Memsahib's Voyage

Key West, our home for the next month, marks an important turning point for Memsahib’s Voyage.  We just finished mile 4,000, so we’re well over halfway home.  We’ve been heading south and west for the past six months, and now our courses will be east and north.  Once we’re out of Keys, it will be hard to find wilderness.  We’ll pretty much be running up heavily-populated East Coast, with a few isolated spots still remaining — the Georgia islands, Outer Banks and southern Chesapeake.

Phones and Internet work, and it’s easy to find supplies, but I haven’t heard a deep South accent in a long time and the pace of life around us is speeding up, although things are still pretty quiet on Memsahib.

We found a very nice,  reasonably priced marina that’s part of a condo development on Stock Island, one island over from Key West.  Perhaps not the world’s most glamourous location next to the County Jail, but away from the craziness of Key West.  Molly is finally out of the Great Connecticut Blizzard after getting stuck for two days, and we plan to head into town for some significant tourism while she’s here.

On our trip down from the Everglades we stopped in Marathon, cruising central for the Keys.  The sailing world has activity hubs all over the world (Annapolis, Newport, Isle of Wight) and Marathon is certainly one of them.  It’s the southernmost ultra-protected harbor in the U.S. and hundreds of boats come down in the fall, pick up a city mooring and don’t leave until spring.  We stopped to get fuel and watch the Superbowl, since Eric Brazil has made John a stone 49ers fan.  We were fortunate that the very nice people at Burdine’s Waterfront let us tie up at their fuel dock since they figured (correctly) that everyone would be watching the game, not buying gas.  Other than that, there was not a slip or mooring available in all of Marathon, first time we’ve ever had trouble getting a berth.

Other than working on the boat and poking around on our bikes and John’s scooter, our only big activity has been fishing.  We finally broke the Kessinger Fishing Curse with a charter captain who knew where the fish were and had this giant, red secret-weapon reel that he claimed always led to fish if it was on the boat, whether actually used or not.

Amazing Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida Keys.

John coming in from a downloading session ashore. John seeks hi-speed wireless the way other kids try to find drugs, so I’m lucky, I guess.

Cruise ship row as we entered Key West Harbor. Can you hear me thinking, “Please, please don’t move til I get past.”

John latched onto a big amerberjack after we got done catching snapper.

John’s big fish.

My little fish. We caught about 24 of these yellowtail snapper. Delicious eating one night with a mango-tequila glaze and the next teriyaki-style over rice.

Sunset Marina, Stock Island, Key West.

Memsahib in her berth for a well-deserved one-month rest in Key West.