The long-awaited trailer arrived on schedule and is officially ours. However, given the weather up north, we're not in too much of a hurry to put it to use to go there. In the meantime, we continue to work out plans and devices to make trailering and getting the boat ready to trailer easier. Despite a number of goodbyes, we continue to meet new faces or re-connect with some familiar ones.

Getting Ready

The trailer wasn't in the dealer's lot long before we were over there checking it out. It lived up to expectations – well-built, with all the features we had ordered. There were some pleasant surprises as well. The extended tongue was a well-built 2nd hitch, easy to connect to the truck ball mount and strong as well. When lining the truck up with the trailer tongue, it appears we will only need a simple ball mount, without any drops in it. The dealer agreed to hold the trailer in his lot until we were ready to leave.

Putting the boat on the trailer is only the first step in getting ready to hit the road. Probably the next biggest step is lowering the mast. (It's hard to travel down the roat 35 ft tall.). To lower the mast we decided that we wanted a gin pole.

What, you may ask, is a gin pole?

When raising and lowering a mast, it's helpful to have something to give you more leverage for both control and to help manage the weight of the mast as it is coming down. When the mast is horizontal or vertical, gravity is working to keep it in place, but any angle in-between and it can be very heavy,. A gin pole provides the leverage to get the mast to vertical (when raising) or to horizontal (when lowering) and doing it under control.. The pole is attached to the mast at its base at a 90 degree angle, with lines at the far end that attach both to the top of the mast (i.e., a halyard) and to a cleat or winch on the deck. The latter is a pulley with a 5:1 purchase that controls the movement of the whole assembly, making it easier to move the weight of the mast. 

To make the pole, we took a 10ft pressure treated 2 x 4. Using a 3" hole saw, we drilled out one end of the board and turned this into a U shape that exactly fitted the mast. Then we installed eye-bolts on either side on this end of the board to enable it to be secured to the mast. On the opposite end, we installed 2 u-bolts, one on top and one on bottom to attach the halyard (top) and the pulley (bottom). We'll use a ratchet strap to attach the board to the mast.

As the mast moves up and down it's also important to keep it and the gin pole centered. The shrouds (metal cables that support the mast on the sides) will help with this, but the gin pole also needs some support side-to-side. Dave created 2 of these supports, one for each side of the gin pole. He spliced some rope onto 2 clips that would attach to the toe rail and a ring that is centered between them and a line that attaches to the pole. These lines wiill function as shrouds for the gin pole.

Since trailering the boat will require a number of steps to set-up and take down, we wanted to simplify the process by removing the PVC arch that held our rigid solar panels. We had already upgraded the panels on the bimini with this in mind. Also, before leaving LaBelle, a fellow cruiser with som amazing skils and tools had drilled holes in 2 of our stainless steel bimini support poles to hold our cockpit speakers. Once in Marathon, we finally decided to wean ourselves from the abundance of solar power we were getting from all the panels (370 watts down to 240) and sell the rigid panels. A fellow cruiser snapped them up along with the arch with plans to use them either on his boat or back on his land in Tennessee. In the meantime, we're still pretty flush with power and the generator (which we hadn't needed at all since leaving LaBelle) is still not getting much use.

So, we're getting closer to having everything ready for the big day when boat and trailer get together for the first time. We just need the weather furtner north to warm up first.

Shopping, Sightseeing and Socializing

We made our annual trek to Key West on St. Patrick's Day, taking advantage of a bus fare holiday for the round trip. Needless to say, there were lots of people wearing green, some of them more distinctive than others. We took in a new attraction for the first time, Key West now has its first legal rum distillery. It was right there, just off Duval Street in an old bottling plant. Who knew? On the walls of the show room were the pictures of some of their predecessors (mug shots that is) that put an emphasis on their new "legal" status.

We also made a couple of road trips, visiting Big Pine Key for the Flea Market and seeing its "Blue Hole" for first time. The latter was an interesting find, despite it not being "blue". It was an abandoned quarry that had filled with a fresh water lens on top of salt water. The water was very clear and we saw turtles, fish, birds and an alligator. We also visited with Larry and Lynn from Two Morrows who are now land cruising. We met them at Burdines for lunch and then drove down to Cudjoe Key to see their new digs.

Back in Marathon, we took in some more free seminars – one at Marathon Boatyard on fiberglass repair and another back at the marina on Trojan batteries. Both were done by very knowledgeable folks. The fiberglass session was especially interesting in seeing the repair go from its raw state to finished gelcoat. Oh and did we mention there was free food at this one as well? We finally made it over to the SSCA lunch at Hurricanes only to find it was the biggest gathering they had ever had there (45 to 50 people). We're also getting more involved at church. Dave managed to hook up the pastor from a church in Cuba that the church sponsors with local boaters who travel regularly to Cuba. There is hope that this will develop into a lasting relationship. They even had us serve communion one Sunday. It's getting harder to hide on the back pew any more.

