is, since you have to take some twisty turns. The restaurant is known for dishes made from lionfish, which is an invasive species. You are doing the Keys a favor if you take the lionfish out of the water and eat them. The dinghy dock at Castaway is sketchy, but it exists. Only the outdoor bar is decorated in the tiki bar motif. 

Dockside. Dockside is the dive bar where you go to become a local. Situated on the waterfront on the southern edge of Boot Key Harbor, Dockside has the perfect floating dinghy dock, happy hour from 3pm – 7pm, and live music seven days a week. During happy hour, Bud Lite is only $2.50, wine is $3.25, and well drinks are only $4. You can have rounds of drinks, happy hour appetizers, and live music, and be hard pressed to spend $20 apiece. I would know, I have tried many times! But Dockside is so low key that it doesn’t even have its own website. It can only be found online on Facebook. Dockside is not a true tiki bar, since it doesn’t have a thatched roof. However, Dockside scores high for its location, waterfront views, low prices, good music, and the Keys vibe. 

Lazy Days South. If your boat is docked at Safe Harbor Marina, you will surely patronize this tiki bar on a regular basis. Lazy Days is conveniently located only 60 feet from our boat and sits between the marina pool and the marina docks. In fact, bathers can get pool service by ringing a ship’s bell that the bar has installed outside. Lazy Days has a good happy hour, but is not a true tiki bar because it does not have a thatched roof. Also, their docks are not particularly dinghy-friendly since they are fixed rather high off the water.

TJ’s Tiki Bar. TJ’s Tiki Bar is an upscale tiki bar located on the bay side of Vaca Key and is a part of the Tranquility Bay Beach Resort. There are great sunset views that frame the famous lighthouse at the nearby Faro Blanco Marina. TJ’s is on the water, but the docks are for watercraft rental only. Most of the seating is on an uncovered patio, and there is often a singer / guitar player providing live music. TJ’s is not a true tiki bar because it does not have a thatched roof. It is also the most expensive tiki bar we have been to. I once got a $28 charge for a veggie burger. I thought it was mistake … and it wasn’t.

Porky’s Bayside BBQ. Like TJ’s, Porky’s is also on the bay side of Vaca Key, but is much more low key and affordable than TJ’s. Instead of specializing in seafood like the other restaurants in Marathon, Porky’s specializes in pork barbecue. However, they have good size menu to satisfy almost every palate. Porky’s is a true tiki bar that is easily identified from the Overseas Highway, and has several dock slips on the water. New for 2023, Porky’s just opened an 18-hole mini-golf course, the only mini-golf course in Marathon.

Barnacle Barney’s Tiki Bar. Hidden behind The Hammocks Resort on the bay side is Barnacle Barney’s, a hidden gem. It is a very cute bar on the water with friendly servers that is open to the public, but you cannot bring a boat here and it is not a true tiki bar because it does not have a thatched roof. No official website. Happy hour is 4 – 6 and the prices for drinks and appetizers are great. 

Keys Fisheries. A true tiki bar on the second floor of a fish market, Keys Fisheries is another favorite of the locals. It is walking distance from the City Marina, which is very handy if your boat is on a mooring ball there. It is also on the bay side. Enjoy adult beverages while watching the fishing boats bring in their catches at the marina below. 

Island Fish Co. Turning toward the north / east end of Marathon, Island Fish Co. is a true tiki bar on the bay side that is the only restaurant that can be reached by land, sea, and air. There is a helipad on the north end of the parking lot.

Sparky’s Landing. On the north / east end of Marathon is one of the best tiki bars in town. A true tiki bar on the ocean side, you can take your dinghy to their dock, but you would have to cross five miles of open ocean to get there. Sparky’s Landing has a very large menu that includes excellent brick oven pizzas. Their live music offerings are the best quality music acts in town, and include Marathon’s former mayor, singer/songwriter John Bartus. Like Sunset Grille, Sparky’s Landing is a great place for groups. 

Wildlife

Jan27

“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
― John Muir, Naturalist

“Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.”
― Mary Oliver, Poet


In The Other, a 1971 novel by author Thomas Tryon, a pair of twin boys learn a game from their grandmother, and even though the novel goes to a very dark place, I love that game. I’ve remembered it through all of these years and practice it often. It goes like this: you stare at some living thing for a long time and imagine that you can see what it sees and feel what it feels. If it’s a bird, you can experience flying and feel the wind in your feathers, feel the drafts lifting you up by the wings, imagine how it feels to swoop out over the water and soar on the breeze. In the novel, the boys practice on each other and it doesn’t end well. But try it sometime. Pick a seagull or a pelican and take it for a spin.

Birds

Being retired, I feel that it is finally okay to spend time bird watching. It’s probably not okay to spend time imagining that I’m a bird, but the mind wanders and that’s what happens. From the cockpit of my boat, I can see seagulls, ibises, pelicans, cormorants, egrets, ospreys, and anhingas – sometimes all at once sitting on a large piece of debris in the harbor. They all sit together as if they are one flock. Birds have rules, usually. One bird to a piling, and only one. But a line of different species crowds together on the rusting train car, squawking and fussing.

Pelicans on pilings: One per piling, that’s the rule.

