Our Stay in Marathon

   
      Marcus has to leave to go back to work in Key West, so it's just us now. That means more responsibility on my part as I am now the true first mate which of course gets put to the test basically immediately. Hours after Marcus leaves, we are just coming back from dinner and the wind severely picks up. Our anchor slips and it is time for action. It's dark, cold, we are taking a 20 knot wind straight out of the north, there are freaking whitecaps! Oh yeah, and I've never done this before. THIS IS MY NIGHTMARE. Jon stays cool and calm, directs me at the helm while he pulls the anchor. We moved back to our original anchorage by Rachel Bank where we had some protection. We set the anchor and set a point on the GPS to mark our location. We stayed up for hours checking the GPS and our visual markers every 30 minutes, while we watched a movie on the laptop to distract us. It was a rough, scary night but we didn't move at all and eventually we felt relaxed enough to fall asleep. Basically, I wanted to either cry or vomit but that's not an option. He needed me. I had to step up and I'm proud to say I did.

   

      After making some calls, are told our injection pipe should be here by Friday, but Friday is now coming to an end and still no word from All Keys Diesel. I ring them for an update and apparently the place in Virginia the parts are coming from as been snowed in and UPS hasn't even picked it up yet. I'm used to "island time" but find it very ironic that we are being slowed down due to a snow storm. Impatience ensues, but what can we do? We are trying to look at the bright side and honestly, Marathon isn't a bad place to be stuck.

     Over the weekend, we decided to get some projects done. We sanded and refinished all the wood, changed the oil in our generator and dinghy motor, and some general cleaning. One morning a boat named "2 Wound Up" stopped by to say when they left to go fishing in the early morning our anchor light had faded making us barely visible. That night we rigged up a lantern instead, and added a new anchor light to the ever growing list of things to buy. A few days later we saw 2 Wound Up again they stopped by to say they were headed home, they also had a bunch of extra fish. Would we like some tuna? I mean, is that even a real question? Of course we do! They gave us a galleon size ziplock of fresh tuna and a quart size bag of spanish mackerel and we feasted for days. Maybe this isn't so bad after all...
   
     During the week we entertained ourselves by exploring the island. We checked out the city marina which was full to the brim and bustling with people. We feel lucky we decided not to go that route and stay at anchor instead. Much more peaceful. We went by dinghy to happy hour at Keys Fisheries and enjoyed fresh shrimp and stone crab. We sat at the bar next to some very interesting characters, Carl and Alan. Carl grew up in Marathon (after his parents made the trek all the way from Islamorada). He told us many stories of the good ole' days and painted a picture of the keys that had us longing for a world we would never know. He's also writing a book and I vowed to buy it. Alan is a retired oil rigger and has traveled to some pretty amazing places for work and play. His passport is a major red flag wherever he goes as people see Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, etc. and assume he's some sort of terrorist and/or carrying Ebola. The weather has been amazing, We have a full moon and bio-luminescence making green glittery swirls around our feet as we touch the water. These moments are the pay off. This is what it's all about. Taking the time to stop and listen to the people and the nature around you.
   

                                         (this photo is actually a moonrise!)

   

      Our parts finally arrive on Friday and drumroll.......it's not the right thing. We ordered injection pipe #1 (of four) and it turns out, we really needed  #4. Stupid mistake. Once the emotions had run their course after that foul up we try again, ordering the correct part directly from American Diesel. No more waiting. We would have the correct part sent to my dad, whom we already planned to see the following Friday on our way to my brother's wedding. New plan, make our way on one motor until then and wherever we are when Friday rolls around, put the boat in a marina and my dad will come get us. Time to make up some miles!

Key West to Marathon, FL

     We left our slip in Key West with the excitement of little kids on Christmas morning. Jittery but excited. I think we walked in circles around the boat for about the first hour taking pictures about every five seconds and checking everything compulsively. We had a beautiful morning cruise through Key West Harbor. Then we rounded the corner at Fort Zachary Taylor and the story changed...we had a residual swell from many days of high winds. Three foot seas and I don't really mix well, as I came to find out. "OK, just keep it together for a few hours. This will be over soon and the ICW will be a piece of cake the rest of the way" I told myself as the sickness crept up. And then "the shitith hitith the fanith" as some may say. We lost the starboard motor. OK, not the end of the world to most (aka Jon and Marcus), but I was stressed to the max and thinking the worst. What in the world am I doing on this boat...

     Shortly, the boys figured out that we had a fitting to one of the fuel injector pipes with a crack. Eventually it starts to take on air, motor shuts down. With the help of the very delicate 43 year old engine manual, we locate the part we need and I order it from All Keys Diesel in Marathon. We anchor just off Loggerhead Key near Cudjoe Key about 30 minutes before sunset and enjoy the serene view and some beers. We will continue on to Marathon on one motor to wait for our parts to arrive.

     The next day we made the sloooooooow 3 knot journey to Marathon. We had beautiful weather and I drove the boat for awhile. I should point out, that though we have owned the boat for a year, I have only been on the boat stationary in our slip with the exception of riding along from the boat yard to the marina. So my being behind the wheel was a big deal. I was white knuckled, much to the entertainment of the boys.

