Sheet Music 323: Docked at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park

Yesterday, Pam from Treasure Harbor took Patti and me to the Verizon Wireless store in Tavernier, which is right down the street from where we stayed last time. Patti and I had walked to that shopping center before.

Right before we left, Chuck decided to take a a dinghy ride and wanted to take Jazzy. She was walking on the pontoon and slipped off and swam back to me on the sailboat. It's a good thing I was there. She was swimming to fast, he couldn't row fast enough to catch her!

When he reached the sailboat, I put her back in the dinghy and off they went down the lagoon. She was fine until they got into the channel. When they got to open water, she freaked out and he had to turn around. She calmed right down when he got near land again.

Anyway, I mailed a package home and went to get a new high-end Global phone that I could use to get online in the Bahamas since my broadband card would cost me a fortune to use. They didn't carry global phones since no one buys them at that location. So, looks like I will have to do that in Miami when we stay in Dinner Key. I'm leaning toward the HTC Touch Pro 2. It's windows based.

We walked back to the marina, which was nearly five miles. Our feet and our bodies were hurting when we got back. I gave Jazzy a bath and combed and dried her. The guys were hungry, so we walked down the street to Chilli-Willie's and ate dinner. I had ribs and Chuck had grilled shrimp. Delicious. The guys had dessert. We went back to the boat and Patti came over for coffee.

We were up and at 'em his morning to ready to leave. We left Treasure Harbor Marina at 10:10 a.m. We were only going 18 miles, but high tide was at 8 a.m. and low was at 2 p.m. And it gets really low at Treasure Harbor. We saw 2 ft. 8 in. for a split second at one point. Another hour, we wouldn't have been able to get out of there.

We were in 2 ft. seas and it was very choppy. Winds were NE at 17-18 knots with gusts to 21. Our SOG was 5.2. Temp was 70.9 and sea level pressure was 30.2, unchanged. Water temp was 75.9. We were back in pretty blue water.

At 11:15 a.m., we pulled the main sail to the first reef to help stabilize us. SOG was still 5.2, but it was a smoother ride. At buoy MLRF1 winds were 14.3 from the East with gusts to 16 knots.

The canal into John Pennekamp is shallow and rocky, so we took it slow. We arrived around 2 p.m. The slips are nosed in with pilings that are made for smaller boats, so they hit around our dodgers. We have to climb over the anchor hold to step onto the dock like we did in Key West. Patti and I have to practice our pole dancing skills to get onto the dock!

At left, Bum's Rest in the slip.

I'm sitting in the cockpit typing this in capri jeans and a T-shirt. It's a beautiful, sunny day.

We're looking at kayakers getting instructions on the bank. There are boats and a big catamaran taking divers out to the reef. We'll be here a few days and will probably take one of our boats out to snorkel the reef.