2-5 2-6 Everglades to the Keys

4 Comments

We left Little  Shark River in the Everglades at sunrise. It was beautiful to watch the sun rise in all it’s majesty.

Sunrise over the Everglades.

It was the perfect day to travel.  We had calm winds and fair seas.  I bet the sailboaters weren’t as thrilled as we were.

Our view as we head out to the Gulf of Mexico. Love the brave tree poking out at the point.
I love Pelicans. We don’t see as many White Pelicans as the Brown Pelicans.
We saw many dolphins along the trip. We never tire of seeing them.

 

We dropped the fishing lines in the water to troll while we were running.  Low and behold, we finally caught something we could eat.  it is a Spanish Mackerel.  It was delicious blackened on the grill that night. Its a pretty fish too.

Spanish Mackerel. Yum!
Man those things have teeth!
Saw this unique sailboat full of people out on the Gulf. It made us think of an old whaling boat.
I forgot to post this while in the Everglades. It was passed sunset and getting dark quickly when all of the sudden 5 canoes came around the corner. We didn’t see anywhere for them to camp. They made us go hmmmm.
We crossed under this bridge to get to Marathon. I believe we are officially on the Atlantic Ocean. We feel like such world travelers but we haven’t left the US……yet. Keep following us.

We pulled into Boot Key Marathon.  OMG there are literally hundreds of boats either on mooring balls or at anchor. It was crazy!

Look at all the boats! This is only one small area.

There was no room to anchor anywhere so up Sister Creek we go to try our hand at Mediterranean Mooring.  If you don’t know what that is don’t feel bad I didn’t until we had to do it.  Basically you toss out your anchor and back your boat all the way up close to the Mangroves and tie up to them.  We had never done this before and didn’t know the tricks.  We did it twice but the current kept pulling the stern (back of the boat) too close to the sailboat nextdoor.  Plan C: We got out our spare anchor. I would drop the anchor on the bow then then ran to the stern and heft the other anchor overboard to stop the swing.  It worked pretty well.  Our neighbor sailboater Steve quickly came over with his dinghy and used it to push us further over.  We now know we almost need three people to do this.  But in hindsight we probably should have had the dinghy dropped and running and had Scott remotely drop the anchor and me be the tugboat at the stern.  It actually sounds like more could go wrong doing that than dropping the anchor.   Steve gave us lots of info and we were thankful for both his help and insight.  Scott proceeded to get every line available on board to run 4 lines to the mangroves with the dinghy and battle the bushes to tie us up.  Better him than me. 😉

Scott rowing the lines to shore.
Scott tieing the lines to the mangroves.
We were entertained by some unusual rays. If you look closely you can see a larger one and a smaller one. I witness the small one come flying out of the water. We could see the tips of their “wings” sticking out of the water. We later learned that means they are courting and doing the mating dance.

At sunset the noseeums were brutal.  We quickly retreated indoors only to have them fly right through the screen.  We closed everything up and it became a sweatbox in the boat.  I thought the Keys were suppose to be great.  We are a little disappointed with our first stop.  We have decided to not hang around here too long.  Everything is crowded and EXPENSIVE! Looking at plans to find deserted islands  in the Bahamas.  Stay tuned

Thanks for reading,

Scott and Karen

Unique Random Picture of the Day:

Saw this house out in the middle of nowhere near the edge of the Everglades.

4 thoughts on “2-5 2-6 Everglades to the Keys”

  1. FOLLOWING YOU….THANKS FOR THE UPDATES…SORRY ABOUT THE NO SEEUMS…..UGH…!!!….HOW ARE THE SOLAR PANELS DOING….???…LOVE YA’S…..!!!

    1. The solar panels are amazing. They save us from running the generator 4 or 5 hours a day. It was a good choice to install them.

  2. The no-see-ums have been a problem for me since Caya Costa. I have to spray myself nightly with bug spray and I have asked everyone if they are bothered by them and they say no. When we saw you anchor I wondered if they would be bad. If the winds aren’t bad try outside boot harbor to anchor-the sunset is magnificent!

    1. Hi Karen,
      Others in Sister Creek said they were terrible. It didn’t look like there was much hope for getting on the mooring ball soon so we took off and are headed to the Bahamas. Enjoy the Keys!

Comments are closed.