Florida Keys - Rodriquez Key and Boot Key Harbour – More generous people

Another first as we went sailing on Boxing Day, we crept out of Venetian Causeway in the dark with fingers crossed that when we reached the entrance we would be met by favourable winds and seas, we really needed to be moving south.  Our luck was in as there was not one Cruiseship docked meaning we could sneak through Government Cut and save ourselves time on our journey, I assume all the Cruiseships were out at some other exotic location.

We were pleasantly surprised with the sea state and after a little bit of bumpy start through the shallows we turned and had 15-20 knots of wind from behind, sails up, sun out and were bobbing along.  We had a fantastic day with wind all day, there is limited navigation as the seas are still are still shallow as you are in behind the reef.  There were a couple of other sail boats, a few fishing boats and some packed diving boats all making the most of the weather.  We sailed around 55 miles to Rodriguez Key which is a very small uninhabited island where we were able to get a limited amount of shelter, would have preferred more but this was our only option and we were not alone so we dropped anchor and kept our fingers crossed that the wind did not come up in he night.

Rodriquez Key - not much to see but a lump of land

Again up with the sun, sails up and off we set for another fantastic day sailing, 15-20 knots wind from behind, calm blue seas and the sun shinning. 

 

Beautiful water

Up with the sun

We were flying along over 6 knots all day.

About an hour out we had called in to the marina to ask if there were any mooring buoys, yes there were but they couldn’t guarantee there would be when we arrived but thankfully there was a buoy for us. 

Boot Key is bizarre, there are over 300 boats crammed into a sheltered harbour, it has a reputation as having a large liveaboard cruising community.  It is well set up for cruisers with lots of laid buoys, a large communal area with internet, tv’s, book swap, a good laundry, extensive dingy docks and lots of surrounding amenities.  But you walk out of the marina onto the main highway which runs the length of the Keys and it could be anywhere in America with all those big stores, fastfood places and general busyness, great for us to finish any provisioning but not the idyllic and quaint islands you might hope to get in the Keys.  Also there is no privacy on your boat as you can almost reach out and touch your neighbours

The best part of the visit to Boot Key for us was we met some more OCC members, Harry and Melinda are the OCC Port Officers and had kindly taken deliver of a oil seal for us.  We had a nice evening out with them to Dockside a local bar which Amanda had wanted to visit as it had photos of Macaws on their magazine advert unfortunately no Macaws at the bar.  We had a few drinks, some cheap dodgy bar food and shouted over the load live music.

Mark and Harry having a drink at Dockside

We were very grateful that Melinda took us in her car to do some final bits of shopping, wonderful to met such lovely and interesting people again, love it when people have so many stories to share.