Tavernier Key

We made it to Tavernier Key yesterday after stopping off at "hens and chickens" which was a really awesome snorkeling site. We saw a ray, barracuda, king fish and grouper.  It was worth the wait for a mooring ball.

We met up with the folks we bought the boat from and they have been awesome.  We were able to do laundry and they took us to the grocery store, liquor store and marine place so Wes could get some fishing equipment that might actually catch him some fish.  We are anchored right off of Tavernier Key and we entertained our friends to some really good chicken speedies and some really good cocktails.  It was a really great day and I am loving this more every day.  

Fiesta Key

Today we traveled a long ways haha - under the fixed bridge about a mile and a half to Fiesta Key.  We wanted to go on the Florida Bay side for a change so we went under the bridge, which was a bit scary cause I kept thinking we were going to hit our mast on the bridge. but it was 65' high and our mast is only 48' so it was all good.  There is a KOA campground in Fiesta Key so we took the dinghy in and had a good time visiting with all of the RVr's  They thought we were pretty crazy living on the water, but I am actually getting used to it. The dogs had a great time visiting with everyone and chasing lizards.  The waitstaff at the tiki bar were really nice and very helpful.  They set us up with a six pack of beer to take back to the boat. We are really meeting some great people on our adventure.

Now in Long Key

We are in Long Key. That is about 1/2 way between Marathon and Traverneir. We are heading to Taverneir to see the people we bought the boat from. Plus they just went to the Bahamas and I'm sure they will have a lot of good information about that.
We are going to the Bahamas around Aug 1. I have the kids coming down July 17 th and July 24.
They are going to land in Ft Lauderdale. I don't know what kind of boating they have there. I don't know if they have any good snorkeling or diving. But it will be good to see all the kids
Karen and I were again glad to get out of Marathon. That place will keep you if you let it. They have everything you need there and it pretty easy to get food and drinks. But we want to go to a different port every night. So I don't think we will be back there too often. We have to get our new solar, But the guy that does that will travel so we may have him travel to Taverneir.

I  have a nice picture of Captain Karen piloting the boat.

Back in Marathon

We are back in Marathon so we could schedule time for Alex to put on some new solar panels. We decided to go ahead and get the more efficient and more powerful solar panels so it can keep up with the refrigerator, freezer and all of our electronics. He won't be able to install them for a couple of weeks so we are going to start heading back up the keys to Tavernier to visit with the Klapper's and get the scoop on the Bahamas.  Then we will have to come back to Marathon in a couple of weeks to have the solar installed.  We booked flights for the kids to come down at the end of July so that will be great to see them and have them see our new way of living. I'm sure they will be shocked. I'm still a little shocked that I went from a nice big house to this little bitty boat and not having all the luxuries I was accustomed to but I'm adjusting. Today we took the dogs to a really nice dog friendly beach called Sombrero beach. They had a great time and so did we. Then Wes and I had dinner at Berdines which is an upstairs patio restaurant overlooking the channel. A very good day to say the least.

It's Sunday morning and it is very peaceful here in Boot Key Harbor, sitting on the back deck sipping my coffee.  We spent Friday in Key West anchored off of Wisteria Island and walked down to Mallory Square which is where the cruise ships come in and there are street performers everywhere.  Then we walked up Duvall Street, which is pretty entertaining, and then had dinner at Fogerty's.  It was a really nice last day to spend in Key West.  Saturday morning we decided to head back to Marathon and we wanted to make it before evening because Eric Stone was playing at the Dockside and it was probably the last time we will be down this way to hear him.  So we headed out and of course there was not a bit of wind so we motor sailed the whole 50+ miles which took us a good 8 hours.  But we made it in time for his second set.  We will probably stay in Marathon a couple of days because Wes wants to talk to Alex about some more efficient solar panels that we might have him put on.  We seem to use a lot of power with having to charge all of our electronic gadgets but so far the power has kept up.  We will work our way back up the keys early in the week so we can meet up with Ryan in Tavernier on Friday.  He is the guy we bought the boat from and they just got back from three weeks in the Bahamas so we want to talk to him about where to go and what to do and get the scoop.  We will probably head to the Bahamas in the next couple of weeks.

