Lorenzo & Delois Johnson

We are anchored at MM 1160, near Islamorada , Fl.   All three boats are rafted together and we had a great meal as Robert and Kay’s guests.

Today was a very challenging travel day.  We covered 55 miles, and hopefully we are over the worst part.  The problem was shallow water.  Our draft is 5′ and most of the day the props were within 1′ of the bottom.  The wake was dark with the mud we stirred up.  Tomorrow, we are expecting water depths of 7′ and some as deep as 8′.   The alternate route, Hawks Channel, would have been very bumpy. 

We should arrive at The Sombrero Marina Resort tomorrow around 2 PM.  We are going to wait here in the anchorage until high tide (0900) to help us get through our last shallow stretch.

This has been a very good trip.  The boat has performed flawlessly, and we are having a great time with our friends.  Everyone has removed their watches in order to get to what is known as “Keys Time”.  We were very warm and comfortable through the cold parts of the trip, but we did not venture outside very often.  Now, the temp is in the 80’s and we are wearing shorts and shirt sleeves. 

 Life is Good!!!

We are docked in Boca Chita State Park.  This is a really neat place.  The beach is just a short walk away, and families are all over the place having picnics and really enjoying themselves.  There are lots of palm trees and coconut trees, and the park is located on a 3 to 4 acre island, and can only be reched by boat.  The water temperature is around 66, and the high for today was 87.  We had to run the A/C this afternoon. 

We cooked dinner for the 8 of us, and we really had a good time.  We ate on the aft deck, and what a beautiful setting for dinner.  We reaally enjoyed ourselves, and we really enjoyed our company.  Robert and Kay were the ones who were familiar with this place, and we are really grateful that they shared it with us.

We only traveled 14 miles today, and we reached our destination early.  This place is crowded, so we had to wait a few minutes until dock space became available.

Tomorrow, we will leave around 930, and we are planning to travel 45 miles to reach the Loreli anchorage.   We will  have a short day on Tuesday, arriving in Marathon on schedule.

We are at MM 1091, Miami, Fl.  We traveled 26 miles today.  We left Ft Lauderale this morning as planned .  We spent three great days in Ft. Lauderale.  Ft Lauderale was a great stop.  Great restaurants, lots of places to visit, and the water taxi made all locations easy to reach.  This town was a large marsh until some guy bought the land for $1 / acre, and started dredging and digging canals.  The soil removed was used to make lots, and the dredging operation made most lots on the water.  There are lots of lots that sell for more than $10 million, even in todays economy. 

The marina in Ft. Lauderdale was really nice.  Great location, and real nice facility.

Tonight, we are anchored in the miami marine stadium.  This is where all of the boat races were held many years ago.  A hurricane damaged the grandstands, and they were condemed.  Today, we saw people working on the roof, so maybe it is being restored.

We have a great view of the Miami waterfront, and the night view is really awesome.  We rafted all three boats together, and we had liquid refreshments and dinner aboard “C-Life”  A good meal and a good time was had by all.

Tomorrow, we are going to travel about 20 miles to spend the night in a very special anchorage.   

We are at the New River Municipal Marina, in downtown Ft Lauderdale.  We are at MM 1065, after having covered 40 miles today.  This was a tough section to cover; we passed through 25 to 30 bridges, had t o wait for the opening time for many of them, and the entire trip was at no wake speed.  We passed by thousands of mega yachts, and the most opulent and lush houses on the shoreline that one can imagine.  Obviously, these people were not told about the economic downturn.

We are docked on the  New River in the downtown area.  This is the most awesomely  beautiful place we have ever docked.  The New River runs through the city, and the City has created dockage on the bank of the river all along the length of the river.  This place has inspired me to take pictures tomorrow to upload to the blog; I cannot describe this marina adequately, so pictures are in order.

Tonight, we went to  dinner at a Pub near the boats.  The eight of us had a really great time.  The live music was very good, and  between the music and the wine, we were all on the dance floor. 

The low temperature for tonight is 72, and we have the A/C running.  It is hard to believe that this is the middle of the winter.  Shorts, short sleeves, and no tee shirts.

