No need to set an alarm clock in this harbor. This morning we woke up to the horns of the Key West Express Ferry, leaving for Fort Myers. Fortunately, the boat’s departure wasn’t as early as the rooster’s (of Mallory Square) wake up call. We did hear them clucking around this morning too though. We’ve mostly taken our time running errands this morning. We’ve been in and out of West Marine 3 times before noon and we’ve added another cooler to the boat. We went to the grocery store to grab more water, groceries, and Pepsi, of course. And we’ve been walking around looking at boats since.
We’ve successfully invited ourselves on to 3 other sailboats in the marina. In two cases Scott simply told the owner how badly he wanted the boat they had and they invited us on. We walked over to check out a Gemini so that Scott and I could consider our next cruising boat. Dreaming big already! We ended up talking to the couple for at least half an hour. Just talking about improvements that have been made over time and things they had added onto their boat. They had two dogs and they’ve taught the dogs to use the front deck as the poop deck. Both dogs were very friendly and pretty big animals. But they all seemed to fit pretty well on the boat and had a ton of storage or guest space. I think that that boat is very reasonable for two people to live on majority of the year. The design is very suitable for two people, however the speed would obviously be a major trade off. Good thing we’re cruising this boat until it falls apart!
So the second boat that we invited ourselves onto, was a Hylas 54. Beautiful boat. It’s a good thing that Scott knows his boats because there was no way I would have enough to say to get invited onto this boat. This couple was new to sailing and it was their first trip in the boat. They brought it over from Tampa. The couple had kids that were more my age (still in college) and pegged Scott and I for college students. They were from Oklahoma and the husband was in the oil business. He even ended up jumping in after one of Scott’s flops that he knocked off the dock, very amiable people.
In the last situation, we were invited aboard a Leopard 44 that we’ve been eyeing since they pulled in late yesterday. They have not spoken a lick of English near the dock and Scott kept telling me he wanted to approach them. The only foreign language I know is French, and I am nowhere near fluent. I had my “lost in translation” experience in Paris when I was yelled at by a Parisian artist for taking her picture. Scott never got around to going up to them (he said he cheated 4.5 years of his 5 year Spanish career anyway). Today the 4 men on the Leopard were on the dock taking pictures and Scott offered for me to take their picture, so I did. We found out they were from Chile. Here are the rest of the facts: they don’t know how long they have been sailing, they came to Key West to buy “something,” they were going to sneak into Cuba and they told us that they were “pensioners” and then laughed. After listening to them chat on their back porch for a while we picked up that they knew at least a little of three languages; French, Spanish, and English. They are either in the drug cartel or the mafia. But anyway, they had a really nice boat. It was really cool they invited us on to check it out. The yacht even had a front porch!
Checklist for the ocean life that we’ve encountered: I’ve wanted to see manatees since we tied up in MYC because I overheard one of the members say that they were in the harbor. Finally, today, Scott and I saw one. Scott saw it first and pointed it out to me just in time for me to see its big tail. We went to a tarpon feeding, which was really just a feeding for the pelicans. Although the tarpon seemed to know what was going on, they hung out and we saw some massive ones. We saw a nurse shark in the harbor, I pointed that one out (I’ve been wearing polarized sunglasses and HOLY COW do they make a difference). Scott also thought he saw a dolphin in the harbor today, but he only saw a fin for a quick second, so he’s not sure what it was.
This evening we met up to say hi to an old Spartan sailing friend of mine, Alex Piku. He’s in town for his spring break from Wayne State and staying with his grandparents, Frank and Cheryl. Scott has a short history with Frank. They’ve sailed together on Velero. Frank has sailed with both Doug and Maggie on Velero as well. While we were talking we got onto the topic of fishing and Frank told us exactly what we needed to know. He used to run a fishing boat down here. He told us that we needed to drag a line while we were sailing; get a yellow jig or a cedar plug, shock line, and 80 pound test. Apparently this is a sure way to catch Tuna. They’ll chase after it no matter how fast you’re going. Then you just put the line around a winch and reel ‘em in! Scott and I would really like to try this, but we are going to head to somewhere a little cheaper (further up the keys) to get everything we need.
Next stop, Newfound Harbor! 30 mile beat up the Hawk Channel.
Ready to leave Key Weird,
Lauren & Scott
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