standing on Highway 1 near the seven mile bridge.
We got away from Marathon just before Marathon owned us. We all enjoyed our time there but it was time to move on to another place. We are on a mooring ball about 35 miles up the keys from Marathon at Lignumvitae Key. Shelly had already caught 9 small fish so she is enjoying it. It was a pleasant night. We got underway about 7:30 and had a pretty run on to the Anchorage Resort and Yacht Club near Key Largo. It is a nice facility and the grill next door had a pig picking dinner Saturday evening. We enjoyed the meal with Blue Max.
Sunday’s forecast is for increasing winds with a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon so I guess we will stay put today.
Bill and I walked across the new bridge to get Key Largo in hopes of seeing the boat from African Queen. After we crossed the bridge we figured out that the address was still 6 miles down the road. So we got a couple of hot dogs and walked back to the boat. Soon after we got back it began to rain, good to be back and good to be in the dock. We decided to wait out the winds again on Monday so we messed about on the boats with small chores and then had a shuffle board challenge after lunch. Bill and Eileen were too much for us, they beat us soundly several times before we had enough sense to call it quits.
We finally got to moving on Tuesday morning and even though the winds were forecast to be stronger than we would have liked but the bays were very nice for cruising. We arrived at Boca Chita Key early in the afternoon and immediately fell in love with the place. It is what we expected all the keys to be like. It is isolated, and during the week it was only lightly used. We did meet some other cruisers in the small harbor and a looper, Foreign Exchange, came in on the second day we were there. It was so beautiful we spent two nights. The island was owned by the Honeywell family in the 1930’s and they built most of what is on the island today. We got to climb up in the small light house they built on the island and a caretaker who lives on the island during the winter was very nice about telling us the history of the island. On our second day we took the dingy and Bill, Shelly and Muriel and I went out to snorkel and we took Bill’s viewing bucket. The bucket worked so well we decided not to get into the cold water to snorkel, (it was 62 degrees). We observed some lobsters and sponge, along with part of an old wreck and a lot of interesting bottom-scape. We also rode the dingy further up along the keys to see a house on a small key. That evening we built a fire in one of the grills on shore and cooked dinner together. Later we taught Bill and Eileen to play Spite, a simple card game we have played for years. On Thursday morning the winds were still blowing out of the east pretty strongly but we watched a couple of other boats leave and decided to go on. We had a pleasant cruise on up the Dinner Key Marina at Coconut Grove, just below Miami. Jeff drove over and met us at the marina shortly after we got settled. He took us around Miami and out to South Beach. The girls enjoyed that! There is a Fresh Market just around the corner from the marina so we stopped in the marina’s pub for some beer and then bought things for dinner at the Fresh Market. Muriel served a great dinner.
It was about 2:00 when we got away from Dinner Key Marina. We encountered quite a bit of traffic crossing the bay to Crandon Park Marina. First we had to stop and wait for a sailing regatta to clear our course and then they rounded a mark and headed back toward our course. Next we had to change course to avoid a barge tow and then there were several pleasure boats on conflicting courses with ours. This seemed like a lot of traffic for such a short run. Crandon Park Marina is has very nice docks but the facilities are still undergoing a renovation so there are no showers and the toilet facilities are shared with a heavily used public boat launching area.
On Saturday Shelly and I walked about 1 ½ miles down Key Biscayne to the Crandon Park beach area. Shelly enjoyed looking for shells she can use for her necklaces. I enjoyed watching and visiting with a very active kite boarding group. There were as many as 30 kites in the air at one time with as many more on the beach. On the walk back to the boat we took a wrong turn along the trails and ended up at a dead end at the inlet just north of the marina. We had to back track which added to our walk when we were both ready to be back at the boat. Muriel spent the time while we were walking to clean the boat. When I returned we washed some more windows and then pulled the rug off the sundeck and washed it on the dock. It dried slowly in the sun on the concrete dock and we put it back on board before dark. It was drier this morning than we expected.
