WEDNESDAY JANUARY 20TH

Did a couple loads of laundry. (oh, the glamour and excitement of travel)

We made plans to meet Cindy and Alex for lunch. Their boat is in the mooring field as the marinas are all full. The mooring field is 226 anchorages with a large ball that floats and you can tie up to it for a fee, rather than just anchor. All we had to do, was find them amongst those 226 boats. The mooring balls were labeled so we did eventually find them. Under the boats’ names on their sterns is the name of the place the boat comes from. We saw boats from everywhere, even Alaska. Many of them are here waiting for a weather window good enough to make it to the Bahamas or Cuba. We heard every mooring ball is taken at this time.



Our destination was Chiki Tiki at Burdines.
Cindy and Alex are in their dinghy ahead of us.










We enjoyed lunch and a couple of beers while
making plans to go fishing in Tug Hill Tug.







The Loopers and dock neighbors were having a BBQ pork chop/potluck dinner tonight and invited us. It was a fun night. Pretty much everyone had a southern drawl or a New York accent. We felt a bit out of place with our Minnesota accent.
It’s a fun loving, social group of folks. Some of the guys had found an old broken table and carried it back to the dock and they fixed it up. They then decided to go back to where they found the table and bring back the tv set that was also sitting next to the curb. No big deal that it had rained on it for two days. Plugged it in. Worked ok, except for a fuzzy grey line through the center of the picture. Now if you’re a guy, there’s something to fix and you don’t have a tool at the moment, what do you do? That’s right. You give it a couple of good whacks on the top. The T.V. comes in clear as a bell now. Next day someone found a patio umbrella at the curb so they contributed that. I think it was at this point that someone thought they should have a party, hence the BBQ.

TUESDAY JANUARY 19TH

On our vhf radio on channel #68 each morning is something called the Boater’s Net. It is an open forum on what is happening in the area for boaters, if boaters have questions about anything or if they are selling or looking for anything. We listened to that and then hopped on our bike to go explore Marathon.




By this time we are starving so decided to stop at the first place serving breakfast. Well this place definitely fit the bill! The Stuffed Pig. How could we go wrong?



After breakfast we ran a few errands and while biking, crossed paths with Cindy and Alex from Tug Hill Tug. It was fun to see them again and we made plans to meet up again.







As we were biking around we came upon this place.
Now we aren't big sushi eaters, but if we were,
I think we'd pick a place to eat it that wasn't
right next door to a bait shop.

Hmmm. Makes you wonder.

MONDAY JANUARY 18TH

We left the Sunset Marina and Key West at Sunrise. It was also low tide and pretty hairy till we got to the Atlantic. We have an alarm that sounds when we get close to hitting the bottom and it was going off. A lot! The day was glorious and we traveled on the Atlantic side of the Keys on our way to Marathon Key. The ocean had around a 2 foot swell on it and it made for a smooth ride. Today we reached our southern most point on making the loop.

It was easy to spot the millions of crab traps and avoid them. Well, maybe there weren’t quite a million, but it seemed like it. We did see thousands of dead sea creatures. And that’s not an exaggeration. Fish of every shape and size, eels and even a sea turtle. We turned the boat around and went back to take a photo of the turtle. As we got close, it appeared to be dead. We later learned that is was most likely cold stunned. If only we had known, we could have contacted someone. There is a turtle hospital on Marathon and they treated hundreds of cold stunned turtles. Hopefully someone else saw it and called the right people.

We arrived at the Sombrero Dockside Marina and Lounge by mid afternoon. There are quite a few Gold Burgee Loopers here. (those that have completed the Loop). When they saw our burgee, they immediately came to welcome us.

SUNDAY JANUARY 17TH

Ross bundled up his charts and headed to The 5th Quarter where Joe was going to give Ross a chart briefing on anchorages, marinas and routes through the Florida Keys, and the Chesapeake Bay area. What great information to have!!!










Janice and Joe, invited us to go the Hogfish Bar & Grill. It is a local Stock Island waterfront restaurant and off the beaten path. It’s very popular and we had to wait for a table.

Since we had to wait, Joe took us for a tour along the dock. There are many floating houses moored to the dock. Some looked pretty tough, and others looked great. Joe pointed out Mel Fishers work boat. Mel Fisher is a treasure hunter who finds sunken wrecks and salvages the treasures and anything of worth on the ship. Mel has a museum in Key West that is very interesting and full of treasures he’s recovered. Between storms, hurricanes and the many reefs along the keys, there have been hundreds of ships that have sunk. Anyway, this boat has large pipes on the stern that are hooked up to hoses that dredge the bottom sucking up stuff and bringing to the surface where they can look through it on the boat.





For lunch we ordered what the Hogfish Grill is named after, a Hogfish Sandwich and fries (of course). It was great! A Hogfish is kind of a bizarre looking fish and they are harvested by spearing, rather than netted or caught on a hook.

















Janice and Joe from The 5th Quarter













Janice and Joe’s dock neighbors, Gina and Ed, joined us.



After lunch we all headed to our boat to watch the Vikings/Cowboys game. Much to Gina’s disappointment, the Cowboys lost. And she even wore her Cowboy’s shirt. We had a fun time watching the game with new friends.