Headed North (East)

Key West is not technically the end of the keys. The Dry Tortugas are the end, but we won't be going there, at least not this time around. As you can see, this is mile 0 and the start of Highway 1 which actually ends somewhere up in Maine. We played in Key West for a few days. The sunset celebration is quite the event. Lots of entertainers like the juggeler we watched. The guy said he's been doing this for 7 years and that is his only form of employment. I'm sure he does pretty good, because there were lots of people there. All cash. No one gives him a W2. The butterfly is from the Butterfly Museum which is really interesting and is also in Key West. A fun place to spend some time with lots and lots of butterflies.

After 4 days of Spring Breakers and touring the town, we left and headed North (East). Winds were from the right direction so we went to Bahia Honda State Park to anchor. Ended up spending 2 nights there because the winds were again blowing 20 to 25 from the wrong direction. The photo of the bridge is of the old train, then hightway, bridge. As you can see they actually took out a section of the bridge so that boats like ours can enter the bay and gain access to the state park. It's a beautiful area, but the anchorage leaves something to be desired. There is a horrible current that goes between the bridges, everytime the tide changes, so between that and the high winds we had a pretty bumpy night. We actually had to move to another spot in the bay because we were having trouble getting the anchor to set.

We made it back to Marathon today from Bahia Honda. We'll be spending another 3 nights here in the hopes of getting a few repairs made. We need to have our anchor light at the top of the mast replaced and I don't do that kind of stuff anymore. We also noticed that we have a small rip in our main sail at the gromet for one of the reefing points. It's not a major problem, but I don't want it to get any worse. I can find people to do these things, but it's a question of whether they can do them before we have to leave again. Right now I could only get three days in the marina, so we may have to move somewhere else. But, I'm on their list in case someone cancels a reservation. I still need to replace the thermostate on the engine, but am still trying to locate the part. We plan to keep slowly heading back toward the Key Largo area.

We Aren't in Kansas Anymore, Toto!

We're currently in Key West. We arrived yesterday after an exciting downwind sail from Saddle Bunch Key Harbor. The weather forecast said the wind was suppose to be 18 in the morning and decrease to around 15 in the afternoon. So we waited until about 11 and took off. Guess what, the wind increased as we got closer and closer to Key West. We set only our head sail since we were going down wind and were doing 5 kts with that alone. Most of the time we have to have the main and the head sail to mak that kind of progress. When we arrived in Key West there was a cruise ship in town so things were pretty hectic. We decided to go into a marina again since we'd been at anchor for 4 days and needed water, needed to have the holding tank pumped and also needed to scrub some of the scum off our bodies. The rich and famous definitely make their way to Key West. The 120' motor yacht in the picture pulled in shortly after we got to the dock. It's from the British Virgin Islands and it makes our boat look like a dingy.

Got a haircut today, so don't look for a pony tail, which seems to be the fashion in Key West, when we get back to Bismarck. But I do feel 20 degrees cooler now. Marilyn continues to enjoy doing the laundry and I did my taxes on line today. So everything is not fun and games everyday. We're going to gradually start to work our way back north on Monday. (Once again if the weather cooperates). They're currently predicting southwest and northwest winds for Sunday and Monday. That's the direction we want to start to head north (really east) and it doesn't happen very often. Our current adventure today was to walk to the auto parts store looking for a thermostate for our diesel. They didn't have it and no one else did after we called around. I may have to wait until we get back to the Marathon area. They seem to have a lot of parts and supplies in that area.

Bismarck Palm and Bahia Honda State Park

Returned to Marathon and said good bye to Pat and Judy Sorenson. Have a couple of new projects to take care of: gluing the dingy and checking the diesel engine temperature, so we're going to stick around Marathon for the weekend and head out after that. Micki and Craig Giese are going to be in Marco Island the first part of April and they would like us to come and visit. It's a little bit of a hassel to get to the western part of Florida from here, so I'm not sure what we'll do. We could also head down to Key West, but I want to make sure that all the spring break activities are over before we do that. Sunsets are pretty nice all over the keys and I thought it was appropriate that we take a picture of the Bismarck Palm that we saw on Pigeon Key.

