Key West

For a whopping $1.50 each (senior discount), you can catch a bus from Marathon to Key West!  A 1 1/2 hour ride, but what the heck!  Key West for a $6 round trip total for both of us....you couldn't even park there for that!  So, off we went, in company of Wendy and Warwick and Anita and Charlie, plus a few other cruisers. It's much easier than finding a weather window to sail there (easterly winds, prevalent) and another to sail back (westerly winds, uncommon).

We passed the long, original bridges built by Henry Flagler for his railroad to Key West in the early 1900's, connecting the Keys together. Many segments are still intact, often used as fishing bridges.  The Keys still depend on long bridge spans to bring in the tourists and outside world, but they are newer ones.

Ahhhh, Key West.  The beautiful homes are about the only elegant parts of the island!

This is the oldest house on Key West.  Very beautiful, with nice, cool gardens.

You are much more likely to notice the roosters everywhere.

Of course, where there are roosters, what else do you have?  Chickies, of course!

 

Chickies of a different sort are here, too.  Street performers.

 

 

Luke especially liked this chick - Marilyn Monroe!

 

Wishful thinking...wishing that was MY game fish!  Oh, well, you can pretend.

 

 

As dusk began to slip into Mallory Square in Key West, the street performers began to slip out.

 

 

If one fire juggler is good, two must be better, right?

 

 

Only, this fellow also had a pet pig that somewhat reluctantly participated by sort of running through rings.

 

 

And speaking of pigs....careful, the next picture will burn your eyeballs out!

 

The only bad part of the trip was that I somehow managed to lose my clear glasses.  sigh, I've resorted to wearing my sunglasses all of the time until new ones come in on Tuesday.  That's not much fun after dark.

 

Those glasses will also delay our departure eastward and northward.  It looks like a good weather window will come through on Tuesday, but I guess we will have to wait for the next one.  Oh, well --- getting those glasses will make it all worthwhile!




Marathon, southern FL mecca for cruisers

We made it to Marathon, FL.  This hurricane hole is a mecca for cruisers who want to go south for the winter but not cross to the Bahamas or the Caribbean. Many, many cruisers head to Marathon by the first of November and stay here until late March. As we turned Latitudes into wide channel between Boot Key and Vaca Key, the Marathon harbor began to open up.  First, past a few fuel docks combined with tiki hut style restaurants.

Next we idled our way to the old bridge.  This used to be a bascule bridge, opening on demand, but I guess there was too much demand, so a section of the bridge was simply removed so sailboats could motor into the harbor easily.

SO...Boot Key City Marina....it's a boat city of 238 mooring balls and overflow anchoring for those on the mooring ball wait list.  We actually got the last mooring ball available yesterday.  The marina office has a large general area for relaxing, 20 or so showers, 8 washers and dryers, and just about everything else you would need to spend time here.  All in Florida Key style - very casual, yet very regimented! Present your boat documentation papers, dinghy registration, personal ID on registration. Get dated expiring magnetic cards for showers, dated bands for dinghies, for bicycles if you have them, laundry money cards. This seems to be a reaction to the earlier days of anarchist boat hippies nesting in paradise for the winter/forever with little constraints. Grocery stores, drug stores, restaurants, bars, and marine supply stores apparently abound within a 1 mile walk.  We will check that out tomorrow.

There are some creative souls here - this is anything but a boring dinghy!

But today, snorkeling!  Friends Anita and Charlie and we took Latitudes to a great snorkeling spot about 3 miles out of Marathon, at Sombrero Key. Charlie and I were not interested in snorkeling, but Anita and Luke were.  Here they are, suiting up for their dive in.

The water was clear - much like the Bahamas, but greener instead of aqua.  Lots of fish to be seen as they drifted along.

Luke said they saw queen angels, lots of sergeant majors, jacks, a scrawled filefish, a barracuda, parrot fish, wrasses, and yellow tailed damsel fish.  Charlie, Smokey, and I saw the schools of them from the boat.  A leisurely lunch on board and an even  more leisurely sail back to the mooring field.  We took almost 2 hours to sail back at a whopping 3 mph.  A very nice day!

SAILING to Rodriguez Key!

We left the much quieter No Name Harbor anchor field early this morning ...well, later than we planned.  Daylight Savings Time sneaked up on us! 

Our route to the Keys is between the southern coast of the Keys and the more southern outer band of coral reefs that follows the Keys' shores.  This is called Hawks Channel.  The inside route, the one between coastal FL and the Keys is wide but shallow.  Friends tried this route the last two days and swore "never again!" That encouraged us to take Hawks Channel!

We left in light winds.  But they were winds from the best direction, so we were actually able to sail for about half of the trip.  whoo hoo!!!  Now, I admit, we sailed slowly, about 4 knots, but we sailed all the same.  With no real time constraints, we were content to sail.

A nice 7 hours later, we had traversed the 44 miles and approached our anchorage for the night, Rodriguez Key.  Rodriguez Key is really just a small island south of Key Largo.  It's beautiful, though, and reminds us of the Bahamas that we are missing (well, without the clear aqua water...and mahi...)

Smoke always comes out to the bow of Latitudes to help me both hoist the anchor and to drop it.  Tonight she was especially helpful i.e. she really wanted attention and a serious tummy rub. 

Of course, after a good tummy rub comes a good bath.

Sunset over the Keys - I thought this was my favorite picture.

