Day 54 - Key Largo to Homestead - Critters on Board

We wanted to stay one more day at Marina Del Mar to bask by the pool but Captain Randy, who is always attentive to the weather, announced a change in plans due to the gale force winds predicted for the next day.  It was a calm, radiant day, promising a smooth trip to our final destination for this leg of our journey, Homestead.  What a contrast to the -50 degree wind chill going on in Chicago, a fact we tried to push out of our minds. 

On our way at 11:10 a.m. (after finishing up the laundry - the next marina does not have laundry facilities) and announcing our exit via “crash corner.”  There was almost no wind and the Atlantic was almost flat.  The humidity was high though and it was murky on the ocean.  The visible shoreline was mostly trees and other vegetation, breaking now and then for homes, low condominium properties, and perhaps a few small businesses.  We could not see any beaches, although there were likely small ones sprinkled in.

We reached Angelfish Creek, our passage from the Atlantic to the intracostal and then to the marina inlet, at 12:20 p.m., close to high tide as was our plan.  Our local friends had told us about the shallow water here and at the inlet, and we watched the depth gauge very closely. 

 

 

 Just outside the inlet were 4 Coast Guard boats with 50 caliber guns mounted on the bows that appeared to be doing some type of drill.  I did not want to get in their way!  We crept cautiously through the channel markers, watching the depth go as low as 4 feet before coming back up to about 7 feet.  The Coast Guard followed us in a few minutes later to pull their boats out of the water at the marina's launch ramp. 

 

As we glided into Herbert Hoover Marina at Bayfront Park, we saw our friend Chuck waiting to help us in.

After helping us tie in Kristin Says, Chuck told us he was leaving.  As Chuck and Captain Randy were standing on the dock discussing our plans for the evening, we heard a voice calling from the locked entrance to the dock, “Can someone please let me in?  The marina gave me the wrong key and I have to get some raccoons off a boat before it starts to rain.”  Raccoons?  On a boat?  This was a scenario none of us had heard of before.  Chuck let the young man in and decided to stay for the show.  The man walked to a large bridge boat docked a few slips away from us named Trident.  The three of us moved closer, but not too close, to watch.  I asked how many raccoons were on board and where were they?  The man answered that he didn’t know.  We asked where they were on the boat and he again answered he did not know.  Armed only with gloves and protective eyewear, he started opening hatches on the back deck.  Suddenly he got very quite.  We stepped closer.  He then laid down on his stomach and reached into one of the hatches.  We heard squealing and hissing as he pulled out 4 baby raccoons.  The raccoon man had placed a cage on the deck before starting to look for the critters and he now placed the babies, one by one, into the cage.  He told us they were only about 2-3 months old.  The obvious question now was where is the mother?  Raccoon man placed a paper “cover” behind the vent where it appeared that “mam raccoon” was using to get in and out.  If the paper is disturbed, then mama raccoon has been back.  He told us that the babies would be well cared for and then released back into the wild when they were big enough.  We were not fully convinced of this, but they sure could not be left on the boat.

 

The show was over so Chuck left with a promise to return in a few hours with his wife Pam to take us to dinner.  When we walked down the dock to the car later, we noticed that the paper was moved; mama raccoon had been back.  The four of us went to Portofino’s for wood-fired pizza. After we returned from dinner, Captain Randy and I cautiously walked down the dock to our boat on the lookout for a very mad mama raccoon.  Thankfully we did not run into her.  Captain Randy went below to watch some TV and check the weather reports for tomorrow, and I sat on the upper helm area, talking to my Dad on the phone.  It was not long before I was startled by the sight of a panicked mama raccoon racing down the dock past our boat, then turning around and running back.  I let Captain Randy know and he saw her tail as she climbed up the stairs of Trident, to the bridge.  He then zipped our rear canvas door shut.  We did not want to see mama raccoon on our boat, that’s for sure.  The stowaway tree frog back on the Tombigbee Waterway we could handle, but a large angry raccoon was another story!