Shades of Crusing Years Past

Pat and Judy Sorenson arrived for a visit on March 7. We had hoped to visit Sombraro Reef the next day and do some snorkeling, but because of the windy weather, we ended up staying put again. So we played tourist and visited the local Turtle Hospital where they reabilitate injured turtles and also went to Pigeon Key which presents the history of the construction of the railroad and highway bridges across the keys. It also talks about Henry Flagler who had the dream.

After the weather did settle down a little, we took the Sorenson's back to Little Crawl Key so we could use the services of Curry Hammock State Park. We did some kyacking and watched the kite boarders again. From Little Crawl Key we made it to Bahia Honda State Park about 20 miles further south. The wind was blowing between 15 and 20, but we were going downwind, so the ride was pretty good. Judy was still watching the horizon from time to time because of the bumpy ride. Bahia Honda was very nice and had lots of people there, many of which were on spring break. The next day, we helped one of the boaters in the marina move his boat from one side to the other. He had lost his engine so we helped him walk it around 3 or 4 boats to get to the boat ramp where he was going to haul it out the next day. We left Bahia Honda and headed back for Boot Key Harbor where we were again going to stay and be ready for Pat and Judy to leave today the 15th. Our trip from Bahia Honda to Boot Key was long being directly upwind from where we were. After tacking most of the afternoon in pretty bumpy seas, I decided to motor sail to gain a little more in the direction that I wanted to go. It turned out to be a bad idea. About 15 minutes after starting the engine it died and we were unable to restart it. Good thing we have a sailboat. We continued on to the entrance of Boot Key Harbor and anchored in the lee of the key. After anchoring we looked at the engine. After replacing both fuel filters and purging the fuel injectors, it finally start again. We seem to have water in the fuel, but I'm not sure why. We'll have to watch the fuel/water separator a little closer and hope that this doesn't continue to occur. After getting the engine running we motored into the slip we had reserved at about 6:30pm. Much later than I had hoped to be there. First we needed a beer, then something to eat, then a shower and finally time to sleep.

Judy and Pat left this morning at 8:45 am. We did some reprovisioning and I replaced the filters that I needed to use. We have some more projects for tomorrow. The next thing we need to decide is where we head from here. As soon as we know, I'll let you know.

Still at Burdines

We're still at Burdine's Marina in Marathon. Sounds like it's suppose to turn a little ugly tomorrow. Fifty percent chance of rain and winds from 25 to 35 out of the northwest. So, this is probably a good place to be. We've talked with Pat and Judy Sorenson a couple of times and they have everything in place to join us on the 7th of March. We'll be at the marina thru the 8th and then we'll go to a few different places with Pat and Judy. The extended forecast looks like it should be OK for their visit.

Just got off of Skype with our daughter Andrea and our grandson, Ky. Video calls are pretty cool. Things are a lot different than when we cruised in 1993/94. No cell phone to speak of at that time and definitely no Skype. We didn't really have much in the way of email at that time either.

New Marina Friend

We have a new friend. The marina cat Buddy. His owners are actually at the other end of the marina, but they work all day. So, he mostly stays on the charter boat that is in the slip next to us. But, when they are out with charter guests, he comes over and visits us. He slept most of the morning in one of our plastic container boxes in the aft cabin. I guess he pretty much runs the place. Even the dogs won't mess with him.

Marilyn did some laundry this morning and then we decided to walk over the local West Marine store for some items that we needed. We couldn't find a wrench that I needed so they suggested Home Depot and said it wasn't too far down the road. Not too far if your driving a car. We figured that we put on at least 5 miles round trip, but got the things that we wanted. After we got back to the boat, our neighbor asked if we wanted to go to the grocery store, so we couldn't pass up the offer, even though we would rather have put our feet up. After the shopping it was time for a cool shower and a beer. Had two and now we're thinking it feels like it's really late, but wait, it's only 8:00pm. This day just flew by.