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CRUISE Day 16 – Saturday, August 3rd
We left Fara Blanco at 1:30 pm, fueled up and headed out to Key West. We cleaned the filters in the A/C again and decided it would be a good idea to check them all the time – can’t be running without A/C now,
can we? There was a nice breeze and about a 1’ – 3’ chop. We saw a big slow moving dolphin, the first really, since we left Cape Coral. We also saw a huge yellow turtle floating in the distance like a big life raft. We were not far out of Marathon when we were on plane that I noticed a trap flapping in the wake – turning to Barry, I said, “I think we have a lobster trap attached to the prop”… “YES, I KNOW”!!!!
was the answer. It didn’t take long before we had to slow down and putt along all the way to Key West…. with lobster lines wrapped around the prop. So, 5 hours later we finally reach Key West, but the water
had been a wonderful light and clear aqua and nice to watch “roll”
by and it wasn't so bad after all. Salty wasn’t too impressed with the water motion but ate a lot of ice and was a real little
cruiser. At around 6:00 pm the water calmed down significantly and we arrived at the
Galleon Marina in Key West at 7:05 pm.
Marina Day - Sunday, August 4th we were settled in quite well in a pretty awesome slip overlooking the rock barrier and the Atlantic with all the sailboats moored in the
Bay, however, it was a temporary slip meant for a much larger boat. We moved into the inner most dock just along the boardwalk that proved to be just as good as we were able to watch the charter fisherman bring in and prepare their catch – it was closer to the
Streets and restaurants as well. Key West is an amazing spot – full of people, restaurants, shops, boats, docks – everything is interesting here! They have everything EXCEPT grass, which is not a major catastrophe for a boater but for a Salty dog going on a “mission” it proved very interesting indeed. The only piece of grass found anywhere near the Galleon was about a 2’x4’ patch by the public beach and boat ramp (here we go with the boat ramp again) which wasn’t so bad, but that’s where the “people of the
Street” lived and we were both a little skittish about spending too much time there. We went for our Thai dinner that was great, as per usual, and then wandered over to Sloppy Joes to enjoy the band and watch the younger crowd dance the night away.
Marina Day - Monday, August 5th was filled with much of the same activities as the day before, watching the people and fishermen. This was the day the scuba crew
were able to go under and cut off the lobster lines from the prop – seems we had a pile there too! He said he used to charge $50.00 total to do this sort of work, but after a job that took him over 4 hours to complete, he said now it was $50.00 just to get in the water and then $50.00 an hour after that. Oh well – had to be done and thankfully, it didn’t take them long before they had it clear and ready to go. We had a wonderful dinner on the second floor of the A & B Lobster House Restaurant on the boardwalk overlooking the Atlantic and all the millions of dollars worth of fiberglass in the Marinas – gorgeous site! We watched the PT-109 boat,
just like the one on which President J.F. Kennedy once served.
They use this one for day tours with happy tourists.
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