What a nice day! Scuba diving and a totally great lobster reuben sandwich at Parrotdise Grill at Newfound Harbor.

We had almost decided to leave Newfound harbor and I was feeling a little sorry that I didn't get another lobster reuben at Parrotdise Grill and I didn't have the name or phone number of a local dive shop to try to dive nearby Looe Key. Then, last evening, I asked at the little marina dock here if there were any dive boats that go to Looe Key that I could get to by dinghy. It turned out that they had a flyer for a very nice dive and snorkle boat over on the Gulf side that goes through this harbor every day to get to Looe Key, and they picked me up and dropped me off right at Nonchalance, so I didn't even have to dinghy in! Totally cool!

Looe Key is an almost completely underwater key that has excellent coral reefs. The dive shop claims that it's the number one reef dive destination in the continental United States. It certainly does have exellent coral reefs for Florida. They're as good as the average coral reefs in Saint John, although the water is cooler and not quite as clear, but it is really very nice.

I went diving with Brian Short from Alaska. Before the dive, he said he really was hoping to see a shark.

We saw the biggest shark I have ever seen, and it was up close, like less than 12 ft. away, in about 15 ft. of water. It's a dusky shark that I'd say was about 8 ft. long and easily 250 lbs or more. Of course, they say things look bigger underwater, but I just know this was a really big shark. Brian hadn't seen it and I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed just as it was coming into view.
It got this close! There was a pretty sand channel between coral canyons and the shark was just doing what we were doing, cruising up the channel to see what was there. No, I didn't just blow the picture up! You can even see some light colored upright soft corals in front of the shark in the first picture and in this picture, they're just by his tail. Totally cool and only a little scary because it didn't seem interested us.

It swam past us and Brian probablay got good shots then. Here, it's past us and about 20 ft. or more past from Brian, which gives some comparison of size.

We also saw literally dozens of barracuda. Some were large, some were small. This one just liked to hang out at an angle next to the rocks and wait for some unsuspecting fish to think it was part of the reef.
I saw Kathy's favorite, a 4 spot butterfly fish, about 3 inches long.
And one of my favorites, a trunk fish (about 4 inches long).

A scrawled filefish (this one about 16 inches long) that has beautiful neon blue "scrawling" all over which is hard to see unless you blow the picture up.

And too many other fish to show! My camera finally gave me the "out of memory" notice before the end of our second dive.

After the dive, in the late afternoon, we took the dinghy under the US1 bridge to the gulf side to Parrotdise grill. They're dog-friendly at outside tables and have a nice dinghy dock. We both had a lobster reuben which is nice large pieces of spiny lobster which are french fried in a light batter, put in cuban bread slices with coldslaw, peppercini peppers, some kind of creamy dressing, and grilled or toasted. Yum! Now we're not hungry for dinner, so we'll probably just wait until 10PM and have a "Kay Sundae" (invented on this trip by Kay Strayer using vanilla ice cream, dribbles of straight vanilla extract, cold hot fudge sauce and Bailey's Irish Cream. Totally decadent.

So now it's tomorrow that we plan on going up to Marathon Key. Glad we didn't go today!

NO wind, NO waves to speak of today! We were cruising in the Atlantic Ocean with waves of about 1 to 2 ft. I trolled for fish for a while, but my lure got snagged on a fish trap and I had to cut the line to get loose. Oh, well....I've caught lots of other fish.

We left Key West today and went past these two huge cruise ships. Cruise ships have only been coming to Key West for about 10 years now, after Key West improved their channel and waterfront. Cruise ships draw about 25 ft. of water, so they need a channel more than 30 ft deep.

We have now started our trip up the East Coast of the country, but it will take until the end of May to reach New York City. Tonight we're back at Newfound Harbor, a very nice anchorage halfway to Marathon. We'll probably go to Marathon tomorrow and stay for a few days. After Marathon, it will all be new to us again.

Ugh....just wind and waves.
We came out and moored in the Key West mooring field Saturday, which was fine. Then, on Sunday, the wind picked up to 25-30 MPH and a cold front came through. They call 65 degrees cold down here. Taking the dinghy in to the dinghy dock on Sunday was a wet and bouncy ride. By this morning, winds were down to 20 MPH and waves a little smaller so we didn't get wet this morning, but it's still a lot of wallowing around in the dinghy. The 2 to 3 ft. waves don't look like much from Nonchalance, but when you get into a 12 ft. dinghy and sit 12 inches above the water, they're a lot bigger.

