Pictures: Heidi at the hair salon in Key Biscayne; panorama of Boca Chita harbor, our boat on the left; community band concert in Key Largo park; Ken's new slogan, from Florida Keys Brewing; new boating friends (from Rhode Island) we met in the Islamorada anchorage; two fishing guides waiting for the results of the Swamp Guides' Tournament and Banquet at Lorelai -- they are last year's winners; our weekend visitor Ray putting his kayaks back on his van at the Lorelai parking lot; part of the crew watching the Superbowl on Feb. 5, including Ray and Linn; the resort in Islamarada that is featured on "Bloodlines" on Netflix; VICTORIOUS at Lorelai docks; one of the turtles at the Turtle Hospital in Marathon (they are all named); pool and tour group at the Turtle Hospital; Ken, Roy and Bertha on our dinghy going out to see our boat in Marathon; bubble-blowers at Bahia Honda putting on a great show, and really just enjoying it for themselves; one of the many sunsets, this one under the old railroad bridge at Bahia Honda; the side-creek view from the kayak in Little Shark River; the dock at high tide at the Rod & Gun Club in Everglades City; panorama of Little Shark River at our anchorage; our Valentine's Day grand-daughter Sienna
There are a few more days in Biscayne Bay to spend before we leave for the Florida Keys. Day one, we are back at No Name Harbor in Key Biscayne. Heidi got a haircut; all the stylists spoke Spanish, but English as well. We are meeting a few other boaters just to talk with for 20 minutes or so. Everyone seems to be heading in different directions. There is a couple from Salem, Mass. that we have talked with before, in Vero Beach, and a couple who used to live in Cohasset, before we did, but we have some acquaintances in common. Another sailor is in the area, from Marblehead. We missed him this week, but caught up with him a few weeks later. On day two we move back to a mooring at Dinner Key in Miami so that we can get groceries more easily before we cruise to the Keys. We also got our bikes ashore to do some riding on the bike trail there and another trip to the hardware store. The Sail World Cup Miami has started and the harbor is full of the small sailboat and sailboard classes that are competing this week, from all over the world. One two-person boat heading back at a fast clip after it's race passes our dinghy and the captain smiles as he is so close that he has to raise his tiller up to miss knocking us out of our boat!
We'll miss the finals of the World Cup but we head for Boca Chita, still in Biscayne Bay and part of the Biscayne Bay National Park. This island has no causeway or bridge so all visitors come by boat. We tied up to a concrete seawall there and chatted with the owners of a few of the boats that arrived before us. There is a beautiful beach here, a replica lighthouse, and not much else. We're not sure if we want to stay one or two nights, but the next morning when we see that some critter (a rat?) has chewed through our cockpit door screen and helped itself to some of our small snacks we left out in baggies (and it left droppings all over) we are sure we will be leaving. Thank goodness it does not appear that it stayed on the boat and hid.
Our first Florida Keys destination was Key Largo. We are taking the bayside route which is on the north side of the Keys, as the Keys run roughly east to west. This stop is primarily for shopping, as we have access to a KMart, a Publix (groceries), a fresh vegetable market and a flea market. We had a great lunch out at The Conch House. The we hit it just right to sit and listen to an early evening community band concert held at the park closest to our anchorage. We had fairly cold weather, 58 degrees one morning when we got up. We also got time here to just stay aboard and read the Sunday paper, talk to our family members on the phone, and "Tango" (a video phone call) with our new granddaughter Sienna. A partial day of rain here was the only rain we've had in a while and it won't rain again until the end of this blog.
Our next major stop is Islamorada. Traveling in the Bay, the water is 6-8 ft. deep maximum; however we only need 3 1/2 ft. so we are good. We broke up the trip to Islamorada by stopping in a small bay off of Windley Key. Sometime in the night our anchor dragged, and we learned that our danforth anchor is not good in grassy bottoms. We were far enough from other boats in the bay to not have hit anyone, but from now on we will have to be more choosy about our anchoring spots. The next night we used our bigger danforth anchor and picked a sheltered corner of the north side of Islamorada. It was windy but we were secure. This area is great for sunsets--the last two nights have been especially beautiful! We were in this anchorage for 4 nights; it is about a mile to dinghy to shore but we like the peacefulness and safety. Heidi used the kayak along the shore quite a bit; another boat near to us, from Rhode Island, is also kayaking and dinghying to shore and we eventually had a drink with them and discussed boating subjects we have in common.
For two nights we are going to treat ourselves and stay at the dock near to the Lorelai Restaurant in Islamorada. We have been to Lorelai almost every day, for happy hour or for lunch. Now we are positioning ourselves to be close to a TV for the SuperBowl and in a convenient place when our friends Linn and Ray drive down to visit for the weekend. (Linn and Ray have a boat in Indiantown Florida, where we met them; they live most of the year in Rhode Island and we have visited them there. We have never actually boated with them because, so far, each time we see them we haven't had our boat, or they are working on their boat.) The weekend is lots of fun! We ended up eating all our meals at Lorelai or other restaurants in Islamorada, we walked, took bike rides and kayak trips, and we watched the best SuperBowl ever!! We don't have a TV so we picked a bar and randomly our companions watching the game were a young couple on vacation from the Canadian army and a Swiss mother of 3 children on a getaway vacation. Linn and Ray were great guests, partially living out of their van which resulted in our not bumping into them too much on VICTORIOUS, and we all seemed to enjoy the same activities.
