Key West 1

The end of the road!  The other end
of US 1 is in some desolate area
called Maine

Where to start??  We’ve done so much & enjoyed it all, that we don’t have time to tell y’all about it.  We rented a car for a week to drive the 50 miles down (or should I say west) to Key West to leave lots of good Yankee Greenbacks with the locals.  We drove down about 3-4 times, then back to the boat at night, which is still cheaper than paying for a hotel in Key West.  Have I told you that prices are high in KW, not just because it is an island, but a resort island on top of that (my cousins on Put-in-Bay can relate to that).

On our first day in KW, we took the tour trolley to hear “the rest of the story”, and to get our bearings.  We walked Duval Street, ate at the recommended restaurants, & ended up at Mallory Square for sunset.  The sunset celebration was actually relatively tame, considering the warnings our friends had given us.  Even the fact that we had a full moon that night didn’t bring out any more lunatics than normal.

Sunset cruise filled with tourists

Next to Mallory Square, the KW Aquarium shines in
a full moon

The fort fills the entire island of Garden Key

This past Sunday, we got up at zero-dark thirty to be at the KW ferry boat by 0700 to head out to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas National Park.  These islands are 70 miles west of Key West, accessible only by boat or float plane, and for some God-forsaken reason, the US Army started building the country’s largest brick & masonry fort here in 1846.  30 years later, the incomplete project was abandoned (sounds like a typical government job, huh?).  But for now, the scenery is fantastic, swimming/snorkeling is great, watching the birds & wildlife is astounding, and in general, is just a great place to “pass some time”.

This side shows the remnants of the "Coaling Docks"
which the Navy built to re-fuel the coal-fired steamers
as they went either north into the Gulf of Mexico, or east
around Florida

Construction people fought with heat, humidity, yellow fever,
minimal fresh water, shortage of supplies during war years.

A huge nesting colony of Frigate birds was on the next island

A sign you don't often see

The mo' betta way to get to Fort Jefferson

As far south as you gonna get & still be in the USA

And, wouldn’t you know it, our Power Squadron friends from Myrtle Beach, Don & Shirley, had already taken their boat out to Fort Jefferson to anchor for a couple nights.  They met us at the ferry boat dock, told us about their past experiences at Dry Tortugas, and escorted us to the spot on the beach which they had already staked out.  Kinda like having a concierge service in one of the most remote areas of the country!

Mangroves at your back, turquoise water at your feet,
coral sand inside your swim suit!

Welcome to the US of A.  The beginning of the path
to US citizenship.

And on the return trip to KW, the ferry had 19 young men dressed in white disposable clothing standing on the back deck.  We found that they were Cuban refugees who had just landed their small boat on Dry Tortugas that morning, and were being transported to KW for processing into our country.  The guide on the ferry said that about every other day, a boat load of refugees comes ashore, knowing that, according to federal law, they need to put only one foot on dry land in order to be allowed to stay in America.  Refugees used to come to Key West, but the Coast Guard & others now patrol that area, and try to intercept the boats before they get to shore.  Dry Tortugas, being so isolated, is the perfect landing place for new refugees, and don’t think they don’t know it!  So, they got a set of clean clothes, a free ferry boat ride, a hot meal, and a free bus ride to Miami for integration into the Cuban community there, all thanks to your federal taxes.

More sea stories & lies coming in Part 2.

The Good & the Not-so-good

Our first couple days in Marathon were very enjoyable.  We finished washing down the boat to get the layer of salt off everything.  We put up the rest of the sunscreens over the windows on the sundeck to reduce the heat from the blazing sun.  We off-loaded our bicycles, oiled them up, and rode around town to a couple restaurants.  We enjoyed the swimming pool at our marina, and found that the tiki bar can make a wicked mango daiquiri with a dark rum floater.

The Key Deer will beg for food from the cars, so they
are not afraid of car & highways

The best part so far was meeting up with Don & Shirley from North Myrtle Beach (North Strand Sail & Power Squadron), whom we first met 2 winters ago when we kept our boat in their neck of the woods.  At that time, Don & Shirley took us under their wing, helping us get to know the town and the local Power Squadron members.  They regularly vacation in Marathon & Key West, to the point that they are considered locals.

They look for discarded cigarette butts.  Apparently
tobacco is like a "catnip" for them.

Don & Shirley drove us around the area to show us the lay of the land.  We went across the 7-Mile Bridge to end up on No Name Key to find some Key Deer.  After near extinction, there are now several hundred of these tiny deer, only as big as a large dog.  Although they are technically (and former engineers love to be technical) a subspecies of the Virginia White-tailed Deer, no one knows how they came to No Name, but the first recorded history of them goes back to 1550.  After cruising up & down the roads, we finally saw a couple deer.  Good thing we did, because our “tour guide” was about to lose a big tip!