We may just stay onboard today instead of a longer dinghy ride into downtown Key West. Oh, well....not every day can be fun and warm. That's why it's an adventure, not a vacation. Kathy baked sugar cookies yesterday, and they're great when you spread hot fudge sauce on them. Today, she's starting a needlepoint, seashell design, pillowcase cover with for the sofa in the salon.

Tomorrow we'll probably leave Key West and start cruising up the Keys towards Key Largo and Miami. Since we came to the Keys direct from the southern tip of Florida to Marathon in the middle Keys, we have never cruised the upper keys. Over the next 2 weeks, we'll probably stop at Newfound Harbor, Marathon, Lignum Vitae, Shell Key, Key Largo and John Penekamp coral reef and state park and then Biscayne Bay and Miami.

New views from Nonchalance.

We moved to the Key West mooring field to try it for a few days since it's only $15 per day. This is the view from our bow today. The low land forward is Fleming Key, which is all restricted land for naval operations. There are big signs about no entry, etc. ,but a home made boat full of Cuban refugees just landed there, undetected, 2 nights ago and the U.S. commander woke up to find 15 Cuban migrants sitting in his yard near the hedges. The island is also used for U.S. Coast Guard operations.
This is the view of the rest of the mooring field. All the mooring balls are over 100 ft. apart and can handle large boats, but we're about the largest boat here. We have to dinghy in to town and with Daisy 3 or 4 times every day, but they have a nice dinghy dock.
Daisy got a haircut 2 days ago in Key West and lost about 3 inches of fur. She has lost her excess weight too, so she's looking very svelt. When she's in her grown out fur stage, we've had kids in Lincoln Park say "Mom., she looks like a bear!" and they're right. Now, at least, she looks like a dog.

Boat diving today.....

I dove under the boat with just a mask and fins yesterday to check the propshaft and rudder zincs and found that 4 of the propshaft zincs were eaten away enough to need replacement.


Today I bought new zincs, got out my scuba gear, went under the boat and replaced them. It took about an hour, even thouogh it's an easy job. Zincs are baseball sized solid zinc castings that will succumb to electrolysis before any of the underwater bronze or stainless steel parts are corroded or eaten away by electrolytic action in salt water. There are also zincs where salt water runs through the engines, the raw water pump and the generator cooling water system. These zincs were OK, so next I'll check to see if I can improve the electrical bonding for the propshafts, which is like grounding the underwater metal to electrical grounds in the boat. If not, I'll have to check monthly and replace zincs when they need it. It's also possible that one of the marinas we were at had improper stray current in the ground wire of their shore power, which could cause zincs to get eaten up when we plugged in to that electric power.

Key West Sunset.......

We did the usual tourist thing this evening and went to Mallory Square to watch the sunset, with a thousand other tourists.

It is a nice place to see sunsets and I got the classic sunset picture, even with the seagull and sailboat, just like you see on those paintings on velvet sold at roadside stands.

We're moving to a mooring ball in the Key West Bight tomorrow afternoon. It's like anchoring out without an anchor. We'll dinghy in to the Key west City Dock, which is on the northwest side of the island....too far to walk down to tourist town here. Daisy will miss walking here where there are dozens of cats and chickens around. Chickens are protected in Key West because it is thought that they eat the local bugs and scorpions. I must admit that we have seen no bugs or scorpions the whole time we have been here. The cats don't bother the chickens either, maybe because the roosters are big and have big dewclaws on their legs for fighting off cats.

We visited Mel Fisher's Treasure museum, which has more than $400 million in treasure from the shipwreck of the Spanish ship The Atocha in 1622. The ship left Cuba and came near here to get into the gulf stream currents to go back to Spain. The anchor from the atocha is at our marina, 10 ft. from our dock because that's where Mel Fisher docked to unload all the Atocha artifacts and treasure.

