August 10, 2009

I was going to write that today was pretty much an uneventful day – shame on me for thinking ahead. We left Cabbage Key as the sun rose and, once again, there was no wind. Not only was there no wind, there were no seas. Seriously, today would have been a great day to water ski, not sail. But our good ‘ol Ford Lehman is passing its test and getting us where we need to go. So, we are once again under way and headed toward Marco Island. Just before Big Marco Pass there is an island on the chart called Coconut Island with plenty of water on the east side to anchor, so we decided we must go there, mainly because it’s called Coconut Island.

Since we had no wind and couldn’t sail, Harry decided he cannot stay on the record as catching nothing but catfish, so he put two lines out and we started trolling. We had a couple of seagulls interested in our lures, but soon the Spanish Mackerel hit the magic spoon. Yeah, this spoon catches everything. I pulled back the throttle and Harry pulled in a nice Spanish. It was less than a minute after he put the line back in the water that another Mackerel hit and voila, we had dinner. We were on a roll and thinking, it doesn’t get any better than this, until I tried to give her some gas and get us back up to speed. I pushed the throttle forward and got nothing. Harry was still on the aft deck cleaning the fish, so I shouted back to him that we have a problem, I have no throttle. Harry climbed down into the engine room and tried to move the throttle arm and give her some gas, but it wouldn’t budge. So there we were, a few miles offshore from Naples, with no wind and no throttle. Hmmmm. When all else fails, call Zach. So we did and he told us where to disconnect the throttle cable and once we do, we should be able to move the arm. We did, and it worked. Once we got the throttle arm to move, we rigged up a wire and line, put her at about 2100 rpms, tied off the line, set our course, fired up the auto pilot and headed to Coconut Island. We thought about trying to get another cable and get it fixed in Marco Island, which may set us back several days, especially if they don’t have the cable we need. But then realized that we really have this under control. We are running fine, and able to control the throttle, and tomorrow we’ll be running a rum line (straight line) to Key West, so why delay? We can get into Key West and get everything taken care of without having to rush. So that was that – Coconut Island and then Key West…

Coconut Island. Let’s see, what can I say about Coconut Island. To begin with, there are markers everywhere which make it practically impossible to navigate using them. And we didn’t see an island. All we could see was a sandbar off of an island lined with condos. We used our Maptech chart on the computer and it was showing us going in behind Coconut Island – but where the hell was the island??? We were looking for a nice little remote island lined with coconut palms, but it wasn’t there. Turns out Coconut Island is nothing but a sandbar. How it made the charts I have no idea. So, we dropped the hook and sat in the cockpit looking at a flat hunk of sand and condos. It was good enough for us, as we were ready to enjoy our catch of the day and then call it a night. After enjoying our dinner, I climbed into the aft cabin to relax when I suddenly heard the buzz of mosquitoes. Up to this point mosquitoes had not been a problem, even when we anchored amongst the mangroves between Useppa Island and Cabbage Key. But tonight, at this tiny little sandbar, here they were. We put the screened companionway doors in that Harry’s brother Eddie busted his butt to finish for us before we left, I rubbed myself down with Skin So Soft and bug spray (bugs love me), climbed under a sheet and went to bed.