They then took us to the best restaurant on No Name Key (also the ONLY restaurant on No Name Key) called No Name Pub.  Inside, the décor featured thousands of dollar bills tacked to the walls & ceiling, which reminded us of the restaurant on Cabbage Key, adjacent to Cayo Costa.  After a good pizza, we headed back so Don & Shirley could prepare their boat to head west to Dry Tortugas for a couple days.

Good friends Shirley & Don
(all Power Squadron friends are good friends!)

For those of you who really wanted to see
a picture of my refrigerator
capillary expansion tube, with the bubbles
showing the location of the leak
(all you technical types must be in
hog heaven seeing this photo!)

Our not-so-good was the fact that our refrigerator wasn’t refrigerating because of a refrigerant leak.  I had visions of $3-4000 flying out the front cabin window, which would have to be removed by a boatyard in order to install a replacement unit.  After half a day of troubleshooting, the marine tech (MARINE = double the price) was able to actually find the leak in the tubing & repair it.  We then transferred all our food back into the refrigerator from the big ice chest, until an hour later when the compressor & fan quit again for unknown reasons.  We unloaded all the food back into the ice chest while we got good & mad at that dumb refrigerator.  An hour after that, the compressor came on & the unit cooled down as advertised, after which we moved all the food again back into the refrigerator.  The unit ran through the night last night, so can we ASSUME that it is back to normal (whatever “normal” is)?

So now, we’re planning to rent a car to drive to Key West the next couple days & see what kind of trouble we can get in to.

Ft Myers to Marathon

Departing Ft Myers, the course runs close to
all the islands.  Let's see, "red, right, return"

Well, I found an engine mechanic in Ft Myers who would come to the boat the very next day (the Caterpillar rep said he could come in 2-3 weeks), and my problem with the engine tachometer sensing unit was found.  It was a corroded wire which had broken loose.  As he’s replacing the wire end connector, the screw stud on the sensing unit broke, so we ended up using the new unit which I had ordered “just in case”.  So the cost to repair a broken wire came to $475 and some loose change.

We stopped at a marina in Marco Island.  These condos
START at $1MM, and they are simply winter homes
for the rich folk, who shutter them up for the hot
summer & head back north.

We stayed in Ft Myers an extra day to get some routine work done on the boat & to eat at other restaurants.  When we’re traveling nearly every day, it’s hard to get even minor projects done around the boat.  And we’ve had such excellent weather that we need to keep moving while the moving is good.

Before leaving Ft Myers, we took on a few hundred gallons of diesel fuel, and paid $1.99/gallon.  Looking at my log book from 3 years ago when we came through here, we paid $3.80/gallon back then, and were glad to pay such a “low rate”.  I like cruising these days much better.  Besides, we already told our kids that there’s no inheritance after our cruising this year.

The Gulf of Mexico never looked so calm nor so pretty

Our weather window looked great, so we departed on our 3 day trip south to Marathon in the Florida Keys.  For all 3 days, the winds & waves were so calm that we let “Otto the Pilot” (autopilot) do the driving.  The farther south we went, the clearer the water became; a pretty turquoise, or aquamarine, or blue-green or whatever.  As we came to the Keys, the water depths went to 8-9’, and we could see the sand or grass bottom.  Quite a bit different from last summer, when we crossed Lake Michigan with 900’ depths.

The entrance channel to Marathon, at the eastern end
of 7-Mile Bridge, originally built by Henry Flagler as
part of his Florida East Coast Railroad system around 1915.

We made Marathon Boot Key Harbor just after noontime the 3^rd day & headed to the far eastern end to our marina.  I was amazed at how many boats were in the harbor – and this is the “off season”.  I’m told that each winter, there are about a thousand boats in and around Marathon.  Most of them anchor or tie to a mooring ball, so their common means of travel within the area is their dinghy.

Entering Boot Key Harbor with boats anchored everywhere

The mooring field has room for 250+ boats

The dinghy docks become very crowded at all the restaurants

We got the bikes out to ride to a restaurant to eat
Stone Crab claws & a lobster reuben sandwich

Our marina is called Sombrero Resort & Marina.  It’s a bit weak on the “resort” claim, but there’s construction going on to improve things.  It does have a remodeled large swimming pool (solar heated, of course) with a tiki bar next to it.  The docks & utilities are very adequate, and best of all, the cost is only $250/wk, including all utilities!  My Admiral did an excellent job of finding this place, but I’m sure that all that money “saved” will end up somewhere else.  We’re considering renting a car for a couple days to drive to Key West to enjoy the wildlife, er, I mean wild life.  Next week, we’ll hook up with Shirley & Don, our Power Squadron friends from Myrtle Beach, who spend a month in Marathon each year.  We might just have so much fun down here that we might just stay another week or so.