 here are a few shots of Key West

I just had to post this picture of Lexie

Well we got back from the island chain 30 miles west of Key West. It was the Marquases islands.
We saw all sorts of stuff. First we saw a thunderstom make 6 different funnels come down and touch the surface. I was just glade they were not heading our way. But I didn't figure on that happening. I was on a boat I could not outrun them.
We saw Dolphins, Turtles, Sharks Rays and all sorts of sea creatures. Just this morning I saw a 2 ft long hammer head shark in the shallows. It was eating some kind of shrimp.
The sail back to Key West was great. We had to tack, so we took the boat out about 10 miles. The wind was light so we motor sailed some of the time. We got back in Key West about 3:00 pm.
One thing that was a little disappointing was the lack of coral off the shore of the islands. The islands are mostly mangroves and the bottom of the sea is mostly grass. I think we will go to the Bahamas for more coral.

Here is a picture of Karen relaxing.

Here is one of the funnel cloud.

I will put some more on tomorrow.

What a difference a couple of hours make. This is what it looked like tonight.

We might be out of contact for a couple of days because we are going to the Marquases islands for a couple of days and I don't know if we will have internet service.

We decided to stay in Key West for a couple of days and take care of a few things on the boat, order some spare parts and relax a little (not a bad place to relax). Also because it has been raining pretty good.
After walking around town yesterday we headed back to the boat and it wasn't where we left it - a little bit of a panic attack but it had drifted with the current and was just about to go into the shallows. We were able to get on board and move it.  We found a mooring ball to hook to and everything seemed find. Lexie was freaking out a bit because it was getting dark and she could hear something by the side of the boat, which happened to be dolphins. It kept her perked up for a while though.  When we got up this morning Wes started the engines and both of them started overheating. Come to find out it was only because he didn't burp the water line after he cleaned out the strainers from all the guck from getting in the shallows. At least it wasn't anything serious and we learned something new - again.
We were going to go to Dry Tortogas but everyone we talked to said it really wasn't worth the trip so we decided to go to Marquases Key which is only about 25 miles West.  So that is the plan for tomorrow. The weather should be good with some possible rain.
Here are a couple of pictures from the storm last night.

Well: I haven't posted in a while, but I figured I would tonight. We are in Key West, Anchored across the channel from the main part or Key West. Where they have all the fun on Duvall Street.
We took the dogs for a walk on Duvall street. They did pretty good and a lot of the folks took time to pet them. They are not starved for attention but they need a little training before we can take them with us when we go to have a beer.
We had a nice sail today. Winds were about 15 knots for most of the trip. Tropical Diversion makes about 6 knots with that kind of wind.  We saw a turtle as soon as we left Newfound Harbor. A little while later a dolphin swam right between the two hulls on our cat. I was standing on the bow. I could have jumped on its back. It was real cool. I have never been so close to a dolphin in the wild. It seemed to be traveling with a mother and her calf. But I didn't see a pod with them. We see dolphins everywhere down here. At least twice a day. But that was the first time I got a really good look at one.
Tomorrow we are going to stay the day in Key West. After that we sill see.
Feel free to put some comments on the blog.

We made it to key west  in about 6 hours. It was a great day of sailing, some pretty good swells but not terrible. We saw a turtle and several dolphin.  We were able to sail almost the whole 30 miles. We are still trying to decide if we want to sail out to dry tortogus. Everyone keeps telling us it's not worth the time. We are going to hang out here tomorrow and decide if we are going to make the travel. Darn, hanging out in key west is such a bummer!!!:)

 

Today we sailed about 20 miles further west towards Key West to New Found Harbor in the niles channel. There was a private resort on the edge of the island. There are about 6 little separate islands and on one called party island there was a pontoon boat with a band playing for a bunch of boats anchored in the shallow water, it was pretty cool. It was another nice day of sailing.  Tomorrow we are hopefully going to make it to Key West which is about another 40 miles -wish us luck. 

 Today it really felt like our adventure started. We finally got to leave Marathon after SALT didn't fix our watermaker after telling us on Tuesday that it would be ready today.  We called our new best friend Alex who told us about a guy named DJ who knew all about water makers and we were able to fix it for $20. Then we motored out to a really nice snorkeling site and Wes, Lexie and Max enjoyed swimming around for a while.  We were finally able to put the sails up and enjoy some awesome winds.  F18's flew right over us. We sailed to Mollases key and anchored for the evening. We took the dogs for a walk on the island, which is uninhabited so the dogs could run all over.  And to top it all off, as the sun was going down a turtle swam right in front of the boat. 