Highlights of Islamorada not yet mentioned: they are filming a Netflix TV series that we have watched, Bloodline, and we enjoy the stories of the actors and locations that we hear; there are two beer breweries--Islamorada Beer Co and Florida Keys Brewing--and we sip tastings at both; a young waitress who has served us several times is just down from Maine where she served as innkeeper, at Squire Tarbox, from last summer until Christmas.
Our next major destination is Marathon, further west, but we stopped to check out Lignumvitae Key first. It is a Botanical State Park, can only be visited by boat, and has two rangers. It's not one of their scheduled tour days but one ranger unlocked the main house and informally showed us around. There is a guest mooring that looks a bit worn but we use it overnight and it is good. From there it is 35 miles to Boot Key Harbor in Marathon. The City Marina has 225 moorings there but the most recent 50 boats have had to anchor and go on the waiting list. They aren't even going to put us on the waiting list, as we would be so far down on the list and only plan to stay for a week. We got a phone call while we were looking for a good spot to anchor in and it was friends from Massachusetts who were having lunch at a waterside restaurant and saw us enter the harbor. We met with them briefly and will see them later in the week; they are staying 25 miles away, toward Key West.
Our stay in Marathon extended to 10 days and included finding our Marblehead friend that we had missed in Miami and checking out his sailboat that was designed and built by the same people that designed and built our boat, along with sunset cocktails several times at Honchy Conch, and lots of kayaking for Heidi in the mangrove trails near to our anchorage. We had other happy hours, and lunches, one picnic on the beach and a "drift" in our dinghy with our beach umbrella for shade and beers for refreshment (it was Valentaines Day!). We spent one morning cleaning the bottom of our dinghy of grass and barnacles, another morning we hired a diver to replace zincs on the bottom of VICTORIOUS and also clean the bottom. We got groceries, borrowing the Marblehead friend's car, and got our mail forwarded by Pete and Eri. Heidi went to the Turtle Hospital and learned about how the 49 sea turtles in residence were injured or sickened and how they are being treated. The most recent turtle brought is weighs over 300 lbs.! Most will be released when they are better.
Roy and Bertha, who saw us on the first day in Marathon, drove back and visited with us, lunched with us at Porky's, toured our boat and helped us run an errand. This was our last day before leaving for Bahia Honda Key. The weather during the 10 days was very hot. There are no bugs though, and there has been no rain. At Bahia Honda we can anchor close to shore between an old railroad bridge and a new(er) highway causeway. It is close enough to swim ashore. The key has a camp store (this is another state park) with a luncheonette, clothing and souveniers. There are two nice beaches on this end of the key. On Saturday night, a ranger led a dark-sky walk to view the stars -- following a trail that goes up on the top of the old railroad trestle! Another treat is a sunset bubble-show put on by three adults in a small outboard, circling around the four boats that are anchored off of the beach. We very much enjoyed our visit to Bahia Honda.
From here we are leaving the Florida Keys after 3 1/2 weeks and heading to the western part of Everglades National Park. No towns or settlements are in that area, just fishermen, cruising boats and some canoeists and kayakers who travel on a backcountry wilderness paddling trail (a 10-day route before you come out in the south of the park). We came here one other time, 5 years ago, and enjoyed it although it can get very buggy. Once again this time we are able to watch sea turtles (loggerheads) swimming and feeding, along with birds, fish and dolphins. Our anchorage in Little Shark River is 5 miles inland from the open ocean. The river is fairly wide, no other boats are in sight. There is also an oportunity to kayak from our boat and sneak down into some side-creeks, as far as the mosquitos will let you!
In the ocean approach Ken found a school of tarpon, maybe 15 or so, that seemed to be cavorting as they swam, with tail-flips every once and a while, weaving in and out of each other, maybe feeding but not afraid of us as we got closer and closer. In one of the side creeks of the Little Shark Heidi found a single tarpon, maybe snoozing on the surface, that was startled (so was I!) and sudddenly twisted around and swam off. Small numbers of osprey, herons, hawks, and vultures also were seen.
Just yesterday we were in Everglades City at the Rod and Gun Club dock for a night. Back to civilization but this town is like an outpost, southernmost on the Florida westcoast mainland, and wild-west-like, in a Florida sort of way. Lunch at the Club was slow and gracious, and they don't take credit cards. Moms were picking their kids up at the end of the school day in golf carts. Lots of crab boats dock here and line the riverside. The former 1920s bank building is a B&B. We met up with Heidi's friend Alicia, who is the one that sent us here 5 years ago but our boat broke down then and we never made it. Alicia is camping at Big Cypress Preserve and drove over for breakfast and a walk around town in the rain. We plan to spend two or three more weeks on the Florida west coast before we cross the state by canal to get back to the east, and then head north.
