5/1/10 – Islamorada, Florida

Dolphins playing in "Reflection's" wake

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We left our winter home in Banana Bay at 10:00 a.m. with air temperatures in the low 80s, water temperatures in the low 90s, under clear skies with winds out of the northeast at a brisk 15 to 20 mph. Though it was hard to leave this lovely place, we do so knowing that we will return next again December.

As we left the dock, only the maintenance men, Larry and Tony, were there to see us off, as most of the other boats have already left for northern climes. The water colors were beautiful as we headed up the Gulf side, and we carefully watched our depth-sounder because of the many shallow areas around here. We planned to make this first day out a short one by going only 27 miles, and chose our anchorage to be lovely Matecumbe Bight. We pulled in around 1 p.m., and after lunch, we both took naps.

Around 4:30 p.m. George said that he wanted to start up our generator in order to keep our refrigerator and other appliances powered up for the pleasant evening ahead. THEN WE GOT THE FIRST SURPRISE OF OUR LOOP COMPLETION! – The generator was only putting out 25 volts of A. C. power. Thinking quickly, we started looking for a marina in the nearby area where we could plug into electric for the night, and possibly find generator repairs.

Try to find help on a late Saturday afternoon! We made numerous phone calls, and finally found one marina about 7 miles away to help us. We immediately picked up anchor, and started heading that way, however, the traversing the shallow channels in this area take a lot of local knowledge. The dock assistant gave us one set of directions on the phone, and then when we had realized that we had gone up the wrong channel, when we called back, he was in the process of leaving for the evening, but was willing to give us the marina owner’s phone number so he could give us additional directions.

We now had to drive back a number of miles and the time was getting later and later. The directions and shallow channels were so convoluted that the owner finally came out in his own boat to not only lead us in, but also to sound our way in to very hidden Watermark Marina where it was low tide. We came in very carefully through water depths only an inch or two below our keel into a marina not much wider than our own entrance channel at home in Seawood Harbor. Not only was sunset coming quickly upon us, but also the power connections at this brand new marina had not all been completed, so George and the owner scoured the premises for extra power cords and even jury-rigged an outlet so that we could plug in for the electricity we needed. By about 8 p.m. we were finally settled in and we realized that the odds of finding a generator mechanic on the week-end were less than zero, so we decided to wait until Monday to make our calls, and adjusted our plan of anchoring out tomorrow night to finding a marina slip instead. We have learned to be very flexible!