A Little Paradise-Bahia Honda Key

I think you'll agree that we may have just found paradise.  It was a perfect day for the beach, 80's and humid.   We were excited by the color of the water and how clear it is.  Now let me just say that is a good thing and a bad thing when it comes to anchoring in clear water.  (Especially since everything we've read about this little harbor is the poor holding.  After dropping the anchor and letting out the appropriate chain, Jon spent about an hour looking at the anchor. (It looks to be on its side half covered). We pull it up and start the process again. (Jon is in the dingy now rowing over the chain and anchor... He stands in the dingy while he rows and looks a lot like one of those extreme snow ski jumpers...row, lean forward, glide.  It so funny and yet I didn't take a picture. He tortures himself enough I guess). We decide after poking around a while longer that we really don't know what the anchor looked like when it's perfectly set..there's the rub of the beautiful clear water. We had the other signs that our anchor was set well, including both of us feeing the jerk when we put the boat in reverse.  So now we are both exhausted but leave Quicksilver for the beach.  When we walked to the other side of the island, we both tired giddy. The view was glorious. Some parts of the water over sand was crystal clear, some parts turquoise  and the deeper water emerald green.  Wow!!  Pinch me , we're in paradise.  We had so much fun waking through the clear water that never gets past our chest. Many times we see little schools of small fish in front or on the side of us. Several people are snorkeling in the sea grass. I hear different ones saying they found star fish or coral. We decide we had to stay another day and work on our snorkel technique.  

That's exactly what we did. I proclaim that Jon and I are mediocre at snorkeling but have a great time and plan to get better. With so much sun and fun, Jon and I fell asleep with no problems at about 9 30 both nights.  (Wait, that's not true. Jon stayed up to close to 11pm making sure our anchor alarm was on. He woke me up to look at the stars. With no light pollution we were able to see more stars than we've ever seen before. And true to what we read and heard they look different from up north. The Big Dipper was angled differently than we were used to...maybe because we don't usually get to star gaze that much in the middle of March.  Oh! And another thing we noticed. We can watch the sun set with out seeing sunspots. From Fair Haven, NY if you watch the sunset straight on you are seeing spots for the next half hour.  Interesting, right?

Well it is Sunday and we are heading for Key West....just spotted our first look at a sea turtle....I'm sure we will have much to report about the creatures who live around and on key west. Until then, wish you were here!

    Jon floating in the clear water near our anchorage. 

The view, looking out the Atlantic side. 

From off the old bridge...now an observation deck.   We could see fish and sting ray swimming .

Almost an emerald green. 

Another view from the observation deck

Crystal clear water.  No wonder the FWC (Florida Wildlife Conservation) is working so hard to protect these waters. 

 One of the beaches-Bahia Honda State Park

One of our sunsets, In paradise, Bahia Honda Key

Boot Key-Marathon, Florida

Sombrero Beach City Park

Trying not to take this for granted.  We have been doing a pretty good job of that. Each morning Jon and I sit in the cockpit of Quicksilver and look for the dolphin hunting their breakfast.  Usually we spot the pelican first circling around.  Sure enough, below the pelican are dolphin. Jon thinks they work together. The pelican is not shy either.  He will jump right between the dolphin for his share. After breakfast we decide our chores for the day. (It depends on what broke the day before or something Jon's been thinking about).  The first day a so after we got here we decided to find the beach and clean the bottom of our dingy.  We followed the creek around from the harbor, it is probably a little more than a mile by dingy. This is where Jon saw a flying sting ray.   There is plenty of birds, houses, anchored boats and cranes to see.  (Side note: just had to stop writing this to watch four dolphin swimming by....a small dog on another boat started barking and wagging his tail and one of the dolphin did a flip in the air to say hello...so exciting).   Ok, so we find the beach and take all our stuff out of the dingy and flip it and start scrubbing. It is a good little job and I found out quickly to protect my hands. I got my first barnacle bite on my finger..them barnacles be sharp matey.   The beach is city run and quite nice. There are a lot of people swimming and snorkeling.  And we swam for a long time. The water temperature is around 78 degrees..niiiicccce!  Night time in the harbor is beautiful.  The city has 250 mooring balls and two separate anchorages. So you have close to 300 anchor lights on after a spectacular sunset.  It almost like the stars are a little closer.  So , again, trying not to take this all for granted we sit in the cockpit and listen to music and watch the moon and stars for as long as we can. We have ventured out as well to the local night life. Last Friday we had fun and the dockside listening to the Eric Stone Band. I even danced a bit. Lots of fun people watching too.  Wow, their are more than a few characters in this town.  Speaking of which, they is an older gentleman at the dock that calls himself captain Jack. He greets everyone coming to the dingy dock. He presented we a beautiful flower yesterday. So sweet. I stuck it in my hair behind my ear and Jon and I went off to explore to the west of the Marina . When I took my sunglasses off at a fish store that sells awesome lobster reuben,  I noticed a small ant on them.  I flicked off and didn't think of it again. (You know where this is going). A while later I feel something crawling on my shoulder, yep another ant. I get smart now, with the help of Jon and get rid of the flower. Well I think I itched the rest of the day and pictured a colony of ants living in my curly hair.  