The displays are well done and interesting, not only for the value of the objects, but for the insight they offer to 17th century life and mariners. There are hundreds of displays including gold and silver bars and ingots, emeralds, thousands of gold and silver coins, jewelry, canons and everyday shiplife items like a sundial, compass, abrogast (an early sextant), etc. There is also a video explaining how he found the wreck of the Atocha over many, many years.

This is a solid gold chain, worn in the 17th century by the extremely rich. They were also made to transport gold from the new world back to Spain because the tax was lower on jewelry than on gold or silver.

In 1622, the boat carried this long handled cast iron skillet, cookware and butcher knife. I just imagine how CAREFUL they had to be with fire on a wooden ship in the middle of the ocean.

This display showed how the major areas were found, with boxes of silver coins all corroded and silted together into one big block. Coins on the outsode layer were almost unrecognizable, but the ones inside the blocks were in quite good condition after being cleaned.
They even let you hold a solid gold bar ingot. It's in this glass case so you can lift it and feel it, but can't get it out.
On the way to Mel Fishers, we passed the end of highway US1, which runs the entire length of the East Coast from Maine to Florida. The mile marker is for "US 1 Mile 0".

New view from the aft deck.......
We spun the boat around to back into our slip so we could see out into the gulf when we sit on the aft deck, and also because the sun was too bright and hot every morning for breakfast on the aft deck. And there is always something interesting to watch here because the Key West shipping channel is between us and the Gulf of Mexico. I usually try to position the boat so we can see sunsets from the aft deck, but we have to walk into Key West to see full sunsets here anyhow.

Huge yachts leaving and entering the marina. This is about a 130 footer. Note the size of the 2 crew standing on the bow.

This one, entering the harbor, is a beautiful, 100 ft., all wooden "Trumpy" from about 1930 to 1940. Trumpy was a manufacturer of very high quality wooden boats in the 1930s. I just can't imagine the upkeep on this boat, plus worrying about the integrity of the wood structure in heavy seas. Beautiful....but no thanks!

DRUG BUST in Key West!
The U.S. Coast Guard caught a ship with something likke 165 kilos of cocaine. Then they brought this huge freighter (the big freighter behind the Coast Guard cutter) in to the Coast Guard dock. It's about 4 times as long as that Coast Guard boat. The locals here say they've never seen a ship that large at the Coast Guard dock and they're sure it must be one captured in the drug bust, but it turned out not to be, since we saw when it left that it's a U.S. Navy ship.

KEY WEST! We made it to the farthest southern point of our trip! And, for that matter, it's also the furthest south piint in the United States.
What a difference in marinas compared to the last one we were in. In this picture, Nonchalance is that little bitty smudge directly behind the biggest megayacht in the center of the picture. We're actually about 100 yards behind it, but we're not such a big boat at all down here.
Here's the view from our aft deck. These boats are about our size.
Our marina (The Galleon) is located in the heart of the historic district and tourist district. We can walk to just about everything. We went out and walked part of it this afternoon. There are regular residential streets like this close to downtown.
And there are lots of tourist shops lining the main streets. Not only tourist shops, but also good grocery stores where Kathy found a nice brie, baguettes and "Margartes Flatbreads", our favorite cracker-like flatbread. Ahh...the nicities of civilization. Temps in the 80s again today, nice to walk around but hot when there's no breeze. I bought a bag of ice made frozen mango smoothies with our new blender. WOW!
So here's the Great Loop Route Map on the side of our refrigerator with my red line filled in to Key West. We'll be here a week or 10 days we think. 5 days in a fancy marina and maybe 5 days on a mooring ball in the harbor here (only $15 per day). Tomorrow we'll walk around and find the mooring balls and see how that looks.

We're still at Peninsular Marina today, going to Key West tomorrow.

Peninsular Marina, so-called because it's located on Peninsula Avenue, is in the Boca Chica channel, but actually on Stock Island. It was pretty much destroyed by hurricane Wilma years ago and has been purchased to build a very expensive "dockominium" complex. It looks loike a dump today, but after they put $100 mil. into it, it will really look nice, and it's located just 5 miles or so from Key West. The problem is that the rest of Stock Island is also a dump. It's solid trailer parks and hurricane damaged fishing piers. There's no place worth walking to, so we got a rental car for 2 days. Key West, on the other hand, is quite upscale and nice homes, even without waterfront property are priced in 7 figures. Ouch!

