On January 17th everything finally started to come together for Wind Warrior and we would finally get to leave Marathon and continue on our journey.
Our old fridge, being the major culprit of our power problems was tossed and replaced with a brand new Adler Barbour system. We thought all was well until after two days the new one wasn't working very well. A rescue call from Mel, the fridge guy, a little charge of Freon, and it was working ... FINALLY.
Our newly installed West Marine water bladder was filled up and all ran out the bottom into the bilge.... not a good thing, so today we have to look at that again.
Tuesday evening was spent over at Dockside Bar & Grill where we met up with Scott Hamilton, who was going to accompany us to Miami and the Bahamas with Esperanza. More bad news .... his high pressure injection pump had bit the dust and leaked oil all over the engine shutoff solenoid. Now it wasn't working either. Further comm's told us that he'd be another week, so we're off without him. See you in the Bahamas, Scott.
Our weather window had come and we had to get back to Miami for the passage to Bimini on Sunday.
Finally, January 18th arrived and we were off. Marathon was left behind for the last time. We journeyed up Hawk Channel for about 60 miles to Angelfish Creek where we followed "Castello" in through the very shallow channel entrance. There area a trawler and draw 42 inches and called the depths back to us. Our original plan was to jump off from there but the "window" closed.
Finally, safe inside we anchored up a small channel in 18 feet of water. A nice evening was had by the three boats crews on Castello before we headed back to our own boats for the night. At 1am we heard yelling down in the mangroves. Chris and Brenda, from "Tango" had gotten caught up in the strong 4 knot current while rowing back and were swept by their boat. They started to be carried on out of the channel. Luckily, they had managed to make it to the mangroves and were hanging on to the roots when Brenda started calling for help.
Ron got the little outboard on the dingy and managed to find them in the dark and tow them back to their boat .... all's well ..... gone to bed for the night as we had had to depart by 7am to have enough water to get over the hump. Zzzzzzzzzzz ... Then, at 5:30am ... BANG!!! RATTLE, RATTLE ... What the hell was that !!!!
As I ran out on deck I discovered that the current had changed 180 degrees and increased. We had run down on "CASTELLO's" chain and it dragged up across our stern. We got them clear and Ron pulled in 15 feet of our chain to get clear of them. Needless to say, nobody slept that night. Morning came and we made it out the bay end of the cut for an uneventful trip up Biscayne Bay to Miami where we anchored in a beautiful anchorage near South Beach.
Enroute, Ron spoke with Dave Gaetz of Misty Seas from DYC by VHF and they were heading down Hawk Channel to Marathon for a few weeks.
Yesterday, Friday, we took a bus ride over to beautiful Miami Beach and toured the historic Art Deco District where they filmed "The Bird Cage". Just how do you get a large Iguana off an umbrella at a restaurant?? Two guys with bins and a lot of yelling!!
A great day was had and today we prepare to leave for No Name Harbour for the night and our 5:30am departure to Bimini.
See you all from the Bahamas ....
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