Seeing the gulf side where we had our lobster Reuben.  

It's Wednesday and we think it looks good to start traveling toward Key West on Friday. We're thinking of stoping at Bahia Honda State Park, about 10 miles away. Maybe do some snorkeling. Then travel the 30 miles to Key West where we plan to hook up with my big sister, Mary. Can't wait....to be continued 

On the creek toward the beach. 

Our feet at the Dockside Tropical Cafe. 

Sun in Jon's eyes and my key lime martini and Jon's Fat Tire Brew. 

Eric Stone Band

The next car we will have...hahaha

A nice cafe on the canal..

Another pic of the Sombrero Beach City Park

We visited the turtle hospital. Amazing !

The moon rising and some of the anchor lights

Encounter with dolphins

Monday we had our main sail and our head sail out for the 8 to 10 knot wind we had. We were having a nice motor-sail when Jon pointed ahead to the pod of dolphins heading toward us from the south. I get our iPhone camera ready when they decide to stay and play with us for awhile. Well they were squealing and we were squealing and I 'm not sure when I've had so much fun. Jon and I can't talk about it without smiling. There were at least six that we counted and after they twisted and turned in our wake for several minutes, they left us as fast as they came. If you're on face book check my page for the full video. It was a "Flipper nut's" dream.   The rest of the trip into Marathon pales to our encounter. And we are tied up to one of the city mooring balls for the next week. 

Today as we came into the dingy dock to check out the marina we encountered four manatee. A mom, dad, and two babies. Again you can't get over seeing and interacting with these mammals in the wild(not sure if the dingy dock is the wild...but it's where they were). Again we are like two little kids talking to them and snapping pictures. They are so cute. 

We then check out the canals and creeks around the marina. We headed through the creek that leads out to the city beach when Jon spots a sting ray jumping out of the water. I missed it...ugh.  Anyway we enjoyed the beach after we emptied the dingy and scrubbed off the scum and barnacles. No more wildlife there, unless you count the older gentleman wearing his speedo. 

We ended our day checking out the Dockside Lounge. It's an outdoor bar and grill that we find out is home to the Eric Stone Band (for those landlubbers that is the house band for Latts and Atts Magazine big parties.)  Jon swears he saw Bob Bitchin (founder of the magazine)  I could swear I saw Chong (as in Cheech and Chong) swilling one of the dollar beers and munching on the free food. This really is paradise!

The dolphins are so amazing

       Our mooring at Marathon 

     The friendly manatee

  We have no pic of our own, but Jon says this is what he saw. Mind you, we weren't on open water but in the creek. 

Rodriquez Key Is Not In Puerto Rico

  Sunset at Rodriquez Key, Florida 

   

After waiting out the storm safe and sound at our mooring at Dinner Key, (Coconut Grove-Miami) Jon and I headed to No Name Harbor on Sunday.  We decided to stay just outside the harbor as  last time we were there the no-see-ums about ate us up. Besides, there was about 50 boats inside the harbor for a concert.  Couldn't find out who it was, but we heard great Latin music all night. A lot of  ballads towards the end...warm night...beautiful stars...perfect.  Anyway, we left Monday mornng at 8:30am  and headed south towards Rodriquez Key. It's west of Key Largo about a mile or so. We sailed (with the aid of our motor) through the Hawk Channel. The Hawk Channel follows the coast (sailors don't call it the outside because their is alot of reefs between us and the Atlantic.  The winds were light but we made the 49 miles by 4 pm.   We dropped our anchor between Key Largo and Rodriquez Key, Florida.  The water all the way down was beautiful and the anchorage was no exception.   We could watch our anchor set in 9 feet of water. I remarked to Jon that it's to bad we don't have an extra swim ladder ( ours is blocked by the dingy when we have it on the dingy davettes).  After dinner something caught my eye and I looked in the water and we saw three nurse sharks swim by.  Guess I didn't want to swim after all.  We saw about six more swim by after the sun went down. Very cool to see them that close....but then again...they are that close. I've heard they won't come near you or hurt you, but I'm not sure I'll take the chance.  We are off already, heading towards Boot Key (Marathon, Florida).  What adventures lay ahead ....to be continued....

Cold front coming through on Friday. They had a tornado warning and predictions of gusts of up to 50 mph. We saw a steady 20 with gusts to about 30mph. 

Sailing over the two miles to No Name Harbor. 

Outside No Name Harbor...notice our Spiritual Guide...Mr Crane

Light winds ad beautiful water

 

  Our anchor chain to 8 feet water

The first 30 years were tough, the last five....piece of cake!

      Sunset at Rodriquez Key

    And here's sunrise

   Rodriquez Key in foreground, Key Largo in the background