Pelicans: My favorites are the pelicans. They are huge, with brown bodies and white heads folded down into their necks. In the air, they soar without flapping, graceful as scarves on the wind. But when they spy a fish in the water to capture and store in their massive throats, they become clumsy bundles of feathers, feet and beaks, crashing headlong into the water with a messy splash. It takes them a second to straighten out their limbs, toss the fish into their expandable throats and sit quietly, composing themselves. I’m going to make a slow-motion video of the pelican plunge and set it to the sound of a World War II bomber plane. These antics make me laugh out loud sometimes.

Pelican on a piling near the fuel dock at our marina.

Ibises: These social birds fly together to a designated tree on land right at sunset. We’ve seen it again and again; they gather in the branches and rest there overnight. The coordinated timing is remarkable. They all seem to know when it’s time to go. White ibises have bodies shaped like footballs and long, pink curved beaks, although the beaks are straight until juveniles reach adulthood. These birds are the playboys of the bird kingdom. Males have multiple girlfriends, and mate often with a variety of females. However, a male will build a nest for one particular female and defend it while they raise their chicks.

Anhingas and Cormorants: These birds look very similar in the water. They swim around in a “seated” position, low in the water with just their heads and necks sticking out. They are similar in size, and both birds tend to sit on a perch with their wings unfurled. They don’t have oil glands like other sea birds, so they dry their wings by hanging them out. The lack of oil is an advantage in making deep dives for fish. Anhingas have pointed beaks and seem to be wearing snazzy silver jackets, while cormorants have hooked beaks and wear basic black.

Anhingha, in its snazzy jacket.

Egrets and Herons: My father was proud of being able to identify birds by their minor characteristics. My sisters and I would tease him by asking what color the bird’s eyelashes were, or how many toenails they had. I guess I have come full circle: I know the difference between great egrets and great (white) herons is in their leg color. The white phase of the great blue heron is found only in Florida and has light colored legs. The great white egret has black legs. We have both here in Marathon, and we have some cranes that also look similar. They are tall, graceful, majestic. They can stand perfectly still on one leg in the shadow of the mangroves as we drift by in the dinghy.

I’m not very good at identifying the birds; I have a brother-in-law who can tell you what bird it is if you just send him a picture. But these are my few favorites, and I do love to waste my time watching them.

Marine mammals

Manatees: There are manatees at the marina for the winter. We are warned not to feed them or provide fresh water (you should see them lap up the freshwater leaks, as if the water they live in is too salty for their taste). Manatees are huge blobs of elephant-gray blubber, sometimes eight or nine feet long. They are shaped like giant loaves of Phil’s French bread, adding a flat tail, fins for front legs and a pig-like snout. When you see one in the water, it looks like an oval hump of seaweed until it raises its nose to breathe. In spite of this ugly description, manatees are actually cute. They have adorable faces.

These water-logged blimps are also mysterious and shy. We know they are here, but no one knows how many there are, and they’re nearly invisible when they hang out at the bottom of the harbor. Is that a rock, a seaweed pile, or a manatee? One day, a large adult floated for hours near the back of our boat, and we were convinced it was dying. It moved very little except to breathe. Our next-door neighbor, an ER physician, told us it was normal manatee behavior, related to mating. I guess they play easy to get, just waiting for a suitor to wander by.

Dolphins: When the dolphins come, they stay for a while. They never come alone, but in groups of two, three, sometimes five. They slide through the water in graceful arcs, silent and dignified. We have seen one or two fly completely out of the water in a frenzy, but that is rare. Mostly, they travel from south to north in our harbor, showing their dorsal fins every 30 feet or so. Twenty minutes later, they are gone, and I feel fortunate to have seen them.

When I see dolphins, like the one just in front of the dinghy, I feel like this.

I don’t know why people love the dolphins so much. People gather on the railing of the dockside restaurants to point them out, and the kayakers rush over to get a closer look. As far as I’m concerned, they are royalty – the lions of the ocean – honoring us with their presence. I know when I’ve been blessed.

A little video clip of dolphins in our harbor, by Phil.

How to Be Happy

For twenty years or more I’ve been trying to write an article titled, “How to Be Happy.” I may finish it one day, and I think I’ll put something in there about hanging around in nature. My happiest times in childhood were spent wandering through the woods in Connecticut and in California. Getting up early to catch rabbits in the backyard or deer next to our campsite brought enormous surges of joy. Sadness has no place in the woods. The birds won’t let it rest there.

So it’s not surprising that I spend time looking for wildlife in the Keys. It’s a different kind of wilderness here than I am used to, but the expanse of water just past the cockpit, the shadowy green of mangroves on either side of the harbor, the amazing oranges and fuschias of the always spectacular sunsets; they call to me. There is a lot to learn under the water and in the salty creeks where turtles and iguanas hang off the low branches. There are tiny deer in the islands to the west that I have never seen. I have a lot to do.

Sunset with cormorants drying their wings

It’s just past five now, time for the ibises to be gathering and flying off toward land. There’s a small manatee next door. We just saw him poke his snout up to drink fresh-water drips from the boat in the next slip. Maybe later there will be dolphins.

“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”
― John Muir, “John of the Mountains,” American Naturalist and Environmental Philosopher