THE KEYS!!

We've arrived!  We're in the Florida Keys!!

We were up and at'em early, leaving Shark River before 7:00 a.m., at the first hint of light.  The early morning is the best time to be out on a big body of water and we wanted to take advantage of that. The crossing from the Everglades to Marathon was uneventful with one to three foot waves and East winds at fifteen to twenty miles per hour.

For the first while we stayed inside the park boundaries, as there are no crab pots allowed.  What are crab pots you ask?  Crab pots are a nuisance to boaters but a way to make a living here in Florida and provide a sought after food source from the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico (and Atlantic I hear).  While bouncing along over the waves and making sure we're staying on course, we also had to keep a sharp look-out for the crab-pots to avoid getting the line fouled around our prop. If you look closely at the pics you will see little white balls.  Those are the crab pots we had to navigate around.  Usually they are in straight lines, but not always. It can be fatiguing while driving, especially if there are white caps as well.

We arrived safely in Marathon around 2:00 in the afternoon only to find that there was no room at the inn.  All the marinas were full, there was a thirty boat waiting list for a mooring ball and all the anchorages were over-flowing. Mike and Marian found room at a very expensive marina and decided to go for it as they needed supplies and to get laundry done.

We decided to continue our trip South.  We ended up at Bahia Honda State Park and it's lovely here. We tied to the wall, dropped the dingy and into the Atlantic Ocean we ventured for the first time, just for a minute, just so we could say we made it!

As I sit and write this from the shady porch of a concession stand I'm looking over turquoise water with palm trees swaying in the breeze.  

Today we'll investigate the park on our bikes and check out the beach.

We're in paradise!