Lawn Art

This post is dedicated to some of the art we have seen during this trip down the ICW.  Art is in the eye of the viewer.  Art can be an act of expression, a statement, or something that evokes feelings.  My favorite description when I searched for the meaning of art was “...a way to expand the human experience.”  I felt that statement was fitting for this post.  We are sharing these art experiences with you.  Again, I will be totally transparent regarding my lack of art knowledge (just like geography and history, and many would argue my grasp of the English language😉).  I started this art journey by reflecting about what each piece said about the person who selected and displayed that item in their yard.  I realized that approach took away from the art, and instead I decided to focus on how each piece made me feel.  I will share a few of my feelings, but I invite you to assign your own feelings/titles to each piece.

Deep Sea Dreams

Creepy (like Silence of the Lambs creepy)

Venus Fly Trap

Absolute Freedom

I’m Not Talking to You!

Olympic Hopeful

Crocodile Rock

WT# (I have no words)

The Meaning of Life (and I’m not talking about the huge bar in the background)

What Do You See?

I’m So Hungry...I Could Eat That Fan

I’m Your Huckleberry

Tick-Tock


Horseshoe Magic

Sooo Much Fun

Keep Your Eyes on the Spinning Loops...You are Getting Sleepy

Bogie at 9 O’clock

I Assure You...I am not a Manatee

Reflection (This is my favorite piece! I absolutely love the distorted reflections...the colors and images.)

Nike of Samothrace - Winged Victory (when I saw this piece I was intrigued by the ‘headless angel’, and even though I had no idea what I was looking at I felt that I probably should know.  Clearly this isn’t an old pirate or gorilla someone found at a yard sale.  So I Googled it...

“The Winged Victory of Samothrace is a marble Hellenistic sculpture of Nike (the Greek goddess of victory), that was created in the 2nd century BC.  Since 1884, it has been displayed at the Louve and is one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world”

Well now I feel really stupid for not knowing about this sooner.  Clearly art does expand the human experience!

Navigating by the Seat...

I’ll bet you thought I was going to say, ‘by the seat of your pants’.  Negative, I was not going to say that, but let me add a disclaimer before I explain.  Right Hand Life is a blog meant to share the experiences and findings of our journey, with friends and family.  Sometimes our findings are unusual.  This post will highlight one of those unusual findings, but please don’t judge me for the content.  It is what it is!

The title of this post is, Navigating by the Seat of a Toilet!

Here’s how the story goes...

Many years ago a resident was frustrated with the amount of time it took him to travel around the mangrove islands so he used his 50 hp outboard engine to ‘dredge’ a cut near his home.  It took him a long time, but his persistence paid off and he marked his new channel with a few pieces of pipe.  Hurricane Donna hit the area in 1960 and left, in her wake, a toilet seat hanging from one of the pipes.  The locals were impressed, and so started the tradition of ‘Toilet Seat Cut’.  Many people have since decorated toilet seats and added them to the cut.

Please note...we did not take Right Hand through this cut.  We spotted the poles (and what we thought might be toilet seats) through binoculars on our way to Islamorada.  Since we were anchoring a few miles south of this location, we brought the Whaler back the next day to investigate.

Some are rather artistic.

This particular one caught my eye, and I thought about the person I have always believed to be Ocean City MD’s #1 fan.  Watch out Skip, it looks like Odachowski is trying to take your title!

Now this is the way to take a tour!

Today my favorite color is blue!  We are heading to Marathon, and the weather is fabulous so we are traveling outside the islands to remove the worry of shallow water.

As we enter Marathon harbor we quickly identify the ‘free parking’ area.  Yikes...no thanks!  They are calling for strong winds for the next several days and we do not want to chance this flotilla breaking loose and ramming us.  However, the next portion of the harbor is packed with mooring balls. We took a guess of at least 1,000.  We have never seen so many boats in one place.  We decided to go outside the harbor entrance to anchor.  While the island gave us pretty good protection from the wind there was a swell coming around the island that made our stay a little rolly (that is actually what it is called so don’t question my grammar on this...you know who you are).

This is how we transport everything we need.  Today, we happen to need lumber.

And bananas! How many can we actually eat?

