Quicksilver Sail Tales: Wowza! Key West

We left on a very calm day and motored all the 39 miles to Key West. We found the mooring field and chose our mooring as far south as we could. We heard it was a good haul to the dingy dock and sure enough it was. We've had many a wet rides on those 15 to 25 knot days. The thing that really makes you smile upon arriving into the protected harbor is the eclectic houseboats. One was cuter than the next. We enjoyed walking the docks to check them out. Speaking of cute, there are chickens, roosters, chicks and iguana running all over the place. Ok the iguana aren't really cute. In fact on scared me to death when it was walking next to us on the side walk. I almost jumped on Jon's head.

Key West is known for their "excesses" including the happy hours with half priced drinks and h'ordorves. Now we aren't talking plain old nachos and cheese sticks... We are talking a pound of steamed shrimp for $9 and Florida lobster tails for $6.00. One bar we found also put out free food like fish tacos and chicken quesadillas on the bar. This fits right in with our sailor budget...CHEAP. They even have a clothing optional roof top bar. Ok we didn't get to go their yet.

Our favorite part of our trip to Key West was the visit from my sister, Mary and her friends from Biloxi. Mary drove with two of her friends - ungodly 16 hours. They arrived at their hotel to find that two more friends had flown in to surprise them. So fun and sweet. We had a blast with them. Jon just tried to pretend he wasn't with us most of the time. Not really he was enjoying the show and swears one of them is Sara in 30 years. We all explored this crazy little city. (Side note: the first night here Mary didn't wear comfortable shoes and by the end of the night swore off walking. Her friends talked her into buying better shoes...I think they stopped at every store and bought eleven pair of sandals..really comfortable ones. Haha I think Key West wants them to return soon.)

So many things to look at and enjoy, the sunset celebration will give you the circus atmosphere that will keep you entertained. From all the street preformers( singers, jugglers, acrobats, sword swallowers) we enjoyed an escape artist named Dano. Who after throwing himself on the cement found his way out of a straight jacket. (Jon even tipped him, so you know he liked him) We must have visited ten different bars and restraurants and enjoyed stone crabs and royal reds (shrimp)--key lime martinies and mojitos. Yummy and now we are definitely on a diet!!! I'm not kidding, we need a stair master on the boat.

Being on a diet and all, we think it's best to leave all these temptations. So looking for that weather window...maybe even tomorrow (that's Saturday, April 4th). Guess we also better start thinking of heading north as we have to be above Norfolk, VA by June 1st. Ugh. Well there are places we missed on our rushed trip down. More adventure to continue.

Look how calm the water is the day we came to Key West..no sailing.