Marathon, FL to Key West, FL

Total Miles Traveled 1808.9

Well, what can I say, we’re in Key West and I haven’t stopped long enough to update our blog.  Today is our first day of measurable rain since arriving, so it’s a great opportunity to sit down a few hours and bring you up to date.

We left Marathon January 29^th after waiting 12 days for the wind to stop blowing and churning up the Atlantic.  We met several friends during our stay, and had a great time visiting with them again. 

Looper docktails at Marathon....we met the couple in the foreground in 2013 when we were wanna be loopers, again in 2015, again in the Bahamas 2017, at Marathon in 2018 and again this year. Everyone else we met in 2015-16 on the loop, except two couples we met at Everglades City this year.

Getting ready to enjoy deep fried Key Lime Pie for dessert at Berdines with our friends Randy, Sherri, Mike and Elaine.

It was well worth the wait as we had calm waters on the 45 mile cruise to Stock Island, just a 5 mile shuttle ride to downtown Key West. 

7 mile bridge

If you look close, you can see the crab pot markers floating in front of us.

Stock Island Marina Village

 We are the 3rd boat on the far side of this pier.

This is "Red Head"  formally owned by Billy Joel but currently owned by the creators of the boating app called Active Captain.  They sold the app to Garmin last year, but for the last 4 or 5 years the app was the most used boating information resource of the cruising community.  I had the opportunity to thank them for their creation and I continue to write reviews on our anchorages and marina stops.

The "only" downside of Stock Island and Key West is the size of the islands and the location of two very popular airfields.  One is the Key West Airport and the other is the Naval Air Station on Boca Chica Key.  The upside is there are usually no flights before 7 a.,m. or after 7 p.m.

Two of our long time friends Judy and Pearl, currently Florida residents but formally from Indiana, came down for a visit last week.  We had a great time seeing the sites and reminiscing about the good ole days.

We took a tour through the Butterfly House

And downtown Key West

Someone is not happy with their purchase

Just after Judy and Pearl left, our friends Darin and Linda came down for a vacation at Key West,  they are also from Indiana and avid boaters.  We had a great time with them during their visit.  Darin and I took a tour through the USCGC Ingham while the girls went shopping.

The Ingham was built in 1936 and served for 52 years.  In WWII, she performed 31 convoys across the Atlantic, sinking German Nazi U-Boat 626.  In 1944, she was reassigned to the Pacific and served as Command Ship in the 7th Fleet.  She was the Flagship for Gen. McArthur's return to Corregidor.  She also served as Flagship for the amphibious landings at Leyte Gulf and later as Flagship for the South China Naval Forces in China, Formosa and Viet-Nam. In 1985 she became the oldest Naval ship serving our nation and the most decorated.  When retired in 1988, everything was left onboard as time capsule.  USCGC Ingham is 327' long, 41' beam and 15' draft powered by two 6000 hp steam engines with a top speed of 20 knots, about 23 mph.

Back at the marina, this local manatee stopped by for a visit.  You would think it would find a safer place to hang out other than a marina full of propellers.  As you can see its sporting a few battle scars.

While in Key West one of the charter fishing boats came in cleaning their catch of the day, if you look close you can see a few pretty big tarpon waiting for any scraps.

Moni and I are trying to decide if this guy on the sailboat in front of us is Donald Trump's brother?

We will be here until March 1st and are still undecided where our adventure will take us northbound.

Carrabelle, FL to Marathon, FL

Total Miles Traveled 1763.9

The weather Gods were very kind to us providing a weather window to cross the Gulf of Mexico January 7^th.  We departed C-Quarters marina at Carrabelle just before noon and anchored at Dog Island to wait for a 3 p.m. start to our overnight journey.  Since the crossing will take around 21 hours, we wanted to arrive at Tarpon Springs around 10 a.m. allowing the sun to be high enough in the sky to reduce the glare on the water.  The area around Tarpon Springs is covered with crab pots and the floating markers for the pots are very hard to see, especially when cruising east into the sun.  Hitting one of these markers could wrap the line around our propeller shaft stalling our engine.

We would rather take the Big Bend route around the panhandle and stop at Steinhatchee and Cedar Key before arriving at Tarpon Springs, but this year we’re about a month behind our cruising plan and decided if we had a good forecast we would do the crossing.  Through the American Great Loop Cruisers forum, we found another boat planning to cross the same day so we met “Imagine” at Dog Island.  Just before our departure, another boat “Let’s Go” arrived so the three of us traveled together to Tarpon Springs.

Sunset over the Gulf.

Sunrise over the Gulf.

We had planned to anchor at Anclote Key, near Tarpon Springs but decided to continue on to Clearwater Beach to a better protected anchorage from wind.  We arrived at our anchorage at 1:03 p.m., 22 hours after leaving Dog Island. 

After a good night’s sleep, we weighed anchor January 9^th and continued south, crossing Tampa Bay. 

Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay

We had planned to anchor at Longbeach Key but there were several boats anchored there and very shallow water.  We did drop the hook but was not comfortable with the wind direction and the crowded anchorage so we continued on to Sarasota and anchored behind Captain Jack’s marina.

This boat passed us entering Charlotte Harbor.

We anchored at one of our favorite spots, Punta Blanca Island January 10^th, then continued on to Ft Myers Beach.  We topped off our fuel tanks at Ballard Oil Company, a commercial fuel dock that sells a lot of fuel and one of the lowest prices in Florida.  We paid $2.58 gallon today, then continued on to Salty Sam’s Marina for a couple of days.  Our friends Kevin and Jill from “Chasing 80” stopped by to say hello, we’ll be spending February with them at Stock Island.

