We left Key West fairly early. Since we had anchored by the channel leading out, we had an easy exit. We came out of the main shipping channel and turned east. Our destination today was Bahia Honda, which we had stayed at on our way down to Key West. Bahia Honda is about thirty five miles from Key West and just short of twenty miles to Marathon. We like to break up the trip so we don’t have to do a fifty five mile day- at seven knots this would be almost eight hours- too long for us as we like to be leisurely.
The weather upon departure was quite lovely- very light winds and smooth seas. The trip as a whole was enjoyable. We made good time as we weren’t fighting any winds, waves or current. We soon saw our destination and headed in. Upon approach of the bridge, I noticed a couple of other boats anchored here. One was where we had anchored on our first time here, so we had to choose another spot. We chose to drop anchor even with the beach, but in enough to be protected a bit. The water when we arrived was as clear as I’ve ever seen- we could look down twenty feet and see the bottom. This helped when we dropped the anchor as we could see we were anchoring in sand, which is good, as the seagrass will foul the anchor and not let it dig in. Once we were secure we had to take a dip in the water to cool off! Lauren and I took turns jumping in and swimming about, floating on the raft and snorkeling around. A couple of dolphins came swimming by so I jumped in to swim with them, but they swam away.
We stayed here for two nights. Our first night the wind started to pick up and the water was getting churned up to the point we could no longer see the bottom. Our anchor was holding well and we just rode it out. The next morning we woke up to the wind still howling pretty good, so we made our way to shore since we were not going to travel in the high winds. Frank was pleased with this as he didn’t have to sit on a rocking and rolling boat all day, and he could mooch pets from anyone who came by. Lauren went to the beach on the ocean side, which on the last trip through was covered with seagrass which they do not remove. The seagrass is an important part of the natural habitat, and since this is a State Park and Preserve, they leave it be. This time around the ocean side beach had hardly any seagrass on it as it was all washed away with the wind and tides, leaving a pristine white sand beach, but the bay side where we were anchored was now covered in it. Also the ocean side of the island was protected from the winds as they were coming from the north, so it was comfortable to enjoy the sun and sand. The rest of the day was uneventful, lunch and dinner was made and we planned our departure for tomorrow.
We are heading back to Marathon area, but we do not have a place to dock, so we are planning on anchoring out. We do not have an exact location but we researched a couple of spots that might be good and protected as the winds are supposed to pick up again in the 20+mph range, so we don’t want to be too exposed. My father Jack is supposed to meet us in Marathon for a couple of days too, bringing our mail from the last six months and some requested items we wish we had from our home. Hopefully we can find a good spot…