Everglade City to Key West 2/10-2/12/18

We very much enjoyed our visit to Everglades City.  A real Old Florida feel.  We departed towards Key West right after 8:00 AM and made our way back out the winding channel to the gulf.  Once you get offshore about 3 miles it's a straight course to Key West and we took turns manning the helm.  I was sitting on the aft deck watching the water go by.  Often there are dolphins which will follow us and swim right beside the boat playing in the wake.  I was watching astern when I thought I saw a dolphin and started to watch what it would do.  Well after about 30 seconds I realized it wasn't a dolphin but a crab pot that we were dragging. I signaled to Debbie to cut the engines but the message didn't get across very quickly and about another half mile later she finally brought the boat to a stop.  I thought I would have to go swimming to untangle the crab pot line but as we stopped the buoy bounced up and we were clear.  Sometimes you get lucky.

We arrived late in the afternoon at Key West and set about to find an anchorage that would make us happy.  One of the first places we were set to try, as we were starting to lower the anchor along came a guy in a dingy and advised us that the holding there wasn't very good and there was a lot of current that ran through where we were trying to set.  We thanked him and moved over closer to one of the anchorages with lots of boats in it.  There are quite a few mooring balls here and lots of derelict boats too.  I can see the problem Florida and other states have with these under maintained, and probably uninsured vessels squatting in the anchorages.  The other side of that coin is that there are lots of people who work here and other places and there is no affordable housing so this is somewhat of a necessity for the working class. Workers are hard to find in the keys and the recent hurricanes have only made it worse.

There were two cruise ships tied up at Mallory Square when we pulled in and they changed out over the next two days.  The cruise ship business is doing well.

Carnival Ship

Disney Ship

We stayed in the anchorage for two days and did not venture over to Key West.  We will return via motorcycle from Marathon next week.  It will be much easier.  We did take Abby over to Wisteria Island for some playtime via dingy but the beach was rocky and Debbie wasn't thrilled with it.