We had a perfect Gulf weather forecast January 13^th, so instead of anchoring at Naples, we cruised 75 miles to an anchorage near Everglades City.  The Gulf was unbelievably calm passing Naples and Marco Island on our way south.

On Monday January 14^th we cruised up the Baron River to Everglades City and met new looper friends on “Stay Strong” Marty and Deb, and Kevin and Vanessa as they helped us tie up and provided information about Everglades Isle Marina.  The marina is also a high end RV park, they only allow motor coaches and 10 years old or newer.

Air boats are a popular business here.

Our purpose for stopping here was to visit our good friends Merrill and Jan from back home.  They picked us up Monday afternoon, and then took us to Walmart and Publix Tuesday for provisions.  We’re looking forward to visiting them again when we get to the Key’s.

After waiting for a rising tide, we left Everglades City and cruised to the Little Shark River for a one night anchorage, then continued on to Marathon January 17^th.  Our reservation at Stock Island doesn’t start until January 27^th so we planned to get a mooring ball at the City Marina for a few days.  We have several looper friends that are staying here.  There are 216 mooring balls on a first come first served basis, we found the mooring field was full and 24 people ahead of us on a waiting list. 

We called Stock Island Village Marina to see if we could come in a week early but they were completely booked.  A weather system is approaching and 25-35 mph winds are forecast for Sunday.  We called several marinas and found a new marina, Yacht Haven,  that has not officially opened yet but said we could  come in for a few days.  Allen, the harbormaster is very friendly and helped us into our slip.  Allen lives on his boat here and we are the only other boat in the marina.  The water is clear, the slips are new, and we see Manatee’s everyday.

We were here by dinghy last year with looper friends of ours Randy and Sherri Chester on “Priorities”.  They have friends that rent a house across from the marina.  We visited with Randy and Sherri at a condo near the panhandle before flying to Texas in December, they are on their second loop and their boat is in Michigan for the winter.  About an hour after we tied up, a boat pulled up at their friends dock and guess what, Randy and Sherri are here and visiting with their friends for a couple of weeks, a very small world we live in.

The current weather forecast is for strong winds and high seas for the next several days.  We are probably in the most protected marina at Marathon and are very fortunate for the opportunity to be here.  If we were on the list, waiting on a mooring ball, we would be in a crowded anchorage with 25 to 35 mile per hour winds predicted today and tomorrow.  Hopefully the winds will calm next week allowing us to cruise the Atlantic side of the Key's to Stock Island.

Niceville, FL to Carrabelle, FL

Total Miles Traveled 1258.5

As with any adventure, there can always be an unexpected event that can change your plans and your life.  We received word just before reaching Apalachicola that my father had fallen and was in the hospital suffering from numerous complications.  We arrived at Carrabelle on December the 8^th and flew out to Texas on the 10^th to be with him, he passed away on December 16th.  One of the main reasons for starting this blog was for him; he tracked our every move and enjoyed our pictures as he followed our adventure. At 94 he was still able to keep up with today’s technology using our blog and Facebook to keep up with family and friends.   He told me he was living his life through us.  I’m going to miss those 2 hour phone conversations and it will take some time as we travel, not to make a mental note that I need to tell dad something we saw along our journey.

We departed Bluewater Bay Marina December 4^th, Jack and Patty are the Harbor Host from this marina on “Nearly Perfect”.  We met them a couple of times during our loop.  They are great people, having docktails on their boat every evening, and took a van load of us out to dinner one evening.   

As we were crossing the bay making our way to the ICW we noticed two boats in the ICW traveling on our projected course.  As we approached the channel we recognized one of the boats “Tanuki”.  We met Jerry and Sam when they started their loop in Key West last year and again this summer at our home port Green Turtle Bay.  We fell in behind “Tanuki” and Rick and Sue on “Fire Escape” as we entered the channel.

As we approached Panama City, we started to see some of the destruction from hurricane Michael with estimated damage to exceed 15 billion dollars.  Almost all of the marinas at Panama City were totally devastated. 

We anchored together in Pearl Bayou and another boat we met at Bluewater Marina “Antonia” came in just before dark .

As we traveled to one of our favorite anchorages along Searcy Creek, we passed more devastation from hurricane Michael.   

Tanuki and Fire House pressed on to Apalachicola and we stayed an additional day at our anchorage to catch up on our things-to-do list.  We’re glad we did, we saw three Eagles perched in a tree.

On December 7^th we anchored at Saul Creek for one night, and then continued on to Carrabelle Fl on the 8^th where we met up with Tanuki and Fire House again.    Carrabelle was also hard hit by the hurricane as most of the slips and the fuel dock at C-Quarters marina suffered extensive damage. 

We had an unexpected surprise as the Christmas Boat parade was scheduled during our stay.

Sue from “Fire Escape” was driving to Tallahassee on the 10^th so we were able to get a ride with her to the airport.  There are no car rentals, Uber, or Lyft at Carrabelle, only a private shuttle service which is very expensive.  Thank you Sue for giving us a lift!

We returned to “Best Mate” on January 2^nd, and are preparing for an overnight Gulf crossing on the 6^th or the 7^th.   The weather forecast is indicating calm seas, but we’ll decide on our departure day as we get closer to those dates.