13. Radio communication

‘Thisisunitedstatescoastguardsectorkeywestfloridathisisunitedstatescoastguardsectorkey

westfloridabreaktimeatfourteenfiftyoneuniversaltimeunitedstatescoastguardhasrecieveda

reportofavesselattwentyfourfortyticktwothreefivenortheightyonezerofourticktwofourthree

westallvesselsareadvisedtokeepasharplookourandreportallsigtingstotheunitedstatecoastgu

ardbreakthisisunitedstatescoastguardsectorkeywestfloridabreakthisisunitedstatescoastguar

dsectorkeywestfloridaout’

12. Radio Marti

It was like a bulky rowboat: about 20 feet long with high sides, made of old planks already grey, almost black, from exposure. We saw it later. An iron bar in the stern was connected to a crude ruder. The boat had no engine or sails.

They must have pushed off the beach in the darkness of the new moon and with the forecast of steady south east winds for three days. They drifted north until the Gulf Stream picked them up and shook them and swept them along. It probably took three days and nights to cross the ninety miles from Cuba to the Keys.

If they could arrive at night and could just touch land in USA each of them would be a refugee, entitled to a green card and $10,000 start up money. They knew all about the wonders of the USA from TV/Radio Marti beamed at Cuba from the four masts right here in Marathon. They have watched sitcoms in which even casual teenagers live in luxury homes and drive their own cars.

If they were stopped at sea they would be arrested, and deported back to Cuba.

Helpless to time their arrival they crossed the reef into flat water mid morning. They could see families on the beach, sea-doos, and the SUVs shining in the parking lot under the masts of Radio Marti.

The fisherman in the new white fiberglass “Happy Hooker’ with two 225 horsepower Yamahas on the back called the coastguard on channel 16. Everyone could listen.

“…Yeah…Looks like nine people on board….paddling with their hands…about 2 miles off the beach at Marathon.”

“…Say, Coastguard, when you are done, can I have the boat as a souvenir?”

11. Heading home to QCYC


So we went to the most southerly point of the continental USA, turned around and starting heading north.


First stop Marathon.

Wow. There must be 200 boats in here!

Boot Key Harbour is the only land-locked anchorage in the keys. Some of the boats belong to transients like us but most are the homes of permanent liveaboards. Where else can you live for almost nothing in a benign climate? Curiously, a surprising number of boats seem uninhabited or abandoned; a few have sunk. Other mast-less, rust stained, oyster encrusted, floating caves are the lairs of thin faced single men rarely seen.

The city provides a dinghy dock and a vast warehouse where cruisers can meet. There is a book swap and laundry (even TV’s for a rainy day). It is a tolerant, friendly place. No one locks their dinghy.

It is good to have company. We have met old friends from previous cruises. Ron Smallbone (well known to QCYC single handed racers), who sailed ‘Epiphany’ all the way from PCYC, is anchored near by. And, wonderful surprise, Bruce and Lynda, from ‘Jetstream’ dropped in for a few days.

Marathon is one of those convenient places (like Georgetown in the Bahamas).

It is easier to arrive than to depart.

10. Key West


Now this is a lively place!

You can walk in the old town past white verandahs that overlook tropical gardens. You can see, on the desk under the antelope head, the typewriter that Hemmingway used to click out his butch stories. You can admire the imaginative obscenities of T shirts on Duval Street. You can grasp one of the gold bars from the ‘Atocha.’ This Spanish ship left Havana for Spain in 1622 and got blown on a reef just 25 miles east of here. Mel Fisher found the pile of a thousand silver ingots (each about the size of a loaf of bread) after a 16 year search. And you can visit Audubon House. M. Audubon never lived here although he traveled through Florida in the 1830s painting those bird portraits that have made him a paragon of conservationists. If you ever wondered how he memorized the details of these rare and shy birds – he didn’t. He wired them up in lifelike poses after he shot them.


In the evenings, you can wander that crooked walkway, over red bricks and wharf planks, that twists around the harbour past the sterns of old schooners and new fish charter boats. The open air bars are full of the smells of grilled fish and beer and the rattle of plates and the guitars of raunchy singers.

And there is the sunset ceremony on Mallory Square. Dominique, a Frenchman with untreated mania, persuades reluctant cats to jump through hoops. A gymnast stands on his hands and does twenty push ups with his legs in the air. A middle aged man with a paunch and a pony tail juggles on a tightrope. The encircling crowd, who have been drinking margaritas from plastic cups, laughs and claps.

And you can cheer, with 500 others, the final second of the sunset.

9. The Keys

The Florida Keys: that arc of islands that fall like drops from the fin of Florida.

For a hundred thousand years the whole area between where the keys are now and the rest of Florida was a shallow coral sea. During the ice age (20,000 years ago), when the sea level dropped some 300 feet, the exposed limestone plateau was invaded by trees and beasts. The melting glaciers (15,000 years ago) recreated the vast tray of shallow water except for the ridges on the windward side that became the row of keys. (This flooding, incidentally, trapped a group of white tailed deer which evolved into a separate species: cute toy deer two feet high).


When you see them close up, the islands are flat and soggy, covered in a mangy fur of mangroves, and set in such shallow water that they are largely inaccessible. This is probably a good thing. These mangroves are nurseries of lobsters and fish, kindergartens of conch and crabs and the birthplace of birds.


In more recent times, Key West, at the edge of the deep water, became a port. In 1905, an oil baron called Flagler, who was into big projects and had more money than he could use (he was 75), decided to build a rail line from Miami to Key West. Seven years, seven hundred lives, and hundreds of bridges (one seven miles long) later he rode his train into Key West. In 1935 a hurricane ripped up half the track. Flagler’s successors (he was dead by then) did not have the heart to rebuild.

From the new four lane highway that has turned the Keys into a one hundred mile strip mall, you can still see sections of Flagler’s rail bridges, now 100 years old, exposed like the vertebrae of some long extinct reptile

8 Night sail

Tip a jigsaw puzzle onto the table and spread out the pieces so that they are just not touching. That’s what the mangrove islands off the west coast of the Everglades are like. The islands sit in shallow water and the shore shelves so gradually that, twenty miles out, it may be only ten feet deep. There are few places a keel boat can put in: especially this year. Hurricane Wilma removed Coconut Island and silted up the mouth of the Little Shark River leaving Indian Key as the only stop over on the way south.

From Indian Key to Marathon, in the Florida Keys, is an overnight eighty miles and a bit of a scary run what with the shallows, the sliding tides, and the mine fields of crab pots. We left at dusk; but there seemed to be only a few moment between dusk and total blackness. Plunging headlong through the night with the wind behind you is exhilarating (a bit like riding a motor bike at full speed with your eyes shut). You have to have faith in those glowing red numbers on the compass (and your chart work). By midnight the clouds had cleared. The masthead, with the cheerful red arrow of the lit Windex, stirred the constellations and the foam streaming from the bow over that black water was the cold white of bones in starlight. This happened to be the longest night of the year and the coldest. But with the Monitor steering we could huddle under the dodger in our fleece layers, ski hats and ski gloves. We were going too fast and had to reef to slow the boat and finally to anchor (in nine feet of water, streaming at two knots, miles from anywhere) to wait for first light.

We did not see a single boat all night. When we reach the Keys we will join all the East Coast traffic. We hope to meet some other cruisers. It has been a bit lonely.