We actually got the sails up since we weren't really in a hurry. I really didn't want to start crossing near the shallower banks before sunrise in the morning. Before dark we put the second reef in both the main and jib, which turned out well because we got some significant wind and a few interesting gusts during the night.
After the sun went down the waves knocked down quite a bit, and by midnight we were down to 1-2 foot, but the wind was also getting pretty weak. About midnight I turned on the engine to give us a boost. This was an interesting exercise because the crab pots didn't go away just because it was dark. We had some close calls, then about 5a there was a bang and the engine stopped dead. I was sure we had wrapped a crab pot line around the prop.
I wasn't able to immediately start the engine, I think because there was still compression in the cylinders. After about 10 minutes I was able to start the engine in neutral. In case it was a crab pot line I went first into dead slow reverse, but everything seemed fine. I put it in forward gingerly and slowly built up the rpms and everything seemed fine again.
This was reassuring, because although the gps said we were miles away, the red lights warning of shallow areas seemed awfully close in the dark. It would have been a good time for the radar, but that was not working again. Even though the lights seemed close, they never seemed to get closer, so I decided the gps's must be right.
There was a glorious sunrise. Our first overnighter with just the two of us.
All was good until another crab pot was spotted too late to avoid. I throttled back into neutral, but the rpms just kept dropping until the engine stopped. This time I couldn't start it again.
There was very little wind, but we really didn't have much of a choice, because we were still miles and miles from Marathon. We shook out the reefs and our speed zoomed up to about three knots, kind of a fast walk. We dodged the shallow banks and eventually got near the intercoastal on the gulf side of Marathon. We called the trusty TowBoat US again because sailing under the narrow bridge gap to get to the Atlantic side or into the harbor without running aground seemed like asking too much from our current skills, and the wind was dying.
After rescuing a jet-ski they were right over and dragged our sorry butts into the harbor. We connected onto a mooring ball. After taking the dinghy to the office and checking in we had some dinner, then went back to the boat to sleep for 10-12 hours. It wasn't all pretty, but we were here.
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