Hi, Wayne, and group,

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:14:30 -0500, "Skip Gundlach" skipgundlach at
gmail dotcom wrote:

We expect to sail it straight through; the main portion of the trip is
pretty straightforward, but getting through the shoals around the west
side
are enough to make us wonder if it can really be done.

I assume you are talking about the west side of Marathon south of the
bridge? The bridge at Moser Channel has 65 ft at high tide so you
should be OK there.

Well, technically, as to the bridge, we're talking about the closest point
under the road to Key West in order to make our transit as short as
possible. The subject shoals are on the St. Pete side of the bridge, which
we assume to be mile marker 5 or some such. All the looking at paper and
electronic charts have not been very definitive about how to make that
happen successfully, and there seem to be several points where bridges are
high enough, which surprises me.


From the bridge go south about .75 nm to R2 before turning ENE towards
FL G '1' at the Marathon channel entrance. That will take you south of
Pigeon Key Banks and north of the 6 ft spot. We have no problem with
5 1/2 feet, lots of water. The real challenge is finding a place to
anchor or moor in Boot Key Harbor. You might be better off to just
get a dock for the night.

Is that the area south of Marathon, with a large shallows area across from
it? If so, that's where we hung our hook on the CCW direction trip.


If you don't want to do the run non-stop, Venice is a good stop over,
as is Ft Myers Beach or Marco Island.

Heh. Unless Venice has dredged, their ICW channel is from hunger - or, more
likely, starvation!, putting it charitably. We went aground a half dozen
times trying to follow directions (in the ICW!) to get to the yacht club.
We gave up and tied up at the restaurant/fuel supply. The next morning, we
went hard (fortunately we were pulled off by a monster sportfish delivery
captain we'd chatted up at dinner) aground, again in the channel, right
across from the fuel dock. I can't speak to the others...


If you really want to give FL the slip, run non-stop to the Bahamas.
Once you leave the marina in St Pete there will be no record of you
anywhere unless you transit a drawbridge at some point. Your entry
documents in the Bahamas will document your timing if it should ever
become an issue, which is unlikely in my opinion. Once you are over 3
miles offshore I believe you are technically out of state.

Probably - but the point isn't to flee, but instead prove to the folks in
Tallahassee that we're not using or enjoying our boat in FL, thus escaping
the multithousand dollar privilege of buying it in FL. So, our entry point
documents is a good thought, though, as it most certainly will become an
issue - we'll mail them a copy, rather than our fuel receipt. Hm. Maybe.
Do the entry documents include the boat, or just the people? And, given the
very narrow window available, we want to do that directly - and hope that we
can time the winds right...

Thanks.

L8R

Skip


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
http://tinyurl.com/384p2 The vessel as Tehamana, as we bought her

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain