We're in Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, FL!!!!

January 10 - 28

We got to Boot Key Harbor in Marathon, FL on January 10. It's about 30 miles north of Key West in the southern Keys. We sailed toward the channel, surrounded by a pod of about 7 dolphins, definitely a good sign. As we hailed the bridge tender to open the bridge for us to enter the harbor, he said, "Welcome to Paradise." The man was not joking! It's a beautiful harbor, very popular with cruisers. In fact, there are about 230 mooring balls and the place is just about full. Luckily, we got a mooring ball with another next to us for Kevin and Roxann on Moonraker.

Every morning, they have a cruiser's net on channel 68 of the VHF. They welcome new arrivals, wish fair winds to those leaving, do a buy-sell-trade section, news in the harbor (for potlucks, yoga classes, etc.), trivia and so forth. It's really fun to listen to each day. The other thing that is fun is that everyone has dinghy's and visit as they zoom around the harbor. What a great community! We are having a lot of fun.

This is the shelter at the end of the Marathon Municipal Marina where we are staying. Once a week they have a jam session with cruiser musicians. Bill and I are trying to learn our harmonicas so we could join in the fun.

Some of the boats lined up in the mooring field.

The view off our stern. Love looking at the palm trees and green water.

I bought this plant, in a coconut shell in Vero Beach. So far, it's surviving.


This was the dinghy dock on Inauguration Day! It was so cool to watch the festivities in the cruiser lounge, surrounded by tons of people. We all cheered when Obama finished his oath. Truly an historical moment in an unusual place!!!!

Mansions in Miami

January 3 - 10



We left Vero Beach on January 3 to go down to Ft. Pierce and Lake Worth. This is a common jumping off point to go to the Bahamas. In fact, we ran into our Canadian friends that we'd spent New Year's Eve with in Lake Worth (Palm Beach). They were planning on crossing the next day. Instead, we went offshore toward Miami.



We have new traveling buddies. Kevin and Roxann are on Moonraker, a 38 foot Island Packet. We ran into them in Vero Beach. Turns out, they are from our home port of Battery Park in Sandusky, Ohio. In fact, they were only a few docks down from us. However, we had NEVER met them because they usually went up during the week and we went up on weekends. Bill recognized their boat and went over to say hi. They are a ton of fun and get this...their last name is REED!!!!! What are the odds? They are our new BFFs (Best Friends Forever). We have had a ball traveling with them. Bill and Kevin are two peas in a pod. I've never seen two people be so similar. They have a great time together and are both obsessed with sailing. Too funny. Anyway, we traveled together to Miami and arrived at night. I have no idea how Bill figured out the navigation lights against the lights of the city, but he did it. We anchored the first night behind the Venetian Causeway in a very protected harbor.


Roxann and Kevin took this great photo of us sailing into Miami at sunset.




Kevin and Roxann...what a cute picture!

Miami Beach. Much more crowded and not as pretty as Vero...but hey, it's a beach!

The second night in Miami we went into Sunset Lake which was tucked in behind a bunch of million dollar mansions. Beautiful, huh?

Another beautiful home on the channel.

This is a mansion with the million dollar yacht and fishing boat in front. We anchored right in front of this home. The police came on the second day to tell us we had a 7 day limit. No problem, we planned on leaving the next day. They warned us that the guy in this house was a VERY vocal against people anchoring. He'd called the police the moment we'd dropped our anchor. They told us to ignore him if he put bright lights on us or played loud music. We just laughed it off. Turns out, that evening, Bill had taken the dinghy in to empty the trash. I was down below chopping veggies for dinner. I heard him come back and looked out the port to see the sky was black. At that instant a huge gust of wind hit us and dislodged our anchor!!!! We were being blown toward his million dollar yacht and home VERY quickly. AKKKK!!!! Bill started the engine and told me to take the wheel. I am VERY proud to report that I stayed very calm and put the engine into full gear into the wind. Bill pulled up the rest of the anchor and I kept the boat into the wind and off this guy's boat. In the meantime, Mr. Million Dollar Mansion guy was literally jumping up and down and waving his arms and screeming at us not to hit his boat. DUH! Does he think I WANT to hit his boat???? Eventually, the wind calmed down and we were able to reset the anchor. We had a good laugh about the whole thing. But I have a feeling Mr. Million Dollar Mansion had to take a pill or two to calm down.

On January 8 we left Miami and anchored behind Pumpkin Key, just off Key Largo. It was the prettiest anchorage yet. This photo is of a resort that was on a private island. Very exclusive.

Roxann and I enjoying some champagne to celebrate that we finally made it to the Keys!

Kevin and Bill hanging out on the boat. Note Bill's "guns"! What a guy!!!!

Catching Up -- New Smyrna to Vero Beach

December 16 - January 2

First, let me apologize for being so far behind on the blog. It seems that time has flown by since the weather warmed up and we've been visiting such great places in Florida. After leaving St. Augustine, we made a two day visit in New Smyrna Beach. It's a great beach town that we fell in love with immediately. We could see dolphins and manatees playing off the stern of our boat every day.

The view from the stern of our boat. Not bad, eh?


We met Joe and Deanne at the dock. They retired to New Smyrna from New Jersey. They were kind enough to drive us to West Marine then give us an in-depth tour of the area. Great folks!

John Mastbaum, a long-time friend of Bill's came to visit Dec. 20 - 26. We had a terrific time. Picked him up in Titusville then made our way to Cape Canaveral. This is a shot of a wonderful day sail we had off the coast.

John and Bill at the helm.

During our sail we saw 3 cruise boats leave port as well as a submarine. The sub was huge and very impressive under power. Unfortunately, the pic didn't come out so well. The cruise ships had large crowds on the deck to see the sunset (Bill and John thought they were out to see them...yeah, right).

From Cape Canaveral, we anchored behind Dragon Point for the night then on to Vero Beach. Sailors refer to it as "Velcro Beach" because once you are there you don't want to leave. Now I can see why. It was a beautiful town with a fabulous beach only a mile from the marina, free bus service throughout the city and beautiful parks. We arrived on Christmas Eve and immediately ran into our friends from Annapolis, Jan and Ian aboard Jockslodge. They told us there would be a cruiser's potluck on Christmas Day. I searched through the fridge and managed to come up with a couple of dishes to share. It was a very nice party with lots of great food and new friends to meet.

We had such a great time in Vero that we decided to stay through New Year's. Joined a riot of a party on one of the boats, complete with music and dancing. Felt terrible the next day, but it was worth it. The video footage we have of everyone dancing is a hoot!

I wish I would have taken more pics, but here's a couple from the marina.

Cruiser's outside the marina lounge, discussing the day's activities.

The grounds feature large trees with hanging moss.

The dinghy dock was always full of boats. When you live onboard, your dinghy is your "car."

Bill tying up our dinghy to the dock. We make daily trips to empty trash, do laundry or go exploring on land.

It was tough to find space for our bikes. They certainly came in handy to explore the area.

Many of the friends we met were leaving Vero to go to the Bahamas. Since I need to go back to work in February (due to the economy, I need to put on my tap shoes and go out to sell), we have postponed our trip to the Bahamas. However, we figured we did have enough time to go down to the Keys. So we set off on the next leg of our journey on January 3. See the next blog entry for details.