When we left Port Canaveral, we'd planned to travel with our little flotilla made up of
HHH (a Jaguar sailing catamaran whose crew is Tony - Cabana boy name Mateo - and Vivian) and Laura Jayne
(a Nordhvan power trawler whose crew is Tony – Cabana boy name Antonio – and Laura) both dear friends we made at the Port
Canaveral Yacht Club. However, they left a day earlier, stopped for
the nights along the way and, to wisely avoid the super high winds and seas we experienced, ended up taking the Intracoastal from Palm Beach
to Miami. But we all met up at our
anchorage just south of Miami. Our sail was about 24 hours from Port Canaveral allowing us to anchor just as the sun was setting and they arrived the next day about 12 hours later. As soon as HHH's anchor was down Mateo dove into the water and swam
over to our boat for a hug. And so, the
fun began!
With our flotilla officially back to together, we started towards our group’s destination of Key West. As we were traveling Hawk's Channel the entire way (the channel that runs between land and the reef) which allowed for protected traveling but is not safe to travel at night. We had a great day sail down to
Tavernier Key where we hosted everyone on our boat for an
impromptu dinner. The next day we again had a great sail down to Marathon Key. Antonio, Laura, Pedro, and I took the dinghy ashore to meet up with my
Aunt Jeanne who lives in Marathon and who also hosted Pedro and I at her house during our last Keys trip.
Our timing was perfect to meet up with her visiting
family members, most of whom I’d not seen in many years and others I’d never met
but loved instantly.
To top the night
off, soon after we got back to the boats someone announced over the VHF radio
that we should get a view of the rocket launch from Cape Canaveral.
While it wasn’t a perfect view, it was fun to
see!
The next morning, our luck with great sailing ended and
our last day of travel entailed half a day of motoring into Key West harbor.
Before we'd even left Port Canaveral, we had several friends lined up to come
visit and the first ones beat us down there.
Tina and Roland (my best friend from high school as well as Matron of
Honor at our wedding and her husband) flew down from Ohio to spend a few days
with us.
Roland loves to fish so the
first thing we did was rent a small boat to take the four of us out.
As the winds again had picked up in earnest,
we decided that it wouldn’t be enjoyable to go off-shore so we headed to a few local
shallow areas.
Roland managed to reel in
a bonefish (not a keeper), a bonnet head shark (thankfully small and not a
keeper) and finally a keeper size mangrove snapper which we took back to the
boat and turned into a ceviche!
Tina and Roland stayed a couple more days and we even
talked them into renting bikes so we could ride around town.
To top is off, we ran into my cousins (the
one’s visiting Jeanne in Marathon) and got to hang out them again for a bit.
It was the perfect welcome to Key West!
Our next visitor was our friend Roberto who is also our personal chef.
I was excited to brag about shipping in my
own personal chef for the weekend and Roberto wanted to relax and enjoy a bit
of fishing.
In addition to bringing his
culinary skills and a ton of fresh food, Roberto also brought us a new dinghy
engine that he picked up in Orlando.
Funny story.
Our engine died on
us and to get the one we wanted in Key West was going to take at least 7-10 days.
We started looking elsewhere to get one sooner and low and behold, a dealer near his house in Orlando had in stock the
engine we wanted.
So, in addition to packing up some favorites of ours from the restaurant, he traveled down to Key West with our new motor. With this dockside delivery we were back in business and stocked with food!
With the prospect of dinner cooked by our own personal chef,
we talked the flotilla into pulling up anchor and heading out to Marquesas Keys (about a six-hour sail) with us for the weekend.
These uninhabited islands seemed to be straight out of a Corona Beer commercial with their breathtakingly beautiful beaches. Pedro and Roberto took off with the dinghy to go fishing but the rest of us thoroughly enjoyed wandering the literally deserted islands. The boys came back successful and Roberto did not disappoint (in all fairness, I did threaten to make him swim home if he didn’t catch fish) as he not only caught but cooked dinner
both nights we were there. It was
fabulous! We had another great sail back (once we were clear of a few idiot sport fishermen) to our anchorage so we could get him back to his car in time to get to back to work the next day.
A few days later, we were again ready for more visitors as our friends Roger and Terri flew in from
Orlando for a long weekend and the party began anew.
They made hotel reservations (Pedro is
convinced that the rough dinghy ride back and forth would have put them at
their limit) that included a nice pool area (and bar) so we immediately made
good use of the space by sitting in and around the pool while enjoying a
cocktail or two.
We did talk them into
also renting bikes which we think is essential in Key West to cover more ground.
While not her favorite activity, Terry was a
champ in allowing us to drag her around on bikes and we utilized them fully. Extensively
utilizing a list of favorite restaurants Laura got from a lady she met on the
beach who lives in Key West part of the year, we had several fabulous meals with everyone including one with my Aunt Jeannie who drove down for the day.
To top off the fun, we happened to be in town
for the Conch Republic Celebration which included their annual “Drag Racing” on
Duval Street.
It was so much fun to
watch the races.
Also great, was running into the “Cat Man of Key West” while on Mallory Square for sunset.
While he no longer has his show featuring
trained cats, he still loves to be a part of the action and graciously allowed
us a picture.