Keith has moved the water maker project up in priority since we are now moving into locations where water is no longer free, but 5 cents isn’t bad.

1) Never bite off more than you can chew!

2) Are your eyes bigger than your stomach?

3) Heimlich?

All joking aside, this poor guy underestimated the ‘new’ weight of his head, and he body slammed into the top of this piling while trying to land.  It was a startling sight until he recovered (very ungracefully)...then it was super funny!

This is the mooring field inside the harbor at Marathon.  I count at least a thousand.

After a very hectic day of running errands in Marathon we decide to stop at a fabulous waterfront restaurant for a mimosa and key lime pie dinner.  We actually stopped here on our way in for a late lunch, and just couldn’t fit the pie so...flexibility is the key to happiness!

Heading back to our anchorage...amazing!

Lovin’ the 80s

I’m not talking about the decade, I’m talking about the temperature!  We have had 7 consecutive days of 80+ degrees, and the forecast remains the same for the foreseeable future. It feels fantastic to get up every morning and dress in shorts and t-shirts!  

Since we are able to sit on the top deck every evening, we are able to witness beautiful things.

We were anchored in Tarpon Basin in Key Largo for 6 days.  We originally selected this anchorage for the great protection the mangroves offered from strong northerly and easterly winds, which blew for 5 days.  It was also fairly deep (8 feet) for this area, which has been an eye opening experience.  However, when we first arrived at the site and dropped the anchor we noticed a very strange sight.  We always put the boat in reverse to slowly play out the anchor chain, but when Keith put the boat in reverse a cloud of sediment got swept up from the bottom, accompanied by dozens of jelly fish.  Suddenly there were jellyfish everywhere when clearly there hadn’t been any before we put the boat in reverse.  Once we got anchored and things settled down we could see the bottom again, and it looked like there were hundreds of upside down jellyfish on the bottom!

The wind was still strong so instead of snorkeling from the boat, we decided to take the Whaler to the mangrove line where the water was totally calm.  We were also anxious to try out our new full face snorkel masks.


Cassiopea, also known as upside-down jelly fish.  That Google is an amazing thing😏!  I actually searched ‘upside down jellyfish’ and it popped right up.  Here’s what Wikipedia says...

“Cassiopea (upside-down jellyfish) is a genus of true jellyfish and the only member of the family Cassiodeidae.  They are found in warmer coastal regions around the world, including Florida, the Caribbean and Micronesia.  The medusa usually lives upside-down on the bottom, which has earned them the common name.  These jellyfish partake in a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic dinoflagellates and therefore, must lay upside-down in areas with sufficient light penetration to fuel there energy source.  Where found, there may be numerous individuals with varying shades of white, blue, green, and brown.”

That is too cool! If all jellyfish stayed on the bottom, and didn’t float around stinging people, they would be much more popular!

They do swim like ‘normal’ jellyfish if they get disturbed from the bottom (like when an idiot anchors on them and hits they with prop wash) or if they just need to move for better light.  They are not attached to the bottom, and appear to only be resting there.  However, even when they are on the bottom the medusa still pulsates gently.

A lonely starfish in a world of upside down jellys.

All sorts of interesting plants attach to the roots on the mangrove, especially on the outside edge where there is still plenty of sunlight.

You can clearly see the mangrove roots at the bottom of this picture.  I will admit that I was not thrilled about swimming under the mangroves.  I was very surprised to see that there was still 3-4 feet of water under the mangroves.  They seem to be held up by the roots...I didn’t know that!

The fish love to hang out under the mangroves...me...not so much! When that ‘hairy root’ brushed my arm, I was out of there!

But Keith enjoyed hanging out in the dark with the fishes!

Once again it is time to move on. Today we are heading to Islamorada.  The water is beautiful with, at least, 10 shades of blues and greens at any given moment.

The view straight down from the upper deck while underway. Clean water!

But VERY shallow!  In my previous boating life I would get alarmed if the depth under our keel (which is 4.5 ft under the surface) went below 3 feet.  If the depth finder read 2 feet I would usually decrease the throttle to idle speed and look to retreat, with serious concerns of running aground.  Here we are surprised to see anything deeper than 6 feet (total) and running with only 1 foot under the keel has become our norm, but 3 inches was a first!  I will confess to doing a happy dance when the depth returned to 12 inches under the keel.