And we've also managed to turn our "trash into cash" as they say on the morning Cruiser's Net, having sold a number of things that were cluttering up Orion and the attic of our daughter and friend Steve. Besides the solar panels, we managed to sell a Fortress anchor, one of our Raleigh bikes, a winch cleaning kit, a Bahamas cell phone, and a set of 12V lights. Maybe we should look at more of the stuff we have stored away. . . At any rate, through the contacts over the sales, we've made more friends and they all seem to be happy with their new goods. 

So Long, Farewell, Fair Winds

Late March usually finds us watching the weather looking for winds to carry us back north. Not so this year, but we still have lots of neighbors looking for weather to leave either north up the coast, east to the Bahamas, south to Cuba or west to Mexico. In a fit of spite, winter's last gasp has thrown up a series of fronts that have been kicking up the winds and making departure difficult. However, by month-end we have seen the mooring balls around us empty out and we have said goodbye to a number of firends for another year. 

Marathon is a large boater community, especially during "cruising season" in the winter months. No matter what you are doing, you are likely to strike up a conversation with someone new, which can lead to a new friendship. As we went about our activities here, we've met some new friends that remind us why we like to go cruising.

Marathon Seafood Festival

It started slowly. We would talk to somebody about their plans. Ask if they were staying for the Seafood Festival – Marathon's BIG event. Encourage them to volunteer to work the festival. And then we (or actually Dave) ended up getting their information and signing them up to work. As the list grew, we realized that we could help by picking up the T-shirts that each would need to wear to gain entrance to the festival. We could now cover the 5 miles up the Chamber of Commerce on wheels, making the journey manageable. So Dave started making daily calls to the volunteer coordinators, asking what they needed and then announcing the info on the Cruisers Net.  

By Thursday afternoon before the festival, we were dinghying around the harbor, delivering 30 shirts ahead of a front that was causing the winds to rise and tornado warnings to be issued. By Friday afternoon, after a 2nd trip (this time by bike) to pick up a missing shirt, we were satisfied that everyone had what they needed and our only job left to do was to show up at the festival. The front cooled temperatures and made for a pleasant circuit through the vendors tents before our shift on Saturday. By mid-afternoon, we were hard at work breading fish (wet hand for the uncoated fish, dry hand for the breaded fish) and continued with various tasks of this sort until the food tent closed for the evening 6 hours later. Good thing we had plenty of sustenance in the form for fish, shrimp, clams and crab throughout our extended shift.


In talking to the various volunteers we had recruited, they all seemed to have enjoyed themselves, and we noted there were a lot of cruisers in this year's gold volunteer shirts. They really make a difference in helping pull off this annual festival.

Boat Stuff

We've had a few "incidents" on Orion Jr and in the dinghy with a pinched fuel line failing to deliver in critical moments, causing the outboard to stall. Dave finally was able to order enough length of the fuel line that is strong enough to keep from collapsing and causing these problems. Within a few hours of its arrival, he had re-plumbed both Jr's fuel locker and the dinghy's fuel tanks. That should hopefully put an end to the fuel starvation due to a pinched hose. Cathy did a little more sewing – another shade for the cockpit, putting a pocket for our dinghy light on the PFD bag, and a couple of other re-stitches. However, most of our boat work is more routine: fetching water, cleaning the bottom of both Orion Jr and the dinghy once a week, etc. 

There is still a lot of time spent researching the considerations for trailering the boat: raising and lowering the mast, covering it for trailering; supporting the mast while its down, etc. There will be more on those topics as we turn the research into solutions.

Spending Time with Friends
We were taking our bikes out of the rack, when Randy and Sherri were doing the same. That led to a conversation and get-together on their boat, Priorities, to exchange information. They could tell us about the Great Loop, we could tell them about the East Coast trip they were about to take to complete their first circuit back to Michigan. Since then, we joined them as "guides" to Sombrero Reef for a beautiful snorkel and enjoyed $1 tacos at Hurricanes and, of course, volunteered together at the Seafood Festival. And while Dave consulted with Randy on some of his boat systems, Sherri cut Cathy's hair. It's how it happens in crusing, and especially in Marathon.

We volunteered to help with a couple of dinners at church and got to know some other folks there, some of whom are former boaters that "took root" here in Marathon. There's also Roger and Dorothy who gave us a ride to Miami. We recruited them for the seafood festival and found ourselves breading fish together for several hours.

And the connections multiply. As many of the boaters are beginning to leave the harbor, we encourage those heading north to stop by Hampton. Despite their leaving ahead of us. We'll almost surely beat them there and can grab their dock lines when they arrive. It will be fun to catch up again with new friends that are fast becoming old friends.