Kathy bought me a Pina Colada mix and I have been making Pina Coladas with the blender that Stephen got us for Christmas. It's an absolutely kick-ass belnder that makes great frozen drinks with nice uniform crushed ice. It's fun to use something that works so well. Also, Pina Coladas seem so appropriate for the Keys and the usual 80 degree temps, palm trees and island surroundings.
Fixer-upper boat! This old scow is sitting at our marina, and it appears that somebody is working on it. However, it was a steel boat and in many places in the superstructure has rusted clear through. Even after it's been fixed, I would not want to go to sea in that boat.

Sailboat races!

This is the week for the big international sailboat races in Key West. There are sailboats and crews everywhere, including some just “squatting” at some open docks near us. These are supposed to be the biggest deal sailboat races of the year, and the only international ones held in the USA. They each pay $750 entry fee to race, but there are no limits and it’s not “invitational, so anybody with $750 and the right type of sailboat for a specific racing class can enter.

We’re at Boca Chica Key, which is only about 5 miles from Key West, but there’s cheap marina space here and no space in Key west until Monday, because the sailboat races are over on Sunday and slip spaces open up.

Cormorant Lunch!!
This cormorant caught a large mutton snapper fish and was having a difficult time trying to eat it. Kathy saw the size of the fish and said “Wow! That’s Thanksgiving dinner for a cormorant, if he can swallow it!” Here he has speared the fish near the tail with his beak.

The fish was flapping like crazy and the cormorant was trying to turn it around so he could swallow it head first. He finally did get it turned around and then spent a lot of time trying to get it to go down his skinny neck.

Almost gone! All you can see left is the tail as he’s scoffing it down.
Now it’s just a huge lump in his throat. After this he just swam around for a while, then when he tried to take off to fly, he couldn’t and just wound up literally running across the water flapping his wings. After about 30 minutes he tried again and managed to get up into the air. I last saw him flying out of the harbor about 6 inches above the water with his wing tips making little splashes on every wingbeat. When he got home, I’ll bet his mother told him to go to his room and sleep it off.

Friends from Illinois visited today. Roger and Cheryl Keast, whom have a boat near ours in Harborside Marina in Illinois, are vacationing down in the Keys. They’re at Key West in their Land Yacht and drove up to see us here at Newfound Harbor. We’ll be at Key west too, but on the same day they leave. We had a noce visit and went out into the Atlantic to see if the waves were calm enough to go slow trolling fishing, but the 3 ft. waves were just too much rock and roll to make it comfortable to go slow. The stabilizers don’t help much at very slow speeds. So it turned out to be just a nice ride out to the ocean past Little Palm Island, a quick cruise, and back in. But it was enough that Roger said he got his “boat fix” before he and Cheryl went back to Key West.

Kathy, Daisy and I took the dinghy into the “Parrotdise Grill” under the Keys bridge to the Gulf side. It’s a dog friendly restaurant if you’re at the outdoor tables. They make an excellent Lobster Reuben sandwich.
Yeah......more fish pictures. I went fishing off the stern of Nonchalance just before sunset and caught this little mutton snapper on a squid. I had had a few larger fish hit the bait, but didn’t hook them. Then after the sun went down, the fish stopped biting, but I left my line in the water with a squid on it.
Then, after dark, when Kathy and I were playing cards the line started stripping off the reel so fast it startled us. I grabbed the rod and caught this hammerhead shark. While small for a shark, he put up a nice fight anyhow. When I got him up to the boat I didn’t want to gaff it because it would injure it, so after lifting it up with the line for this picture, I just removed the hook with long nosed pliers and freed it without touching it.

We’re on our way again tomorrow, going down to Boca Chica, which is only about 10 miles from Key West. There’s a big sailboat race going on in key West and boat space availability is tight until Monday, January 22nd when the sailboat racers all leave and we get there. I’d rather have it quieter there anyway.

We’re at Newfound Harbor near Little Torch Key.