This is what happens when we have less than 1.5 ft under the keel.  You can see the path of sediment stirred up by our props.

I know you see a lot of dolphins, but this was a baby...and he/she jumped completely out of the water.  It wasn’t until I downloaded the pictures did I realize that this baby has been hit by a boat.  If you enlarge the picture you can see a clean cut in his dorsal fin, and prop marks of his back.  After an experience like that, why would they want to chase our boat to play in the wave??

Anchored in Islamorada.  

Water Colors

Our trip from Peck Lake to Miami was akin to ‘Running the Gauntlet’.  We planned the trip in two legs, which contained a total of 33 bridges that would need to open for us to pass through.  These two days were our least favorite since our adventure began in July.

The first day wasn’t too bad, as we only had to contend with 13 bridges that day and the wind and tides were favorable.  Luckily the tidal range is very small here (1-2 ft compared to 12-14 ft in Maine).

This was the second page of bridges on the second day of this tip, where we had to transit 20 bridges. We quickly realized that seeing our status in writing was the only way to keep up with the demands of this transit.  Some bridges open on the hour and half hour, while others open on the quarter hour and three quarter hour.  One would think it should be easy to cover 3.5 miles in 25 minutes in order to make the next opening, but not if the speed limit is 5 mph for 2 miles.  The bigger problem is just missing the bridge opening.  You definitely DO NOT want to have to hold station for 20 minutes.  On the second day the wind and tide made remaining stationary very difficult!!  Both were working together to push us into the bridge...not fun!  Getting your timing down can be tricky when you take into consideration the numerous manatee zones along this route.  I don’t want to sound judgmental, but the manatee seem to be very elitist!  Apparently, they much prefer to hang out in the canals surrounded by mansions, as opposed to the canals with all other types of residences...at least that’s what the manatee speed zone postings would lead you to believe.

I was also surprised to learn that I needed to take the location of the President into consideration when planning this transit!

If you are in the market for a new waterfront home, this happens to be available😉

Yikes, six years in jail for speeding??  Luckily, our boat can’t speed😁

Fort Lauderdale is where the magic happened.  There was a clear transition to amazing water colors!

You can see the actual line from dark water to bright aqua blue.  

You take a picture of me...I take a picture of you.

A few minutes after the helicopter passed this seaplane landed.  Very busy airspace!

This is not the way anyone wants to arrive in Miami!  Thank goodness for Sea Tow!

Finally, we are anchored behind Virginia Key with good protection from the northerly winds and a great view of Miami.  We are exhausted from the ‘run of the gauntlet’, and we both agree that we will never take that route again.  The next time we need to transit this area it will be in the ocean! Tomorrow we plan to Uber (for the first time ever) into Miami to pick up the new life raft we ordered at the Annapolis Sailboat show.

Miami art...nice!

We arrived at Datrex to pick up our life raft, and they gave us a tour of the operation.  It was wonderful to see the care they put into packing each raft.  Life rafts must be certified every 3 years, and we were able to see the process of testing and repacking.

After our second Uber ride ever...we are back at Dinner Key Marina where they graciously allowed us to use their dinghy dock, even though we were anchored out!  Our mission was a success!

Dinner in the pilot house provided a beautiful skyline view of Miami.

Sunrise in Miami.  We want to get an early start on our trip to Key Largo.

I have never seen stilt houses in the middle of the water, until now.  This is Stiltsville, where there are 7 houses perched on sand flats a mile off the Florida coast, in Biscayne Bay.  There were 27 structures in the 1960’s, but that number has been whittled down due to fires and hurricanes.  The beginning of these structures can be dated back to the end of the prohibition era, allegedly to facilitate gambling which was not allowed within a mile of the coast.  In 1985, this area was declared part of Biscayne National Park which required the houses to be moved, but the park service agreed to let them stay until the lease was up in 1999.  After a lengthy legal battle the park service decided not to destroy the structures, but to preserve them.  Today, a non-profit organization called the Stiltsville trust looks after the remaining seven buildings.

WOW...the water is 25 ft deep and I can see the bottom!

So sad...

Anchoring in Key Largo and we can see a variety of life on the bottom!  I can’t wait to jump in!!!