Day 50 - Key West to Marathon

This was our 50^th day of the Loop already and time to leave Key West behind for Marathon.  We left at 9:06 a.m. on another gorgeous day.  We are leaving the Gulf and traveling east and north on the Atlantic.  The waves were 2-3 feet.  A cruise ship was coming into port as we were leaving and it looked huge next to us.  We see the Key West lighthouse and more hotels.  Hello crab pots – these things are everywhere so we have to keep a sharp eye out, as Captain Randy says.

 

 

On or port we passed the Kemp Inlet, Sugarloaf Key, West Summerland Key, Spanish Harbor and Bahia Honda Key.  We approach the 7 mile bridge as we turned in to the Marathon Marina and Boat Yard at 12:05 p.m.  After fueling up and getting settled in the slip, we meet our marina neighbors, Rick and Ann, who have come from Miami where they usually keep the boat.

 

 

 

At the edge of the marina is a very good restaurant we have eaten at before (in Key Largo were their first location opened), Lazy Days.  We sit on the porch and have conch ceviche and calamari, reveling in the warmth of the sun.  From there we strolled up the road to Highway A1A, the main road that goes through the Key, and went into a nautical store to look around.  We walked back to the boat for sunset.  Rick had told us that we would have a perfect view from the back of our boat – boy was he right!

 

Randy launched the dinghy for a ride the next day and I worked on the blog.  He also hooked up the satellite dish and the TV stations kept repeating stories of the huge snowstorm, