Key West

Now we have another reason to be glad we chose this winter to do this trip. Apparently the previous record for snowfall in Green Bay, set in 1891, has been broken at 82 inches. The average snowfall in a season is just under 50 inches – crazy! We hired a service for lawn care and snow removal if it snows more than 2 inches so we’re getting the bills. Paul is sure he would have had to buy a bigger snow blower to do the job! Some other stats: the average high in the Keys for late March is 80 degrees and the average LOW is 70 degrees. Sunrise is now at 7:25 am and sunset at 7:40 pm.

We had a nice sail of about 30 miles from Bahia Honda down to Key West on Sat the 22nd. We were heading southwest and the winds were east/southeast – what a novelty. I almost forgot what heeling felt like but Ginger remembered that she doesn’t like it! We were doing between 7 and 8 knots most of the way. We did have to don the foul weather gear as some rain moved through; fortunately no high winds with it.

We called ahead to get a mooring ball at Garrison Bight Harbor – arranged through Key West City Marina. It was really tricky getting hooked up to the ball as there’s no pennant or line to grab, plus the wind was pretty gusty to add to the fun. Thankfully a nice couple in their dinghy saw our dilemma and gave us a hand.

I can’t really go into detail what we did every day but we did spend four nights on the mooring ball and went “into town” every day except Tuesday when it was just too rough to take the dinghy to shore. We headed west to the old town historic district and seaport or east to more “regular” type of shopping. We also used the bus system quite a lot; 50 cent fare for us oldsters over 55. The actual island of Key West is about 4 miles long and 2 miles across.

Here’s a picture of our view from the mooring field that day. We know from experience that we would have gotten drenched in the dinghy!

We heard from some people that Key West was “ruined” since the cruise ships starting docking here, that it used to be quaint and kind of sleepy. Now it rather reminds me of “Wisconsin Dells South” times 50 with a t-shirt shop on every corner. It’s got quite a bar scene if you’re into that and the sunset celebration on Mallory Square is a must see. I took tons of pictures but here’s just a few:

Lots of interesting architecture and lush foliage. This is the former home of Dr. Joseph Porter, first health officer of the State of Florida from 1889 to 1917.

This has got to be the most unusual Walgreens we'd ever seen. The scooter and bicycles you see out front are everywhere.Now these are what you call "House" boats.

On Wed the 26th we headed over to the Sunset Marina on Stock Island for two nights. This was a new plateau in dockage fees for us: $2.75/ft and when the 7.5% sales tax is added on it’s a whopping $118 per night for staying on your own boat. It was a treat to have internet, cable tv, showers and laundry available though. We were able to get the bikes out and had a nice ride to see a lot of the sights in the historic district. There are rental bikes and scooters everywhere so motorists are pretty used to watching out for you. Here are a few more sights of the area:

The crow of a rooster is heard quite often throughout the day. We only saw one hen with chicks but saw lots of roosters. Evidently they're descendants of the chickens brought over by the Cubans in the late 1800s.
Below is a popular photo spot for tourists at the southernmost spot in the U.S. Only 90 miles from Cuba as the sign says.










We never saw more than one of these huge cruise ships docked but evidently at times there are three of them. They sure take up a lot of space.
This is one of the colorful characters around Key West. His passenger had fun barking his way down the street!

On Friday we saw a manatee up close and personal right on our dock. Another boater gave it a head rub but I'd read you're not supposed to touch them; he said it felt spongy! Most of them have slash marks from encounters with boat propellers (so sad). I wished Alison was here to see it but I took some pictures for her.







We made a quick run on the bikes for a few groceries then headed off to anchor for one night off the historic seaport district. We had checked out where the dinghy dock was the day before and since the winds had calmed down it wasn’t too bad of a ride. I carried Ginger around in the Snugli baby carrier that straps on my front and thought with all the unusual characters we wouldn’t stand out in the crowd but I was wrong - she got lots of attention! Here are some of the sights from Mallory Square:

The one-man band; the crowd at Mallory Square and the crowd trying to get a picture of the setting sun.

Saturday morning the 29th was farewell to Key West. We’re off to anchor at Newfound Harbor off Big Pine Key on the way back to Marathon, FL.