We had such a perfect time
with these two that we’re already planning our next (several actually) trips
together.
Pedro is still laughing that
it took me a couple of days (including long naps) to rest up from the weekend
but it was totally worth it!
Well rested and caught up with a few work items and boat chores, we started planning our next adventure.
This time, we planned to take the boat to The Dry Tortuga’s and Fort
Jefferson. As soon as he learned of our next destination, Roberto decided to
again drive back down and join us. So, we talked the flotilla into joining us. We had a great sail over and spent
3 days exploring, learning the history of the fort, snorkeling, fishing and,
yes, lots of eating.
Roberto did not disappoint
again with both his angling and culinary skills.
He managed to again both catch and serve up
wonderful meals (plus we ate for weeks afterwards on the other food he brought).
Thankfully, Antonio and Laura volunteered to
take Roberto back on the Laura Jayne so he could get back to work because, we
ended up needing 2 days to sail back against a headwind and we also damaged our
jib sail which slowed us down even more.
Back in Key West, we now started struggling to
find a sailmaker for our repair. Well, go figure, there is literally not one sailmaker between
Miami and Key West. Our only option seemed to be rent
a car and drive north. Our only option seemed to be to drive to Miami or West Palm Beach (the closest sailmakers we could find in our search) where we were being told "no promises" but we
could drop it off and it would be worked on whenever they had time. So, Mateo
called Morgan Sails in Cocoa who had recently made new sails for his boat. Being the amazing person he is, Scott Morgan
said that if we could get the sail to him by Friday, he could repair it and
return it by Monday. As they also needed a
quick repair on their sail too, Vivian agreed to go with me so we loaded up the rental car with both
sails and headed north.
Now, our only dilemma now was that we had a free weekend that
we needed to fill!!!
Thankfully, Polya and Roberto
invited us to stay with them so we dropped the sails off and headed over to
Orlando to be wined and dined for the weekend.
As you can imagine, we had a great time that was only topped off by the
outing to a farm near them that has pick your own blueberries. One thing was for sure, it's a good thing that they
didn’t weigh us before and after to determine how many we ate versus what we
actually put in the bucket. We did each purchase a bucket of delicious blueberries which we ate fresh and turned the rest into delicious cobblers.
Back in Key West, while the girls were busy slaving away
getting the sails repaired, the boys, left to their own devices, decided to
charter a boat for a fishing trip.
They
apparently had a great time catching barracuda, a 125 lb. tarpon and about a
dozen (they wisely only brought home 5 as neither of us had a lot of room in
our freezers) mangrove snappers that we enjoyed for dinner when we were all
back together.
We feel as if we enjoyed everything Key West had to offer. Having both our boating friends who traveled with us as well as our friends who traveled to be with us. We did all the touristy things, ate amazing food, enjoyed the music scene and loved traveling around on our bikes. Pedro and I even celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in style. We will surely miss both the town and our boating friends but know we'll be together again. As we were loading up on our last day, I saw this plaque on the ground near the wharf and just couldn't resist taking the picture.
With our sail repaired and no one else on the schedule,
it was time to take off again.
We took a
couple of days to stock up on fresh food, fuel and load our bikes back onto the
boat and we were ready to go.
Laura
Jayne had already gone back to Port Canaveral and HHH was heading back to Boca
Chica so we watched them sail back slightly north while we took off south.
A storm was forecasted during our passage so
we decided to make it easier on ourselves and miss the storm by stopping
overnight along the way again at Marquesas Keys and The Dry Tortugas before
making the 4-day sail to Grand Cayman.
Our first 2 days of sailing were great but the last 2 days brought a
strong headwind that we had to fight the entire time.
I took a picture of our chart plotter showing
the track we had to take.
At least we
got good exercise.
But, alas, we arrived in beautiful Grand Cayman Island,
checked into customs, secured the boat to a free mooring ball (most of the
island is either protected coral reefs or way too deep to anchor), dropped the
dinghy in the water and took our bikes ashore.
The last time we were in Grand Cayman was in 1991 when we were still
just dating and learning to SCUBA dive.
We loved it then and we loved it this time.
There are more high-rise buildings than we
remembered but the people are just as friendly and the water is just as
gorgeous.
We spent an amazing week
exploring as much of the island as we could both by land via our bicycles and
by sea via both a dive boat and an excursion to starfish beach and stingray
city (where we got to again feed the stingrays).
To negate the exercise, we found several
amazing restaurants – partially from referrals from Fred and Beth who are
regular visitors to the island and partially just riding around discovering
small places – and fell in love with the local beer.
Of, course it wouldn't be cruising if we didn't get to do boat repairs in exotic places but we loved our time here so much!
I think we could have stayed much longer
(especially after I met Bubbles the Cocker Spaniel who luckily hangs out in the
dive shop most days when I stopped in to refill my water bottle) but we got a
good weather window to continue south so we loaded the bikes back up and untied
the mooring ball.
As I type this, we’re sitting in Shelter Bay Marina in Colon, Panama
where we’ve already made some amazing friends and where we’ll hang out for a
few weeks while we get ready for our Panama Canal transit and then Pacific Ocean
crossing over to the French Polynesian Islands.
But I’ll fill you in on that next time!
Until next post!
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