We've finally departed Key West for Ft. Lauderdale after a great week and a half. After the pounding that we took getting in, it was wonderful to just sit back and relax. And besides, Key West offers lots of relaxation opportunities! We've spent many days and nights exploring the neighborhoods as well as Duval Street. I was astounded at how much the city has grown. Man, you can get anything that you want here!
While we've been here I've spent a lot of time making final selections for the hardware that we're going to have installed on the boat. I've ordered a new 3.5 KW NextGen generator to replace my *!@) Fischer Panda generator, a Kiss wind generator, larger Atkins and Hoyle davits to hold the dinghy while under way, a new mattress, and I've spent lots of time designing a new 12 V refrigeration system that I'm going to assemble and install myself...and this is piece by piece! WOW!
While we were here we had several visitors. First, Sue's brother David and a friend, Pat, who are vacationing in Marco Island, took the ferry to Key West and spent the day with us. That was very nice. Then, Tom and Cathy Taranto, who own Nine Acre Wines where I've been a customer for almost 20 years, have a condo Miami and drove down to Key West. We had a great time wandering the streets, enjoying sunset, and having dinner at a very enjoyable Cuban restaurant. Oops...I almost forgot, Art and Lynne Schneider from Margarataville are here too, so we've been busy!
And I almost forgot to mention that there's a Navy base nearby where the Seals train. We got to watch them jump out of airplanes and helicopters at low levels, dive off of dinghies while underway, and perform night maneuvers in the local harbor! Neat!!!
All of this delayed our departure schedule and we missed our optimal departure weather window. We finally made it out of Key West today and headed to Marathon. The winds were *supposed* to have been SE to S, but they were SE to E at 15-20 kts and moved to NE once we were in! We motor-sailed most of the way with the sails as close in as possible. For those non-sailors out there, that's a rather uncomfortable point of sail as the boat is heeled far over into the waves and sea and not going very fast. After several unsuccessful anchoring attempts we finally ended up south of the Fanny Keys with a couple of other boats where we got to enjoy an fantastic sunset with lots of beautiful high level prognostic clouds. I had my weather books out studying them.
Anyhow, tomorrow we're moving northward to either Islamorada or Key Largo, depending upon the weather. Until then...
-- Geoff & Sue
Log ID: 366
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