Greetings from Marathon

A post by Mark

Hi from Marathon FL – the heart of the FL Keys

Marathon was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Irma. Something like 150 or 200 boats were destroyed in the harbor, the marina docks got pretty banged up, and the town itself was pretty badly damaged. That being said — the folks here have done a really great job rebuilding. While it is clear that ‘something’ happened here, Marathon is definately ‘open for business’ and a great place to visit. From the stories we’re hearing, the way the community here came together to help rebuild was beyond amazing. And I believe it… To a person, the folks we have met here have been among the friendliest, most down to earth, and generally great people we have met on our trip.

Sally recently wrote about our impromptu snorkeling trip — courtesy of our new friend Jon — so I won’t rehash the whole story. However, let me tell you about the few hours before the trip — interesting times….

Since Santa brought us a newer, larger dinghy for Christmas, we were looking to sell our old one. In Naples, we connected with a guy in Ohio (Dave) who was on his way back to Marathon and was looking for a dinghy. We arranged to meet Dave’s friend Jon in Marathon – and if Jon liked the boat, he would buy it from us. Turns out, Jon has been helping Dave rebuild his sailboat after Irma (and done a lot of good work so far). So, we met Jon – super nice guy. He lives here in the winter, and in NJ in the summer. Jon and I took the dinghy for a pretty long ride to test it out. On the ride, he showed me the beach, a good snorkeling spot, and gave me a list of other places to check out. As I would have expected, the dinghy rode like a charm — not a single hiccup — until we were about 30 seconds from the dock at Jon’s house. That’s when the engine decided to just stop. No warning, no bad sounds, no smoke, no sputtering… just humming along one minute, dead as a doornail the next. A few pulls of the cord — nothing. Are you kidding me? With Jon’s help, we get the engine started and limp back to his dock. Luckily, he knows a lot about outboards, and pretty quickly, we determine it was a clogged fuel filter. A quick clean of the filter, and the engine ran like a champ again. We take another ride around the harbor — this time with me, Lucy, and Sally following in our new dinghy just in case. Everything went as smooth as can be, Jon was convinced that the engine was cured, and decided to buy it. Phew…. As we were drifting around just out of reach of his dock, I was pretty sure I had lost the sale!

As if making the sale wasn’t ‘good enough’, our day got even better – when Jon generously offered to bring our family snorkeling at a reef about 6 miles offshore (Sombrero Reef). Since Sally did a good job describing our snorkeling adventure, I’ll move along…

The rest of our time has been good here – although the girls are a bit bummed that there aren’t any kids here. Turns out, we were a day or two late getting here – as a bunch of boats (and a few with kids aboard) left the day we arrived. We’ve been here a week now – waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. Fingers crossed – we think we may be able to leave the end of the week or early next week. While we are looking forward to going, there are worse places to be ‘stuck’ than Marathon – and we are thankful for that.

Until next time (hopefully, written from the sunny Bahamas),
Mark