Posts are light recently because we’ve had extended stays in Key West and Marathon. We woke up on this day and the wind was still blowing pretty good. We kept checking the weather trying to decide when it would be best to leave the mooring ball and head in to the marina. We finally decided around 10am as a good departure time, according to the forecast winds. Before departing I phoned the marina to let them know we were coming in and to ensure the space was available and not occupied by someone planning to leave this morning. We were given the green light to come in, and was told they would have someone by the dock to assist with lines. Lauren was on the bow and expertly untied us from the mooring while I waited for the wind to drift us back a bit. Once clear of the ball, I throttled up and made the turn to head out of the mooring field. We made our way down the channel to the marina, and since we had scoped it out during the first check in, we knew where to go. We came around the last turn and saw a dock hand there waiting for us. Docking was relatively easy even with the wind as it was blowing us toward the dock so I used it to our advantage. Once secure, Lauren took Frank and I had to go back to the office to check in again for our new slip. Now that the formalities were over with, it was time to unload the bikes and explore even more.
Our time here was awesome! We explored the town and stopped at every place you could imagine. I am not going to bore you with listing all of the places, as you can imagine we hit all of the top spots. We spent some time at the beach, went to a seafood festival, saw ‘0 Mile Marker’, saw the ‘Southern Most Point’ and explored Fort Zachary Taylor (did you know he was a President? #12!). I met a former co-worker from Cleveland who lives down here and crews on a schooner: Spirit of Independence. I entered a “knot and shot” contest where you do a shot, tie a bowline knot, lasso a piling, then drink a beer and turn the empty cup upside down on your head (I didn’t win- my bowline was a little off). We saw a second line parade and ate plenty of Key Lime pie. We saw a ‘onesies’ bar crawl where everyone wore adult onesies (pajamas/costumes), saw a country music concert in the street, drank lots of beer and rum and had a great time. We watched the sun set at Mallory Square several nights. The Keys are also very dog friendly, so Frank joined us quite a bit and got to encounter wild chickens for the first time. We spent almost two weeks here in Key West and didn’t miss much. The list goes on and on.
After our week at the marina, we moved to an anchorage just outside the mooring field for a few days and still had easy access to Rat Island to take Frank- thankfully we didn’t see any rats. I did get to chat with several other people who brought their dogs there and Frank was happy to run around with other dogs. After a few days at the anchorage we decided to go out to a Sanctuary Preservation Area which has mooring balls for boats to tie up to. They do not want you dropping anchor as there are coral reefs around and seagrass beds which you cannot disturb. We tied up here and snorkeled around, enjoying the fish and coral reefs. There were a few diving boats and other boats coming and going with tourists to do the same. While I was snorkeling, I checked our prop and rudder- lo and behold we had a line tangled around our prop, which I was able to cut off. This may have been causing a vibration we had noticed, so we were happy to have found this and get it off.
We finished our stay anchored by Wisteria Island, but on the other side of the channel. We found a spot in the middle of a bunch of anchored boats and dropped our hook. The depth was around twenty feet deep, so it took a lot of line to get properly secured. We waited around for a bit to make sure we weren’t moving, then headed into shore for one last night of Key West. Tomorrow we plan on leaving and heading back to Bahia Honda, which is a nice anchorage about thirty five miles from here and we are familiar with since we stayed here on the way down.