Cayo Costa

The anchorage at Pelican Bay 

I just had to make the heading as it is, in order to make Clint even more jealous of our being here.  Clint is one of our best friends and fellow boater, who grew up in this neck of the woods, and who says he is just green when he reads about our travels through HIS waters.

Fruition at anchor with her crusty moustache

We anchored for 3 nights in Pelican Bay and it was most enjoyable and relaxing.  The only downside was the 20+ mph winds on Friday & Saturday, which didn’t allow us to launch our dinghy & go ashore or ride around the bay.  But the wind was from the north and cool and dry, which allowed us to keep the windows open all day instead of running the generator to run the air conditioner.  Finally on Sunday the winds died off, so we used our new dinghy and motor to go to the state park on Cayo Costa to enjoy the beach.  We were both pleased how well the boat & motor worked, especially in light of the troubles we’ve had with the previous set-up.  As we headed to the beach, we passed a trawler named “Lagniappe” from New Orleans (of course).  Some other friends from New Orleans Power Squadron, who are big time cruisers, have their boat also named “Lagniappe”.

Sunday evening was calm & quiet in the anchorage, almost magical.  There were about 30 boats in the bay, and when they all lit their anchor lights, it looked like a small city out on the water.  At sunset, one of the boaters blew a conch shell, which I guess is traditional in the Keys & Bahamas.  For about 10 minutes, we watched a dorsal fin of a small shark cruise back & forth about 50 yards from the boat.  We hated to leave that place.

In Pelican Bay, a huge school of small fish stayed in the shadow of the boat.
I kept wondering why the pelicans came so close to our boat!
Fishermen in a small boat threw a castnet to catch these bait fish.

this place was anchored at the mouth of the
Caloosahatchee River & seemed like folks lived
on it.  It was also a live bait shop for fishermen
to dock right next to them on their way out fishing'

By Monday, we had been anchoring for 6 consecutive nights, so we headed to a marina to clean up both the boat and ourselves.  We decided to go up the Caloosahatchee River to Ft Myers Legacy Harbour Marina, where we again stayed 3 years ago.  We needed to eat some of that crab, since we had been avoiding all those crab traps for the past week.  We also wanted to check on the new boat of a Power Squadron friend from New Orleans, who is in the process of moving the boat closer to home, but put the boat here for a month while he took care of business.  Additionally, we called a marine engine mechanic (which means his billing rate is double that of any other mechanic) to help repair the engine tachometer sending unit.

"Wanted: Good woman.  Cook, guide, use cast net,
clean fish.  Must have boat and motor.  Send picture
of boat and motor."

The weather is still holding for later this week when we’ll make a 3 day trip south from here to Marathon in the Keys.  We found a marina there that is charging us only ¼ the going rate of other marinas.  Marinas in Marathon (50 miles from Key West) normally charge $800-1000/week, and marinas in Key West charge $1200-1600/week.  We’re also looking forward to meeting up with some Power Squadron friends we met last winter when we kept our boat in the Myrtle Beach area.  They come to Marathon each year for a week, and their week starts this Sunday.  Should be fun.

In Ft Myers, the Goodwill store is a boutique with
designer fashions!  Who'd a thunk?

Florida’s West Coast

At Clearwater Beach, our last evening.  Same photo
we took 3 years ago!

So, we got out of Clearwater Tuesday as planned into a very humid, windy day.  We went “on the outside” in the Gulf, rather than staying “inside” on the ICW, so we could make more miles.  Even so, the winds were SW 15-20, so we had whitecaps, 2-3’ waves, and a very bouncy uncomfortable ride.

On Pier 60 at Clearwater Beach.
Our granddaughter loves dolphins.

Off of St Pete Beach, the tourists will go out in any weather

We crossed Tampa Bay via a narrow, shallow (6’) cut NE of Egmont Key, instead of having to go west about 3 more miles to follow the main ship channel.  We tend to pick our way through places like this, rather than setting waypoints on our chartplotter.  On the south side of the Bay, we re-entered the ICW near Anna Maria Island, and got out of the wind & waves.  We had scouted out several anchorages for this week, rather than spending the money to stay in marinas, and we made our first one early afternoon just to the west of Sarasota.

At our anchorage, mansions on one side (with the
cheesy tourist boat)

We anchored between two keys that were as different as could be.  On the one side was Otter Key, a mass of mangroves uninhabited by humans, but teeming with wildlife.  About 300 yards on our other side were mansions after mansions with a starting price of $1.5 mil and no apparent upper limit.  And right through the middle of our cove came a hokey tourist boat with chatter over the loud speaker.  The locals must really love it.

