A Night in the Mangroves

We left you dear readers in Marathon.  There we had several sets of familial visitors which we enjoyed over the holidays and into early January.  The installation of the new E120W Chartplotter went well and we struck out up island toward Miami at the first opportunity...about  a week and a half ago (my watch has been idle since arriving here).  We  met two other Canadian couples with similar destination goals and set off in a small flotilla with Captain Ron (yes!) and Jan aboard their  45 foot Gulfstar S/V Wind Warrior and Captain Peter (also a Chef!) and France aboard their 39ft Mainship Trawler.  The first night we made Angelfish Creek, about 2/3 the way to Miami.  After a convivial time aboard the trawler, we tried to row back to our boat which was down current.  We blew right by it, this being the first time Brenda had rowed the rubber beast we call Manana.  Then we lost an oar and by the time we retrieved it we had blown by the other boat anchored in a side creek east of us...we were headed out to sea!...I took over the rowing task and got us back to  within 50 feet of our boat  but the current was so strong we could not achieve the boat...We rowed to the Mangroves and hung on, thinking we might be spending the night with the crab who jumped in the boat....Ron & Jan heard us, called out and came  with their dingy, avec motoer.  Lesson learned...pay close attention to tides and currents currents before setting off.