Marco Island, FL to Marathon, FL

Total Miles Traveled 1399

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Happy New Year from Marathon, Florida! Wishing you a healthy and prosperous New Year!

We departed our anchorage at Marco Island on December 2^nd and traveled 65 miles on the Gulf to an anchorage at Little Shark River.

We weighed anchor on December 3^rd and traveled 51 miles to Marathon, Florida docking at Skipjack Marina on Boot Key Harbor.  Marathon is in the heart of the Florida Keys with easy access to the Gulf of America, the Atlantic Ocean, and world-class fishing, diving and snorkeling.  Sombrero Reef is only 4 miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, which is an excellent snorkeling site. 

 Marathon is below the clouds.

Our friend Brad on s/v Take it Easy snapped this pic of us entering the harbor.

Docked at Skipjack Marina

The boating community here broadcasts a morning net on VHF channel 80 at 9 a.m. each day.  The topics are new arrivals, departures, community announcements, buy, sell, free, or trade, and jokes and trivia.

Bocce ball is one of the popular community events that takes place at the city park on Tuesday and Thursday.  A new court was supposed to be built last year, but for some unknown reason the construction was delayed, so we are still playing on the ball diamond. This is a lot different than playing on the sandy beach at Marsh Harbor, Bahamas last year.

Marathon also has a community theater, a non-profit organization that is operated by a fully volunteer board and small paid staff.  The cast and crew are a collection of boaters, postal workers, lawyers, office and retail workers, construction workers and even a few local dolphin trainers.  We attended the annual Christmas show this year and had a great evening with our boating friends.

The local watering hole here at Boot Key Harbor is Dockside bar and grill.  One of the local boaters has his birthday party here every year, this year he turned 89 and had a great time participating in all the activities planned for him.  Happy Birthday Roland!

We are only a few blocks from a Publix grocery, Walgreens, Home Depot,  the city park and marina, and several restaurants and bars, and normally take our scooters.  We took a cab one day and our driver was really into the Christmas spirit.

We used to watch birds, squirrels, and turkeys at home.

Sitting on the boat taking these pics.  We make sure we don't leave a door open.

We almost made it back to the boat before the downpour.  Luckily, we only had a few sprinkles before finding cover.  We’ll take this over snow any day.

Our friends Charlie and Robin (m/v Lower Place) volunteered to be the crew on a 60 ft Saline trawler with the owners they met last year.  They boarded the boat at Fort Pierce, Florida with a destination of Rio Dulce, Guatemala.  I was an emergency contact for the cruise and tracked them, plotting their route during their cruise.  They departed Ft Pierce on December 19 and traveled 277 miles, 31 hours to Key West, Florida.  On December 26^th they departed Key West and traveled 819 miles, 94 hours arriving at Livingston, Guatemala on December 30^th to check into customs and immigration, then an additional 22 miles, 4 hours, to a marina at Rio Dulce.  The marina is well known for very inexpensive and very high-quality boat work, and the owners have major cosmetic upgrades to their boat scheduled.  They will stay at Guatemala during the upgrades and return to Florida in May 2026.  We’re looking forward to hearing about their adventure.

The black line and dots is their planned route, the yellow dots are my position marks from their AIS, Garmin satellite transmitter, and navigation apps. The green dot at the bottom left is the marina.