Friday Dec. 27

68 miles   0745-1515

Marco Island to Little Shark River, FL (Ponce de Leon Bay)

Our day started out a little overcast and the Gulf waters were 1-2’ waves with NE winds. The waters of the Gulf are very shallow near shore and the section we cruised in today had a lot of shoals that stretched out so we had to go farther out to get around them. As we got farther away from shore the waves increased to about 3-5’. After a couple of hours we could angle back closer to shore and the waves went back to 1-2’. The sky cleared later in the day to give us a nice sunny 77°. Our anchorage tonight was a lot different than the night before. Here there were no condos, houses, or marinas. We did have to share the anchorage with 3 other boats, but other than that nothing else in sight except trees.

Leaving Marco Island with the sun trying to come through.

 

 Pelicans traveled along side of us for a while.

 

 This guy is an Elegant Tern. We had several fly right next to and in front of the boat.

They came so close I thought they were going to hitch a ride with us.

 

 Little Shark River.

 

 Gorgeous sunset.

 

Saturday Dec. 28

53 miles   0715-1330

Little Shark River to Marathon Key, FL

Today’s cruise was about the same with 2-4’ waves and a partly cloudy sky. We had to dodge a lot of crab pots today. They seemed to be everywhere. They are marked with a 5” colored ball and each fisherman has his own color. After getting through that mine field we were cruising under the 7 Mile bridge (which connects the Middle Keys to the Lower Keys in the chain of Florida Keys) and into the Atlantic Ocean. From there we turned into the channel of the Marathon harbor where we will spend at least a month.

Beautiful sunrise to start the day.

 

 7 Mile Bridge near Marathon FL.

 

 

 Channel going into Marathon.