     Eventually I loosened up and driving the boat became kind of fun. I drove under the Bahia Honda bridge to cross from the outside to the Gulf side and through some THICK fog that rolled in that afternoon. We made it to Rachel Bank and anchored safely.

 THE FOGGGG!

   
     The next day, we were trying to figure out where we could pull our dinghy ashore. It turns out that all the places with dinghy docks are on the Boot Key side of the island which of course we weren't on. I called our friends Kaci and Josh who live in Marathon to see if they had any leads. Kaci led us to a her friend's place which was very near where we were anchored and very hidden. We entered a tiny, shallow cut in the mangroves that looked like it went nowhere, but as we rounded the corner the cut opened up to a little cove with a compound of homes and several docks for boats. "And if you see a tall guy with a big white afro, that's Jimbo and just tell him you are with me". Ah, the Keys and their characters. Gotta love it :)  Having a safe place to go to shore was extremely helpful and Jimbo and his neighbors couldn't have been nicer. Thank you everyone for your help and hospitality!

The Plan

We've been getting asked a lot lately how we have come to this juncture. For those new to our story, here is a general timeline of how all this came to be:

2009-2010: Jacksonville Beach, FL - I was working mostly day time, he was bartending nights. We were hardly seeing each other and basically living week to week. Though we loved Jax Beach, our family, and friends, we were getting tired, burned out, ready for a change. We started daydreaming of a new life and over time, we came to this: buy boat, travel the Great Loop.

• Step 1: move into my family's condo to save money (Thanks Aunt Laney!)
• Step 2: move to Key West (be around people who are doing/living the life we want)
• Step 3: get jobs, have fun, and save save save!

2011: Key West, FL - Thanks to our friend Jill, I got a job pretty much right away at Fury Water Adventures and boy did that turn out to be a great opportunity! Jon followed me to Fury very soon after and we will be forever grateful to our Fury family. We were making great money, enjoying our jobs, meeting great friends and working in, on and around the water just soaking it all in and learning. We sold most of our stuff when we moved to KW, and within a year sold both our cars. (This helped the boat fund and who needs a car on a 2 x 4 mile island?) We also got married and Jon got his 100-ton captain's licence.

Late 2013 -2014: Over the years, we were constantly looking at boats on craigslist, yachttrader, newspaper, basically anywhere. We started to figure out what we wanted and keep an eye on a general price range. We saw many boats that we fell in love with, but usually we didn't have quite enough money or something in general was not quite right. Then we found her, but still a TAD out of budget. We needed to keep saving just a little bit more so we could make a serious offer. After about 2 months, the ad was gone. She had sold and we were let down once again. Just one step behind. Then one day out of the blue, she was back on the market AND price reduced!!! The original sale must have fallen through. We JUMPED on it. We spoke to the seller many times and basically it came down us traveling to Georgia to see it. If the boat turned out to be everything he said it was and there were no surprises, we were going to buy her.

2014: She's ours! Jon, my cousin Marcus and myself went to GA and we bought that sucker. I had to drive straight back the next day to KW to go back to work and left the boys to get her ready and bring her down. There were some humps to get over at first (the boat is 43 and had been sitting for over a year),but they got her on the road and were home without too much alarm within 10 days. Also, this boat wasn't named. Which was awesome, because let me tell you, people name their boats some weird shit (Moon Cheese??) Anyway, I have always felt that a boat name is kinda personal and it is said to be bad luck to change the name of a boat so this was perfect. The previous owner had gone through the steps to remove the name off the boat, but never got around to renaming her so any bad juju would be his, not ours right? We didn't think too much about what the new name would be. I figured she would name herself (much like a pet, you have to meet it first) So we let her do the talking and we ended up with Rising Sun. Here she is getting splashed after being in the boatyard.

2015: Our general plan from here:

• Take our time through the Keys. We will have Marcus with us again for the first leg as an extra hand should we encounter any problems.
• Stop in Jax to see family and friends. My brother is getting married 3/14 so we have to stay in FL until then.
• Cruise to Charleston, SC and stop to work for the summer. We have some savings of course but we will have to work along the way to make this happen. Unless we win the lottery or someone wants to gift me a large sum of money :)
• Beyond: who knows? We don't really want to be any further north in the winter so maybe we stay in Charleston until spring? Maybe we haul the boat out and go somewhere to work for the winter (ski resort? back to jax/st augustine? key west?) and go back to the boat in the spring to keep going. That's the beauty I suppose. We will decide when the time comes!

So here we are. St Simon's Island, Georgia. March 8th, 2014. Approximately 1 hour after buying this boat. Just typing this brings back the butterflies in my stomach. So excited because we had worked so hard for that moment. So nervous because we had put all our eggs in one basket...650 miles away from home. Three years in the making and it was finally real.

Fast forward to February 2015, and the butterflies have multiplied exponentially. We are days away from dropping lines in our safe harbor in Key West, FL to set out on The Great Loop. What have we gotten ourselves into? Stay tuned to follow our journey on Rising Sun, not just a trip, but a new way of life...