We are having a really great time.  This is a lot more enjoyable than we expected.  Lois is having a really great time, and I am glad to see her enjoying herself.  Lil’ David has performed flawlessly and kept us comfortable through the extremes in the weather that we have experienced.  It is hard to beleive that we left Holden Beach only two weeks ago, with long icicles hanging from the rails.  

We are going to stay here until Saturday morning, and then we will continue on our way.  

We traveled  44 miles today, and are now at MM 1025.  We left our anchorage this morning and traveled 5 miles and anchored at the intersection of the ICW and the St Lucie River.  There , we were joined by Robert and Kay Creech on “C-Life” and by Larry and Margie Ross on “Wanderling L&M”   We are all old acquaintices, and we have adjoining slips assigned when we reach Marathon.  We will be traveling together for the remainder of the trip.

Tonight, we are rafted together, and we all had dinner on “Wandering L &M” The wine flowed freely, lots of laughs and lively conversation, and we really had a good time.

Tomorrow, we will travel to The  New River Municipal Marina in Fort Lauderdale.  We will spend three days there, goofing off and and adjusting our schedule to arrive in Marathon on Feb 1.

Tonight, we will need to run the A/c, since it is really warm here. We are expecting a thunderstorm, and maybe it will cool things off for us.     We have only 40 miles to travel tomorrow, so it should be an easy day.

We are at mm 981.  We had a good stay in Fort Pierce.  This morning, we went to Walmart and to the drugstore to shop and get prescriptions filled.  We left the marina around noon and then went to the commercial fuel dock and topped off the fuel tanks.  We traveled 15 miles today, and we are anchored here waiting to meet with Robert Creech and Larry tomorrow morning.  They will be leaving Stuart and heading for Marathon also.  We have docking reserved in adjoining slips at Sombrero Marina Resort.  Anxious to meet them tomorrow.

Tonight we are docked at Fort Pierce Municipal Marina at MM 966.  We had a good travel day today, and covered 69 miles. 

Tomorrow, we are going to go shopping, top off the fuel tanks, and leave the marina around noon.  We are going to the Saint Lucie Inlet area, anchor and spend the night there.  On Tuesday, we will join two other boats for the remaider of the trip to Marathon.   We are going to spend a few days in Fort Lauderdale, and finally arrive in Marathon on Tuesday.

The weather has been really great.  The water temps are in the mid 60’s and the daytime highs are in the low 70′ s .  The nighttime lows are high enough that we do not need any heat at all.

We are anchored at MM897 near the Cape Caneveral Barge Canal.  We had a good travel day today.  The weather was cloudy this morning, but the Sun poked through the clouds around 9 am. We covered 67 miles today, and we really had an enjoyable day

We are seeing lots more boats on the water now that we are in warmer  weather.  Lots of people are on the banks of the canals and rivers fishing and having a good time in general. 

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We are anchored in Daytona Beach, Fl.  Yesterday, we spent a second day in St Augustine.  We went on the city tour,  enjoyed dinner at a popular restuarant, and really enjoyed ourselves.

Bill and Kathy joined us yesterday and will travel with us to Marathon.  We are having a grand time.

We left the marina today around 1100, due to fog.  We covered 52 miles, and everything went smoothly.  The boat continues to perform flawlessly, and we are taking our time and not getting in a rush.

We are in St Augustine Florida at the Municipal Marina.  We fueled this morning at o8oo, but could not get underway until near 1100 due to the fog.  We covered 62 miles today, and worked Starrie and Portia harder than they have worked in a long tome.  We had a 4 to 5 Knot foul current all day, and it ended when we reached the inlet 2 miles from the marina.    We had planned to anchor for the night along the way, but we did not like any of the available anchorages we passed.  Most had strong currents, not enough swinging room, and shallow water.  We pushed forward and reached the marina 15 minutes before sun down.  That was cutting it a little too close; lesson learned.  Burned lots of fuel today, but we did not anchor in a location we did not feel comfortable with.

Bill and Kathy are meeting us here to join us on the remainder of the trip to Marathon.  Glad to have them  with us again. 

We are finally below latitude 30, and the weather is great.  We had to open the windows on the flybridge today, even with our short sleeved shirts.