But then Luke caught the fire in the sky as the sun finally completely set behind the horizon.  Wow!

And one last picture.  I wish I had thought of this one of dad earlier.  It is from his visit last Christmas - I like it. And I miss him.

Finally! On the "road" again!

Latitudes finally slipped free of her mooring this morning, ready to set sail for adventure.  Well, 5 miles of adventure today, but heck, that's more than she got tied to a mooring!

We threw the mooring lines around 8:00 and headed to the marina to fill our water tanks and take one more shower before we left Dinner Key.  As we headed out afterwards, we began to realize just how large the mooring field is. Luke said the marina advertises itself as the largest one in the states!  This is only a small portion of the mooring field. It's also quite open to winds from the south.

We also saw Luke's favorite, the launch.  The launch drivers were a great help while I was gone...they pick you up at your boat and take you to shore, then back again later.  It's a great system, saves putting the dinghy down, and is just relaxing.  The picture is a bit confusing, but the launch that small boat with all of the fenders, sitting beside the sailboat. 

 

As we motored slowly out of the long, narrow channel (at least 2 miles) from the mooring field to Key Biscayne Bay we saw the variety of vessels on the water.

 

Fast boats, sleek and loud, quickly passing sailboats behind her. We learned from a cigarette boat  (130 mph...) owner that there is no speed limit in the bay.

 

 

Quiet sailboats, motored only by beautiful, full spinnaker sails.

 

 

This is Saturday, so there were at least 3 regattas going on in the bay - we caught a picture of just a few boats of one of them.

 

 

By now, we had our own jib and main up, sailing silently (and slowly) through the bay.  Smoke is fascinated by this, the slow movement through the water.  She always wants to sit on the deck and watch her world drift past her.  No, she does NOT get to do this when the water is choppy or we are motoring fast!

 

 

 

 We ended up at our destination, 5 miles across the bay, at No Name Harbor.  We have seen this harbor from land and know that many sailboats wait here for a weather window for crossing to the Bahamas.  What we didn't know is that on weekends, it is a MAJOR hangout for happy local sailors, especially ones with big motor boats and loud stereo systems. This is only one section of the harbor...

 

 

No Name Harbor is part of a FL state park, Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park.  We took the dinghy ashore and walked to the ocean side.  There is a very beautiful, tapered lighthouse, Cape Florida Lighthouse, on the point of land.  Here is my artistic rendering of the lighthouse, sea oats in the foreground.

 

 

Here is reality...

 

 

 

 

We did get a nice view from the other side of the park - the picture postcard view!

 

 

The $1M plus motor yacht with a couple and their 2 crew members and loud music has finally left (yeah, it is $1M plus ---- we goggled it!)  There are a lot of boats left, but the various tastes in music seem to have finally quieted.  Imagine ZZ Top, salsa, rap, and whatever all vying for your attention.  Luke lamented that there was no Bach to be heard!

 

Tomorrow the weather is forecast to be calm again so we intend to head westward, into the keys.  Our destination is Rodriguez Key, an overnight stay only on our way to Marathon Key and Key West! It's nice to be on the watery road again.

 

 



from DInner Key Marina mooring field, Coconut Grove

I had to take something of a break from my endless computer and phone work!  The wind is really howling today, around 15- 20 knots.  You can see the waves in the water of the mooring field.  There were white caps in here earlier.

We had considered taking the boat to the marina today to fill the water tanks.  That would be an unpleasant chore in this wind, so we have decided to wait until tomorrow.

A blue heron tried to sit on a neighboring boat.  Wings flailing in the winds, he danced on the mooring line for a few minutes before giving up for a better fishing spot.

Luke has had an even more fun day than I ---- the generator quit suddenly last night, so the project du jour was to find the problem and repair it.  It was "only" a blocked water line from the water intake to the generator.  A tight wad of grasses completely blocked the water flow.  That meant cleaning the filter, removing the line, cleaning it out, and replacing it.  Keep in mind that nothing is simple on a boat, with all of the under-flooring/behind-cabinets hose and wire runs, so this took several hours.  But it lives!  Luke did a great job and we will have hot water when we want it.

But!  despite the wind and generator, we are sitting in beautiful, sunny Miami, with temps in the high 70's!  We love it!

Trying to catch my breath

Not much fun the past few days - feeling a bit over my head, trying to get caught up, mostly with dad's bills and changes.  We hope to start having fun soon, within a couple of days. The plan is to head to the keys, as far west as Key West, and then begin the sail back for the summer.
Key West is gonna be fun, damn it! LOL!

Back to Miami (actually, Coconut Grove...)

Luke, Smoke, and I left Charlotte on Saturday afternoon, after the memorial service for dad at his independent living residence.  To Savannah to spend a short night with our sister-in-law, then a long day on Sunday to spend the night with friends Ange and Ray outside of Lauderdale.  Finally, today we are back at Latitudes.  Smoke was a good traveler but she was so glad to get back home that she hid in our shelved closet, hoping no one would find her and take her off of the boat!

A little putting away of travel stuff, a long nap for me, and I am officially back on the boat.  We had dinner tonight in town with friends from 2009, Wendy and Warwick, plus Luke's new friends on the boat beside us, Anita and Charlie.  That has helped the transition back to the usual world, but it seems to be a harder transition today than I had anticipated.  All things in good time, I guess.