One of the advantages of a sailboat is it MOVES! We can change our neighborhood anytime we choose, enjoy some great sailing between neighborhoods and relocate our “house” at will.
So after 2 weeks in Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, FL, it was time to go. We’ve visited with friends, hung out at Sombrero Beach, completed never ending boat projects (i.e. spending boat bucks!) and generally enjoyed our time in Marathon. We could stay, in fact we could stay all winter, but we’re not. We want to enjoy some of our favorites in Key West and so we go…
It’s not my usual to be up before dawn, but we decided we wanted to sail the 44 miles all in one day (not stopping in Newfound Harbor, our usual stopping spot)… I know … you’re thinking … it’s 44 miles. We cover that in less than an hour in our car, maybe 45 minutes. What do you mean ALL DAY? If we average 4, that’s 10 hours. This time of year there are only 11 hours of daylight…. not much time for “spare”.
ZERO percent chance of rain … that’s what all the weather forecasts said. Hmmmm…..
Yes, we got wet. But they were just “passing showers” according to David, although at the time I was washing the breakfast dishes & he was yelling something about the connector canvas to keep him dry …
And a beautiful double rainbow after the rain, don’t know if you can see the second rainbow, but it was amazing. And on we sailed toward Key West. The skies cleared, those “passing showers” moved northwest and away from us and the wind was perfect.
“Bo”, our trusty Monitor Windvane drove on through the clear Keys waters. The only thing we didn’t see was a sea turtle, but the double rainbow, lots of dolphins and Navy jets made up for the loss. Sea turtles will wait for another day, I know they’re out there.
Making great time, suddenly our GPS said we’d be in Key West by 1:30. We didn’t need to be there nearly that early and it was a magnificent sail, so when the wind shifted to directly behind, we slowed down and put up the wing on wing and leisurely enjoyed the last couple hours of our sail.
Yes, that’s too much crap on the boat , I usually try to avoid taking photos showing all our “crap”. We always said we’d NEVER look like “one of those cruising boats” with junk cluttering up the beautiful lines of the boat. But I didn’t want to sail to paradise without my kayaks, and the dinghy is kind of important and we won’t trail it, so it lives on the foredeck underway. And the wind generator and solar panels may look trashy, but they gave us free electricity all week our last week in Boot Key Harbor. Didn’t need the Honda 2000 generator even once. SO, I guess we’re trashy cruisers, but we’re eco-responsible? 🙂
So now we’re in Key West … more to come, I LOVE Key West! 🙂 I love sailing! Cheers! Jan
Perhaps you were the dark hulled boat we passed yesterday as we were heading from Key West to Marathon? It had a lot of stuff on it 🙂 Enjoy your stay there. We sure did.
Probably! There was a parade of boats going into the wind, and we were about the only one going toward KW until we got closer. Enjoy Marathon, we had fun there too!