At first, I wasn't sure about having to duck between
broken-down bridge spans to get to a safe harbor. But we didn't want to rock and roll all night
in the waves, so we ducked into the harbor between the new and old bridges at
Bahia Honda (Spanish for "Deep Bay").
Bahia Honda is a lovely state park just south of Marathon, our next
stop. There is a calm bayside beach and
the more exuberant ocean side.
Besides the anchorage, there is also an inner harbor
for boats that want wall dockage. I hear
there's a manatee in there, too, and hope to see it today (and we eventually did). There's a large gift shop/dive
outfitter/snack bar too and they have sweet tea. Need I say more. Oh, and ice cream, which, for us, is now such
a luxury since we don't use our freezer.
We got here yesterday and had planned on moving on
to Marathon today to get ready to spend a day or two in Key Largo outfitting
for the jump to the Bahamas. We'll be a
month or so sailing around the Bahamas and then we'll be heading back west and
then north to the Chesapeake in May.
But, no mooring balls are available at Marathon, so we've decided to
stay until one opens up.
The traffic noise from the working bridge is a
little bothersome, but with such beautiful surroundings, who am I to
complain? And I was happy to know that
two of the passengers on that highway yesterday are friends of mine from
Fredericksburg. We entertained the brief
thought of getting together here at the beach for a driving break for them, but
with the entrance fees and the like, we're going to see them on their return
trip up the road in Marathon.
As soon as we had finished anchoring, the excitement
began--an errant beachball was floating out to sea. With little thought, Elliott doffed his shirt
and dove into the water to rescue the beach toy. He then swam to shore with it to find the
hopefully happy kid who had lost it. We
saw him reach shore and he walked first one way and then the other, but there
were no takers for the now-sad beach ball.
Luckily, there is a "share" box of beach toys for kids and he
deposited it there for the next batch of kids to come through.
It was a pretty quiet day, hot with sunshine yet
enough of a breeze to keep things fairly comfortable. We've all been suffering from the heat
somewhat (I know, I know, with all the snow back home, I shouldn't complain,
but too much of anything is not good).
I've reacted the worst physically with a honking
fever blister that is the most severe I've ever had; two weeks into it, I'm
still bleeding out (lips bleed a lot, you know), and having quite a bit of
healing to do. I hate them, and they
always seem to show up (about twice a year) when I'm going to be seeing people.
Argh! So, from now on, I'm going to be
the dork on the beach with white zinc oxide lips (wish it were the 60s again
where this might not look so weird!).
Cappy and I walked to the Old Bahia Honda Bridge
(closed to public use in 1972) to enjoy the view of the harbor and the
oceanside. This bridge was built by
Henry Flagler (he of railroad fame here in Florida). It has two tiers; the bottom was the railroad
bridge and built first starting in 1905.
The upper tier was a road for vehicles and added in 1938 as part of the
original overseas highway. Because of
material failure, the bridge was finally closed in 1972.
I don't know the story behind the open span except
that maybe after an initial failure on the bridge, it was taken down to allow
larger vessels or those with masts to pass through to gain access to the
park. I'll have to check that out,
though.
We've decided to stay the extra day, even if we have
to motor to Marathon tomorrow. I think
it will be worth it as we'll explore more of the island via land and sea,
especially because we have no mooring to go yet in Marathon. (Except, I had forgotten that we were going
to meet friends in Marathon and we missed them; darn!)
With the extra time, Elliott had the opportunity to
fulfill a wish he'd had for some time; turn the dinghy into a sailing
vessel. He took out whisker pole and
strapped it to the bench, we'll that's what he and I did. When Gary came out to inspect, he added the
lines necessary to hold it up and to hold a sail. They took my double camping hammock and used
that for a perfunctory sail, though Gary had to hold it with arms wide apart to
get any wind. It worked fairly well,
though we think that Gary's back suffered worse for it as he developed a
horrible back twinge.
He got some good rest and healed up fine. We swam and enjoyed the temperate waters. We got over to the ocean side for a walk one day and it was terrific! No waves, the shallows went out forever, and the mood there was fine and happy. Overdosing on beauty, we decided to dinghy out to an outlying rocky island to check it out. The guys wanted to find lobster, but I went for the photos. It's an interesting place, but mostly a bird boneyard, unfortunately. Circle of life, gotta remember the circle of life! No lobsters to be seen, but they stayed out a long time circling around and around to see everything.
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