If you couldn't tell, Wes actually posted yesterday.  I was a little bummed because we were having such bad luck lately so I didn't feel like posting.  But this evening is better after Wes made bushwackers.  Alex showed up at 10:30 (he was supposed to be here at 10 but again-we are on island time) and he was definitely a godsend.  if you are every in Boot Key Harbor on Marathon Key and your having boat trouble he is the guy to call. A lady at the dinghy dock at the City Marina told us about him and you can either find him there or on his boat (Salsa).  He looked over the wiring and come to find out engine one and two were tied together and the solenoid was shorting out on the starboard side.  After a couple hours of rewiring and a lunch break he got us back up and running.  Alex also turned us on to a couple of really cool places on the island.  One was a beach where you could take your dogs so we decided to check it out.   The Keys are very different than what we are used to.  Almost every bit of waterfront is privately owned so you can't just pull your dinghy up to land and check out things. You have to pay to use dinghy dock privileges.  Well, we have to hang around here until Friday when our part for the water maker is supposed to be in then we can head down to Key West

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Today was our first bad day.  This morning I turned on both engines and we were going to take a practice sail. But after about 1/2 hour the gages on one engine went out. I turned off both engines but they wouldn't start. After about 4 hours of checking stuff I still couldn't get them started. I found a guy that is supposed to be good at fixing them and he is coming tomorrow.
After all that I had a couple of run drinks and things don't seem so bad after all.

Today we had to take the truck back so now our only mode of transportation will be the boat, the dinghy and our two feet and we sure used our two feet today between walking back after dropping a box off at ups with-yes stuff we didn't have room for which included several pairs of flip flops, picking up the dive tanks and more parts for the boat. People weren't kidding when they said you are always fixing things on a boat. We think that a lot of the reason is from dry docking the boat for several months and not doing all the right things when we did this. Now the water maker membrane has to be replaed and another impeller.
We did get the boat renamed today so we hope that good luck will start going our way.  Every day I believe more and more that we had all of these things happen because we left the old name on the boat when everything was registered under the new name.  So now the name has been changed on the boat (even though the lettering was way too big for the back of the boat) and we have christened the boat with the new name "Tropical Diversion" so please let our luck start turning around.
Here are a couple of pictures of changing the name and us toasting to fair winds, safe passages and good fortune.  Sorry, I'm not very good at selfies!!

Enjoying a beautiful sunset over the overseas highway while sipping rum drinks. Another great day in the keys.

Thought you might like seeing how the dogs are enjoying retirement :) I especially like Max with his tongue hanging out

Putting the boat in the water

I'm having a little trouble getting pictures over but here are a few of putting the boat in the water

Wes built the "poop deck" for the dogs. We just need to get some astro turf so they think they are in the great outdoors. It should be interesting trying to teach our old dogs new tricks.
We got the boat in the water and the engines seemed to be running pretty good except there was no water coming through the one that Wes replaced the starter on. After several hours of trying to fix it we decided to get a mechanic to fix it so he will be here at 9 in the morning - hopefully, they seem to run on island time here in the keys. But that's ok, we're retired now and not in a big hurry to get anywhere.
Later last night Wes talked to a guy here that seemed to know a lot about boats so he told Wes to replace the impellers. Wes couldn't sleep so he got up at 2:00 am and started to replace the impellers (luckily there were extras on the boat, good thing to have spares of). Well, he got both of them working great so we cancelled the mechanic.
Just need to unload the rest of the truck, get the dive tanks inspected and get the boat provisioned then we should be on our way

   

Good luck so far-yesterday Wes got the new starter in and it WORKS. What a relief that was. He also got the dingy engine fixed. We spent a good part of the day painting the bottom of the boat while the dogs enjoyed the shade. Hopefully we will be able to put the boat in later today.

On Our Way

1:00 on Saturday, May 31st and we got the truck loaded and are on our way to Florida. It will be interesting to see if we have enough room on the boat for all the stuff especially for the 20 pair of flip flops that I couldn't live without.  Well, if we don't, I guess I will be shipping some of them back to Loveland. The dogs are a bit confused and they can't figure out what we are doing to them.  It's a bit cramped in the cab with them trying to get comfortable but after a couple of hours they finally settled down.  I can't wait to see what they do when they see that great big ocean. Stay tuned......