Atalanta: January 2020

The Three Amigos - Vero Beach

We are now in the Florida Keys, a day or so away from Key West. The wind is howling and the seas building. The holidays were spent in Charleston with our southern-based family. It was wonderful to spend December visiting Jason, Meredith and Liam. As usual we ate too much food in too many fabulous Charleston restaurants. This year we had the joy of attending Liam’s Holiday Concert at school, joining him for lunch in the cafeteria, and volunteering at his 2nd grade Economics Fair. It felt great to be back in an elementary school with all its energy and excitement.

The sail from Charleston to Miami was sans Kay who had a great visit in Vermont with grandson Henry, Tara and Chad. Our good friend John Creelman took over as first mate for three weeks and did a splendid job. The sail south was a combination of outside passages and Inter-coastal Waterway depending on weather conditions in the Atlantic. The problem with the ICW is that inadequate funds have been allocated for dredging resulting in significant shoaling. The saying is, “There are two kinds of sailors in the ICW, those that have gone aground and liars.” A second issue with inter-coastal travel is the transiting of bridges. There are many 65’ fixed bridges (our mast is about 64’) and other lower bridges that have to open either upon request or on a set schedule. This results in a lot of “hurry up and wait”. Since we can only motor about 50 miles a day on the ICW, we prefer overnight passages in the Atlantic. The good news is that the ICW is available when the weather is inclement and there are places that are stunningly beautiful. This year John and Richard discovered the town of Cocoa near Florida’s “Space Coast” - a lovely town with great restaurants and a rich history from the early days of NASA. They even witnessed a Spacex launch and separation.

Anne, Kay, and Tony on Key Biscayne

Key Biscayne

We grabbed a mooring in Vero Beach in a very protected harbor. Unlike most places, they double and triple raft boatsv on the moorings. We had the great fortune of being rafted with S/V Ring of Kerry owned by our friends George, Cecilia and their puppy Champ. We were also happy to spend time with our friend and Vero resident, John T. who we had shared a house with in Guatemala for several weeks. Our Vermont friends Peter and Blaine are only a few miles down the road so we were able to visit with them, too. All and all it was a wonderful visit with old friends and great weather.

Atalanta at rest in No Name Harbor

The next stop was Key Biscayne where we anchored comfortably in No Name Harbor. Richard rented a car to facilitate a crew change and provisioning. Kay arrived in Miami on January 14, John departed from Ft. Lauderdale the afternoon of the 15th and Tony and Anne arrived from Westbury, UK that evening. We also squeezed in a lunch date with Richard and Martin from S/V Sea Cloud.

Richard and John in Vero

We are currently stalled at Marathon Key due to weather and anticipating a sail to Key West on Thursday where we hope to chill and relax for a few days with an eye to the weather. With the help of professional meteorologist, Chris Parker, we will look for a three-day weather window enabling us to sail to Mexico. We anticipate a brief stop over in the Dry Tortugas, a group of small islands 60 miles west of Key West. It will take a couple of days and nights to get across the Gulf of Mexico to beautiful Isla Mujeres. Hopefully we will be sipping margaritas on the beach there the next time we post.