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!