Key West, FL
sunny & hot
OK...stuck in paradise, it's 5 o'clock somewhere and I ain't got a nickel and I ain't got a lousy dime.... all come to mind here in Key West. But, let me digress...our time in Panama City was really nice, it was a great little town, but we were ready to get on our way to the Tampa area. As it turned out our friend Dan and his son Spencer could not wait for Key West so they planned on joining us there. We arrived at the sea buoy to Tampa Bay around midnight on May 19th. We decided to anchor out behind Egmont Key (a bird breeding ground), so finally around 1:30 am with Island Sol on the hook we tried to settle down and sleep. I just couldn't do it, I kept popping up making sure we were not dragging our anchor. Come to find out there is a 80' deep ridge that runs around Egmont Key and it is a shark breeding ground also! Yikes...unfortunately we never saw any "fins".
Later, that day we got a slip at The Harborage Marina at Bayboro in the shadow of USFSP...University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Again another great town. After some boat cleaning, Dan and Spencer arrived the next day. Spencer just finished his first year of college and was ready for some decompression. It was great seeing Dan again. We met a yacht broker, Joe, who knocked on our hull, turns out he had listed Island Sol before we bought her. Joe was a wealth of information about St. Pete. On the 21st we celebrated Charlie's 63 birthday with lots of food and drink...it was a great day! The next day we visited the Island Packet Manufacturing Plant and got a tour by Carson Johnson. Very interesting and amazing that these boats are made totally by hand. At 4:45 pm we slipped our mooring lines and headed for Key West. Again, we were blessed with good seas and weather. We did some sailing finally in order to make our arrival during daylight hours. The porpoise gods were good to us and we had a couple of occasions to watch them ride that bow wave. I just can't get over how clear the water is here and so blue, it is just beautiful. On Thursday morning Charlie decided to throw out a lure and see what we might come up with. About an hour later that zzzzing sound told us....fish on! It was really exciting and took all 3 of us to get that 15 pound bonita on board. Charlie cleaned it in the cockpit, cut it up and marinated some of the pieces. It was grilled later that afternoon and was very tasty, so more for dinner that night. We arrived in Key West on Friday, the 24th, around 8:30 am with a side berth at Key West Bight Marina. I have never seen so many boats in one place.
So, here we are back at that first sentence. Seems our weather is going bad on us with 30 knot winds out in the Gulf for the next 5 days. This is a crazy town, not unlike New Orleans...some very colorful characters live here. The architect is really neat and as you can imagine the place is quite pricey. We have rented bikes which has made the city more accessible to us, toured Ernest Hemingway's home (which was very interesting) and have found many cool bars/restaurants. Thanks to the ladies at the Elks Club and to our new found friends Melissa and Eric who spent a "wild and crazy" day with us yesterday. You know...what happens in Key West stays in Key West!  |
| Island Sol at anchor |
We are sending love and prayers to our son-in-law, Bobby, at the passing of his mother the other day. It hurts our heart that we can't be with him at this time. So love to all our friends and family....until the next post! Hopefully I will learn how to post some pictures soon, too.
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