Boating with Sunset Delight: 2023 South: Islamorada to Key West FL

29 November 2023

Depart: Barley Basin, Islamorada, FL anchorage 9:00

Arrive: Newfound Harbor, Big Pine Key, FL anchorage 3:50

Distance: ~ 56 nm

Conditions: 20 knot winds

We woke up to a windy morning. Clark's pants and shirt were whipping in the breeze as he worked to bring up the anchor.

I thought the sky was interesting this morning.

With the wind and chill from the cold front that came in, I had to bundle up a bit today.

A bit chilly today

To make tonight's destination we had to move from traveling on the "inside" to going out into the ocean. As we made our way to the channel to take us out to sea, we dodged numerous traps. Instead of being in nice easy-to-see lines, these appeared to have been someone's idea of a "scatter plot". My job was to point and shout.

"Red Dead Ahead!" "Pot to port!"

The trap markers come in all sorts of colors - white, red, blue, green, yellow, red/white/blue for the patriotic fisherman, Sometimes there are multiple balls on one line.

As we traveled south, Clark saw the Channel 5 Bridge off to our right. He had planned on traveling further on the inside, but since it was right there, he decided to go that way. Hey - something new to do!

Channel 5 Bridge

Clark insisted that I had to get pictures of the architecture of the old bridge.

Once through the bridge, we headed into Hawk's Channel to take us to our destination for the night.

Even though we were now on the ocean side, I still had trap duty. I saw something up ahead that I could not identify. Finally I figured out it was two birds standing on an old broken marker pole.

We passed by Marathon and the Sombrero Reef marker.

Sombrero Reef Tower

Newfound Harbor, our destination for tonight, became the next true point of interest. Some boats were docked at the entrance to the anchorage area. One big boat with crew, not pictured, decided to drop anchor in the skinny channel. We were forced to go close to skinny water as we made our way past them. As we made our way by, I saw the crew pulling in fenders, etc. as the owners took their dinghy to the dock.

The below pictures show the view from our anchorage spot including the boat nearest to us.

30 November 2023

Depart: Newfound Harbor, Big Pine Key, anchorage 8:45

Arrive: Stock Island, FL, Perry Hotel & Marina 12:30

Distance: ~ 23 nm

As we made our way out of Newfound Harbor, Clark said, "Hey look! It's a stick island."

We found another one later.

Our travels took us past the Naval Air Station in Key West. We could see the control tower in the distance.

Finally we arrived at the entrance to the marina at Stock Island where we planned to spend the night.

I wondered what in the heck do I see in the distance. Clark mentioned that they were fishing trawlers, but I was struggling before that to identify them in the distance. He knew because he saw them on AIS - cheater!

Fishing trawlers in the distance

At the entrance we saw a bunch of boats up on land including one bigger vessel that caught Clark's eye.

Clark decided that before we took a slip, we should get a pump-out in preparation for being remotely located once we got to the Dry Tortugas (our next stop). When Clark called for a pump-out, he was told to go to a dock to tie up. They brought a machine to the boat to do the pumping. Once connected, it did not do anything. The woman dockhand helping us finally remembered that the connection we were using was not functioning, so we moved the boat down the dock to a new spot and tried again. Yay! This time it flowed.

After that was done we moved to our slip assignment. Clark backs into slips, and this one was no fun as it was very tight quarters. Between the staff on the dock and my giving him direction as to poles and dock distances, he managed it with no problems.

Tying up, however, was a bit of a fiasco as the dock was considerably shorter than the boat. We stuck out into the fairway, and I had no place to tie a bow line. The man helping the female dockhand spoke little to no English. We needed a forward-facing line to stop the boat going backwards into the dock. He did not understand my words or my hand signals, and he kept taking the line towards the stern instead of the bow. I was about ready to pull my hair out.

The boat wanted to wander due to wind, current, or whatever. I needed Clark to come down to help sort out where / how to tie the lines due to the conditions and the length of the dock. He did not want to leave the helm because he needed to control the boat. Ahhh! It was not fun, but we got the job done eventually. Too bad I don't drink alcohol. I could have used a stiff drink after that experience!

This place is a bit pricy at $6.50 per foot of boat. However, we had a couple of different reasons for stopping here for the night, but first and foremost was to visit our North Carolina boating friends that are staying at this marina for the winter. Once we got the boat secured and the power on, we found our friends and discussed plans for the day. Top of my priority list was to empty the laundry basket. Top of Clark's list was a shower.

I hooked up with my friend Beverly, and she showed me the ropes on doing laundry here. Instead of taking coins, the machines require a card with a chip in it. Money is placed on the card at a machine, and then the card is inserted in a slot in the machine and money is extracted from the card. The card itself cost $5. Then money had to be added for wash and dry at $2.50 per load.

Unfortunately, Clark found out after I bought a card that I could have gotten one for free at the marina office. Funny thing is that when I went to the office to get instructions on use of the machines and paying, he never offered me a card! Anyway, at $15 for two loads of wash, it's not too far out of line with what other places charge. It is just annoying to find out I could have saved $5 on the deal! Clark tried to get the $5 back from the guy at the desk. He declined but said we could donate our card for someone else to use in the future if we wanted. Are you kidding me? Clark said, "no thanks".

Beverly wanted to grab an Uber and go to the Key West Farmers Market at 3:00. That meant I had 1 hour and 45 minutes to do my laundry. Ready, set, go! Other than sorting socks, which I had to look forward to when we got back from Key West, I was done shortly after 3:00, and we headed off to call the Uber.

We had choices for getting from Stock Island into Key West. 1) take the free shuttle, 2) call an Uber for about $35 plus tip, or 3) rent a golf cart for 3 hours at $99. The free shuttle would not get us to the Farmers Market, we would have a longish walk on the other end. Uber won the day. It turned out to be a win-win, as, for some unknown-to-me reason, I had an Uber credit that paid for the ride.

Clark and I both took pictures at the Farmers Market as well as all over Key West as we walked around.

At the Farmers Market ...

Inflated copy of the real thing!

Good name - wrong font -
should be in ALL CAPS!

We hit the area on a good day. Today being the last day of hurricane season, a hurricane flag burning ceremony was taking place today.

A museum that can be boarded for a nominal fee

We left the market and walked to downtown Key West.

Playground area

We could see the Virgin cruise ship docked in Key West from the park. It is the same cruise ship that was here last year when we came to town.

"Scarlet Lady"

Pictures taken by Clark on our walk to downtown ...

Pictures taken by me on our walk ... clearly our interests differ!

Rooster in the bushes

a different rooster - on the street

Mom worrying over half dozen out-of-control chicks

All of us have been to Key West a few times, so we skipped the "stand around wait for sunset" bit and went straight for looking for a restaurant. We found one that none of us had tried before but had a good-looking menu, so we went in. After dinner, we agreed it was a good choice.

Two Friends Patio Restaurant

The next shuttle back to the boat left at 6:30 so we had time to kill. We went for a walk and got to see Key West Christmas lights. The word beautiful does not do it justice! I felt like a little kid in Wonderland!