We are on the move again. I love to be moving! How many dogs do you know trained to climb trees and pick coconuts?
After spending a couple of days at the Miami Boat show, (and forgetting to take the camera), we headed south.
Unfortunately, a few days before the show, an infection of some kind showed up in the first mate's gum nessecitating a visit to the dentist and a regimen of antibiotics. This led to about a week of yucky days for her, and she did not get to enjoy the show (or much else for that matter.) No worries as she is well enough to enjoy the $1 happy hour beer at the beach bar here!
The show was overwhelming, and if just had a couple extra hundred thousand I did see a nice cataraman we would look great in…
We enjoyed two awesome sailing days to make the 90 miles or so from Miami Beach to Islamorada in Matecumbe Key, all on the inside route. Sometimes we were sailing along at 6.5 knots with the sandy bottom just 6 inches under our keel.
We hung out the first night in No Name harbor so we could work a bit on the genoa sail roller furling. On Sunday and Monday, with the three day holiday this place on Biscayne Bay was a zoo with every available spot filled with every imaginable kind of boat playing the loudest, heaviest bass music possible. Yuk.
Tuesday morning we almost has it to ourselves as we went to the dock for Goose's walk. Much better
A few hours sail south brought us to Boca Chita, a cool little key that is now a park. The little lighthouse behind Shelly and the boat was built of local coral. We just got off for a walk, picked up a few coconuts for Shelly's coconut crab soufflé, visited the little beach, ate lunch and got right back under way.
We made it to Key Largo late in the day, and anchored just of Gilbert's bar and hotel. (If you have been there you know…) Going in for fuel and water the next day before we left made us realize that fuel prices are going up! It is nice to know we only turned our motor on a couple of times during the 8 hour sail – just to get in and out of the tight harbor and to the fuel dock. Other than that we sailed everywhere!
This is a home school session about history. (See the historic ship's cannon pulled from an old wreck?)
I think we need a better camera or better photographers!
A few places we had to sail in these little cuts through the mangroves. It was cool to come out of 18knots of wind into these flat calm places, ghost through, and then back out into the wind, heeled over and flying along again.
And of course we always enjoy the sunset/sunrises that we are so blessed to experience.
Just as we were coming into Islamorada, we hooked Ryan up on the boom and swung him out in the water.(he did not know it but we were trolling for some big fish…)
It was all fun until we forgot to watch where we were going and had an impromptu lesson on how to get a boat that needs 4.5 feet to float back into water deeper than 4 feet.
You can see how shallow the water is under Ryan and we are moving along about 5 knots when this pic was taken.
So now we are at anchor here for a few days until the marine flea market at Founder's Park this weekend. Time for more varnish and maintenance. Plus we have to actually do some work for the great people who actually give us money so we can keep doing this and still eat!
As always, thanks for reading and send us your questions and comments…
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