CHAPTER SIXTY TWO: MY MARATHON

CHAPTER SIXTY TWO: MY MARATHON

Here’s the scoop, the really, really big scoop for Sunday, February 24, 2013. I, the apprentice sea woman, the not-so-good-with-knots trainee, the fender bender, the one who has been known to throw a line on shore without fastening it to a cleat on Slow Motion – yes, that’s the one. Me, myself and I, and the Admiral of course, navigated our way across the Gulf of Mexico from Marco Island to Marathon, some 100 nautical miles, over a 10 plus hour period, which included four hours of DENSE FOG. I don’t think that is enough emphasis for the hardship we endured, but we just couldn’t see beyond our bow! And still we completed this marathon journey to Marathon without hitting another boat or even dinging one of the three million crab pots that populate the Gulf. And here’s the best part – I navigated the whole way!

What does that mean, you ask? It means that every quarter hour for ten hours, starting at 7 a.m. I wrote down the coordinates for our position, the latitude and longitude numbers, then the course and speed at that time. I plotted these latitude and longitude figures on a chart of the waters we were crossing to see if we were on the course that the Admiral had previously entered into the Garmin GPS system. As we journeyed further and further south through the Gulf, passing Cape Romano Light and heading for Bullard Bank, I noticed that we were about four miles off the course we needed to be on to reach Bullard Bank, which has a green “17” marker and which is the first marker we intended to use to get to the seven mile bridge. I brought this to the Admiral’s attention and he asked me to plot the course we needed to take to get to Bullard Bank from where we had gone off course. I did this without hesitation and with great confidence – this is a first in my short navigation career. I gave the Admiral the course we now needed to take, and we took it and got to Bullard Bank pretty quickly after that. We made up the four mile deviation in about 15 minutes. The next day the Admiral checked his coordinates and determined that he had programmed the wrong latitude coordinate for Bullard Bank, 4 minutes off. A minute of latitude is a nautical mile. Case solved. And in the meantime we made it to Marathon without any further course deviations. I felt a real sense of accomplishment in contributing to our safe passage across the Gulf and arrival in Marathon. Yes, I’m taking a virtual bow, as I write this.

When we arrived at the Marathon Marina at about 4:15 p.m., we were ready to tie up and collapse. But of course that would not be a typical day in our cruising life. If there is no complication at the beginning of the journey, and despite the hellacious fog in the middle of the journey, we were bound to face one more obstacle before achieving dockside nirvana. And sure enough, there was a trawler tied up on the dock where we were supposed to pull in. We were first told that they were leaving “in a few minutes”. A half hour later and a visit by the very capable dock master, "Philly" Judy, got them stirring out of their lethargy and they truculently started their engines and headed to their assigned spot. During the half hour of impatient waiting, we were told that they said they had engine problems. This revelation came right after they asked if they could “just stay where we are” and were told “no”, the boat that was assigned this face dock position was waiting for them to leave. That’s when the specious engine problem reared its ugly head. Okay, they may have had engine problems, but we were ready to help them move forward or backward, so that we could just stop idling a few yards away and pull in and tie up after a very long, arduous cruise. But Philly rules – wherever you go, may you be lucky enough to run into a native of Philadelphia who knows how to get things done without any fanfare and especially without any B.S. That’s Judy, the best dock master in the world on Sunday, February 24, at Marathon Marina.

One of the coolest things that happened during our cross of the Gulf of Mexico was that I saw the bottom of the Gulf as we approached Marathon. The Admiral kept telling me that not all the water in Florida was black with pollution and that when we got to the Keys I would be able to see through the water. He said we could snorkel when we got to Key Largo. But here we were approaching Marathon, and as I looked down from the port side at an infinite row of crab pot markers, lo and behold, I saw the bottom of the Gulf. I was looking straight down and saw an actual crab pot. I saw shells, I saw sea grasses, and I saw a yellow turtle swimming toward Slow Motion. Yertle the Turtle had come to welcome me to the transparent waters of the Keys. I was so excited, like a little kid who got the pony she had wanted for her birthday. Really, I was that excited. And the yellow turtle was just an extra special present, showing me that the water in this area does not kill all beautiful sea creatures. That turtle was miles from land, but there were probably some very shallow areas nearby, as we were traversing through 7 and 8 foot depths. We also saw the biggest porpoise we have seen to date. Not only are the waters so much cleaner here, but the wildlife appears healthier. The pelicans are huge. And the sea grass, how cool is that! It can hypnotize with its graceful undulating motion.

