We made it to Marathon FL!

Time to get caught up on our travels – I’ll continue with our overnight at the Pink Shell Resort and Marina last Wednesday.

This was the desk for the valet service for the marina at The Pink Shell Resort and Marina – very unique!

We had to leave our slip by 11 Thursday morning because another boat had arrived for their reservation for the slip we were in. We’ve discovered this is a very popular time of year for boating down here!

We knew that we wanted to be in Naples Thursday and Friday so I started calling marinas there early Wednesday morning. After spending 45 minutes on the phone and not finding a slip in any of the marinas I called, I decided to try the Naples Yacht Club. Fortunately they have reciprocity with Saugatuck Yacht Club, where we are members, and they were able to give us a side tie by their fuel dock.

A small portion of the clubhouse. They are in the final stages of major remodeling and expansion and it’s gorgeous!

The dockmaster brought some steps over to make it easier for me to get off the boat and gave us good recommendations for nearby restaurants – very friendly and helpful. We were ready for a late lunch when we got there, but before we could go into the clubhouse and get some food, we needed to change – no denim allowed (I was in jean shorts) and Rich needed to put on a collared shirt. In spite of the dress code everyone was very friendly and accepting.

This was the view from the bow of our boat. The boat in the photo was a power catamaran that was probably 60 ft long. For those of you familiar with boats you know that’s a big boat.

We walked into Old Naples downtown Friday for lunch at Campiella’s, an Italian restaurant recommended by the dockmaster. We both had pasta dishes – the pasta is made fresh there every day and you could tell. We were so stuffed after lunch that we didn’t eat dinner that night. That’s one way to cut down on food costs 😊

We didn’t have an exact distance from Naples to Marathon, but we knew it was around 100 miles. We had decided to leave Saturday morning at 7:30 so if we ran into rough waters and needed to slow down, we could still get to the marina before sunset. We got up at 6, got dressed, and then looked out to find dense fog. What the…? We hadn’t seen fog in a long time, so why now when we only had this last day of travel to get to our winter destination??? Luckily, it had burned off enough by 8:30 that we could safely leave. By the time we got down the channel and into the Gulf, there was no more fog and waves were less than one foot. The water remained calm, with it almost like glass for at least a third of the time. The biggest problem we had was dodging crab pots – it was like a mine field of them!

These were the biggest waves we saw until we were just 3 or 4 miles from Marathon, when the winds picked up and the waves got bigger.

Ever since we got to waters where dolphins live, I’ve been on the lookout for them. Rich sees them all the time, but it seems that every time he says “dolphin”, by the time I see where he’s pointing the dolphin has disappeared. There were two or three dolphins off the side of our boat as we were headed to Marathon which I finally got to see close up. They jumped several times, but this is all I could get a photo of.