We had a beautiful day cruising on the Atlantic ocean side in “Hawk Channel” which is the ocean between some reef shallows far out from the Keys and the Keys. There is about 25 ft. of water all along the Keys, then 1 to 5 ft. at the shoals followed by deep ocean of 200 to 600 ft. deep right after the shoals. The shoals offer some minor protection from any big ocean waves when you’re in the channel, but it’s still easy to get big waves there. However, today there were only 2 to 3 ft. waves, so it was a pleasant ride down the keys from Marathon. 2 days ago we were out with Ann in 3 to 5 ft waves and it was a bouncy and splashy ride.
Newfound Harbor is surrounded by keys (including the ultra-swanky Little Palm Island) so it has almost no wave action. There are nice homes all along the waterfront, most with a dock and a boat lift.
We took the dinghy into Little Torch Key where there is a marina dock that we can use. We walked across the highway to a restaurant on the Gulf side. We could dinghy there too and we can also dinghy to Ramrod Key nearby on Hwy. US 1. Little Torch Key has lots of boat canals cut into the Key so that almost every street has houses that all have boat docks in te back with ocean access through the canals. I bought some frozen whole squid at the marina for bait to use for fishing tonight.
We got back to Nonchalance, tied up the dinghy and were eating a late lunch on the aft deck when I spotted this 3 ft. barracuda next to the dinghy.

Later I went snorkeling around the boat. The water was cool, but not too cold to enjoy snorkeling without a wetsuit. The visibility was not that good, maybe only 6 ft. probably due to algae in the water. I did see coral formations, sponges, a few fish and a crab trap with a very large crab in it.

We think we’ll stay anchored here tomorrow and explore the area, or even go out trolling for fish in Nonchalance if the waves are small in the Atlantic.

Manatees again!

They wander around the boats and look like somebody lost a big grey inflatable dinghy tube in the water. There are two in the water here, both about 8 ft. long. The locals say that the manatees come into the harbors this time of year because the water is warmer here.
Manatees kissing. They occasionally just "suck face" with each other (sorry for the teeny bopper phrase). Even when you see their faces, they really don't have one.

They have teeny eyes and muscular lips with very heavy, stiff, short, whiskers on the edges of their lips which act like grabbers for the leafy food they eat. They look more like something from Mars than a normal animal, which is what makes them so interesting. Their lips overhang their jaws and the upper lips (with those white stubble whiskers) move into the mouth. They have no teeth and in this piture you can see both of the calloused gums with which they chew vegetation.

We went out in the Atlantic ocean in Nonchalance today to go to a little uninhabited island, but I had misunderstood how soon we had to be back so we didn’t have enough time to do the island and get also back in time to also go to a guided tour of the keys gulf waters, so it wound up being just a ride in the ocean. However, the small boat tour was fun. We went out with a former Everglades park ranger in a small boat to Indian Key which is now a state park accessible only by boat.

Indian Key was once built up as a typical east Coast Victorian town, and was successful for many years until about 1840 when it was attacked by Indians who killed all of the inhabitants and burned all the buildings. Today, there’s nothing left but foundations, rainwater cisterns and a few streets being overtaken by the jungle-like plants. Not much to see, except the tour guide provided interesting naturalist type info on the flora and fauna.
To get onto the key we had to anchor the small boat in 3 ft. of water and walk in over sharp rocks all along the shore, so everybody was soaked from the waist down, but at least it was a warm day on the island.

Then we went to some mangrove islands, which were not islands at all. They look like islands covered with trees, but the trees are mangroves growing in about 4 ft. of salt water with channels 6 to 10 ft deep around the islands.....no land! It's somewhat like the Little Shark River on Florida's West Coast, except these are like little islands in the gulf.
The main area we visited was a rookery for water birds. There were dozens of frigate birds soaring overhead all the time and dozens of pelicans and egrets in the mangroves everywhere.
We also saw this Little Blue Heron, which is somewhat rare.

Then we spotted a pelican that had a fish hook stuck in the skin of its neck and the fishing line had wrapped around mangrove branches so the bird was caught. The guide just felt we had to help it, so we did, by tilting the motor up and pulling the boat into the trees and cutting the line holding the pelican captive. Then when it was swimming free, I scooped it up in a net from the boat and the guide held it while I got the fish hook out of its neck. We let t go and it swam off, too tired to fly, but pretty much OK.

Ann will leave for Curacao tomorrow and we’ll get ready to go on towards Key West, stopping along the way.