We’ve been in Marathon one full day. It’s Tuesday, February 26. Once we finally docked, friends from Calvert Marina in Solomons, Maryland, Jake and Michael, came by in their dinghy to visit. They have been moored at Boot Key for the past month. Their dinghy is a small inflatable with one seat and a 6 hp motor. Don’t get me started about our gargantuan dinghy. Our Boston Whaler sits perched atop Slow Motion, weighing her down by several hundred pounds. It has a huge outboard motor. The upside is that it is an unsinkable boat. I like that plus very much. But the size and weight of the Boston Whaler is such that we have never, ever taken it down to use it. And so, it was very cool to tool around in Jake and Michael’s dinghy, to putt putt up the channel to “park” next to a ladder at Burdine’s marina and restaurant. We dined on really big, really healthy chicken club sandwiches – fresh cooked chicken! Yum. What a perfect way to end a very long, eventful day.

Jake and Michael filled us in a little bit on their aborted trip through the Panama Canal. They made it in their 49 foot catamaran to Isla de las Mujeres in Mexico, where the graft and corruption were off the charts. It’s great to see them looking so happy and rested in Marathon. Last night we went to see Zero Dark Thirty at the Marathon movie theater, which shows one movie on Monday night every week. The Admiral passed, commenting that he had “lived” that movie and did not need to re-live it. The acting was very good, although the movie was a lot longer – 3 hours – than it needed to be. The torture scenes were more than disturbing, and every time an IED exploded and killed a lot of people, I jumped in my seat. That was a lot of times over three hours. The movie theater, which seats about 100 people around café tables, was completely quiet at the end. There was no cheering for the shooting of Bin Laden. I think we were all worn out.

At the end of the movie, we went to my rent a car and exchanged books. I gave them three very heavy hard cover books and in return I received more than a dozen paperbacks. I hope they “enjoy” Unbroken, Canada and Lacuna. Unbroken is certainly one of the most inspirational books I have ever read – how Louie Zamperini survived both being lost at sea for days and days in a small raft with two others after their bomber crashed and being held captive in several Japanese prisoner of war camps is an incredible story. He developed a really strong faith in God, but it wasn’t until he had returned to the US after the war, become an alcoholic and was dragged to a Billy Graham revival in Los Angeles that he dedicated the rest of his life to service. This book is well worth reading. The author, who also wrote Sea Biscuit, lives most of her life in her upstairs bedroom, suffering from Epstein Barr syndrome, a condition that makes you feel extremely fatigued all the time. Fortunately, she has a partner who helps immensely with the daily living elements of her life and researchers who bring her the results of poring over tons of documents and photos from Louie’s part of World War II in the Asian Theater. Her condition has not adversely affected her writing ability, except that it takes her an extremely long time to complete a book.

It’s really muggy in Marathon, 85 degrees, overcast and humid. I’m not complaining, just reporting on the conditions here. I saw the snow photos from Pocono Pines and Kansas City – the snow is indeed beautiful after it first falls. But I also remember the gray to black color it turns as it’s shoveled to the sides of the roads and picks up all the road grime. And I remember how sometimes I thought I would never feel warm again, once the wet cold got into the marrow of my bones. So summer weather in February is quite nice, thank you. If it means that I have to visit a State where the average citizen is old enough to be, well, my much older sister or brother, then so be it. I will not knock Florida for having a large senior citizen population. Yes, some of the elderly tend to block the aisles in the supermarket, as they try to remember what they were looking for. Or they may not drive the speed limit. But try driving in Miami or Ft. Lauderdale, where the average age must be 25 and see if you really, really would prefer testosterone driven guys pushing the pedal to the floor in 450 horsepower Mustangs or trucks, flying in and out of lanes, blasting misogynistic rap songs, over the genteel, SLOW, driving of Florida’s senior citizens. And dang, there are indeed a lot of old people in this State. With age obviously comes the wisdom to know that the winter months should be spent in a summer-like climate. Lead on, Gray Panthers!