Our anchorage next to the mangroves & pelicans & egrets

The T-storms associated with the cold front gave us 30-40 mph winds but we stayed in place.  Our new anchor bridle (with 35’ of 1” nylon – way overkill for our size boat) is giving us much more confidence that we won’t be dragging anchor anytime soon.  The typical high pressure system behind the cold front gave us north winds but quite dry.  For the next couple nights at anchor, we could open our windows at night & turn off the air conditioners; something not normally done in May in Florida.

Along the ICW south of Venice, with his $1 million Hinckley
sailboat docked out front

I wonder if the liberals think this guy has more than
his "fair share"?!!  Maybe he could let a dozen other families
move in with him!  Just think what a true socialist like Bernie could do!!

Two possible captions:
"we have plenty of water depth!!", or
"this is the USA if Bernie gets elected"

The weather for the rest of the week was absolutely gorgeous.  Basically north winds 15 mph, but cool & dry.  Because we stayed on the “inside” route, we didn’t get the 5’ waves that the Gulf was seeing.  On Friday, we anchored again in one of our favorite spots – Pelican Bay next to Cayo Costa Island.  We had spent a couple nights here 3 years ago & loved it.  We’re gonna try out best to handle 3 more nights of it.  We’ll finally get our new dinghy ready to go & mount our outboard motor, which we bought a year ago & never used yet.  We hope to go ashore to the state park & finally get off the boat, after 4 days.  If everything works right, we’ll try to go to Cabbage Key to the quirky restaurant, where, the rumor goes, Jimmy Buffet wrote “Cheeseburgers in Paradise”.  Yeah, I know, this relaxing on our boat in beautiful anchorages sure takes a lot of work, but somebody had to do it!

The Crossing to Clearwater Beach

Our marina at Apalachicola was not necessarily
a high-class resort.  All the commercial boats
went there for fuel.

We waited until about 1 PM on April 29 (after the Admiral had even more oysters for BREAKFAST!) before we departed Apalachicola for our overnight crossing.  The key is to time our arrival at the Clearwater sea buoy for late morning, so the rising sun does not prevent us from seeing all the crab pots.

We had been watching a weather window for the past couple days & the forecast held for winds S 5-10 with waves 2’ or less.  The forecast was spot on, and actually improved as we traveled farther south.

About 5-10 miles offshore, we had some visitors on the boat.  See photos.  I hope they both made it back to shore, since neither one of them will float.

Our first visitor 5-10 miles offshore was a cattle egret.
Sue saw him fly towards the boat & he hid behind our
dinghy for an hour or two.

Shortly after the egret left, a swift of some kind flew around the
helm station for 5 minutes before leaving.  Surprised us!

Sunrise on Saturday morning

After sunset, it is amazing how dark it becomes on the open water.  We had no horizon until the moon rose about 3 AM, and had to navigate using the Constellation Orion for a heading reference.  As expected, “Otto the Pilot” didn’t work very well that night.

We made the Clearwater sea buoy at 0815, only 15 minutes later than planned (over a 20-hour trip).  There must be an engineer somewhere close by.  We went to Clearwater Beach city marina, the same place we went to 3 years ago when we made the crossing.

Brian, Jess & family enjoying the beach

After sleeping for a couple hours (20-hours underway is way too long), we met up with Jess & Brian & their family, went to the powder-white sand beach, and watched the sunset “celebration” at Pier 60.  We had a good time, but I warned one the kids to beware of the herons & egrets who like to eat “Cheetos fingers”.

Didn't know there we so many different kinds of sponges!

The next day we took the “Jolly Trolley” (which I had read about on one of the boater websites) up to Tarpon Springs, costing us a whole $5 for both of us, both ways.  We acted like tourists, walking the sponge dock area, and leaving many good Yankee greenbacks with the locals.  The dinner at the Greek restaurant “Hellas” was fantastic.  It had been about 45 years since we had been in Tarpon, and, y’know, a lot of it was still the same!

One of the sponge boats behind another old relic.
Note diver's suit behing mast
& net containing sponges above pilot house.
(Click on photo to zoom)

Sponges everywhere in Tarpon Springs

Boaters beware!

Passing a good time in Tarpon

Our last day in Clearwater was spent cleaning the boat, scraping about ½” of salt off the deck, before going back to the beach to squish some more sand between our toes.  We’ll need to depart Tuesday to get across Tampa Bay before the cold front comes through, followed by lots of wind.  Waves are forecast 4-5’, and you ain’t gonna find me out there in that!