We have decided to get underway fairly early on Monday, daylight savings time started last night, and run to somewhere north of Ft Lauderdale. We hope to be up to the Singer Island area by Tuesday evening. We have talked to Rick Drum, a friend from Bay State Milling. We both retired from Bay State last spring. We hope to get to visit with Rick and his wife while we are there.
Sunday’s forecast is for increasing winds with a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon so I guess we will stay put today.
Bill and I walked across the new bridge to get Key Largo in hopes of seeing the boat from African Queen. After we crossed the bridge we figured out that the address was still 6 miles down the road. So we got a couple of hot dogs and walked back to the boat. Soon after we got back it began to rain, good to be back and good to be in the dock. We decided to wait out the winds again on Monday so we messed about on the boats with small chores and then had a shuffle board challenge after lunch. Bill and Eileen were too much for us, they beat us soundly several times before we had enough sense to call it quits.
We finally got to moving on Tuesday morning and even though the winds were forecast to be stronger than we would have liked but the bays were very nice for cruising. We arrived at Boca Chita Key early in the afternoon and immediately fell in love with the place. It is what we expected all the keys to be like. It is isolated, and during the week it was only lightly used. We did meet some other cruisers in the small harbor and a looper, Foreign Exchange, came in on the second day we were there. It was so beautiful we spent two nights. The island was owned by the Honeywell family in the 1930’s and they built most of what is on the island today. We got to climb up in the small light house they built on the island and a caretaker who lives on the island during the winter was very nice about telling us the history of the island. On our second day we took the dingy and Bill, Shelly and Muriel and I went out to snorkel and we took Bill’s viewing bucket. The bucket worked so well we decided not to get into the cold water to snorkel, (it was 62 degrees). We observed some lobsters and sponge, along with part of an old wreck and a lot of interesting bottom-scape. We also rode the dingy further up along the keys to see a house on a small key. That evening we built a fire in one of the grills on shore and cooked dinner together. Later we taught Bill and Eileen to play Spite, a simple card game we have played for years. On Thursday morning the winds were still blowing out of the east pretty strongly but we watched a couple of other boats leave and decided to go on. We had a pleasant cruise on up the Dinner Key Marina at Coconut Grove, just below Miami. Jeff drove over and met us at the marina shortly after we got settled. He took us around Miami and out to South Beach. The girls enjoyed that! There is a Fresh Market just around the corner from the marina so we stopped in the marina’s pub for some beer and then bought things for dinner at the Fresh Market. Muriel served a great dinner.
It was about 2:00 when we got away from Dinner Key Marina. We encountered quite a bit of traffic crossing the bay to Crandon Park Marina. First we had to stop and wait for a sailing regatta to clear our course and then they rounded a mark and headed back toward our course. Next we had to change course to avoid a barge tow and then there were several pleasure boats on conflicting courses with ours. This seemed like a lot of traffic for such a short run. Crandon Park Marina is has very nice docks but the facilities are still undergoing a renovation so there are no showers and the toilet facilities are shared with a heavily used public boat launching area.
On Saturday Shelly and I walked about 1 ½ miles down Key Biscayne to the Crandon Park beach area. Shelly enjoyed looking for shells she can use for her necklaces. I enjoyed watching and visiting with a very active kite boarding group. There were as many as 30 kites in the air at one time with as many more on the beach. On the walk back to the boat we took a wrong turn along the trails and ended up at a dead end at the inlet just north of the marina. We had to back track which added to our walk when we were both ready to be back at the boat. Muriel spent the time while we were walking to clean the boat. When I returned we washed some more windows and then pulled the rug off the sundeck and washed it on the dock. It dried slowly in the sun on the concrete dock and we put it back on board before dark. It was drier this morning than we expected.
We have decided to get underway fairly early on Monday, daylight savings time started last night, and run to somewhere north of Ft Lauderdale. We hope to be up to the Singer Island area by Tuesday evening. We have talked to Rick Drum, a friend from Bay State Milling. We both retired from Bay State last spring. We hope to get to visit with Rick and his wife while we are there.
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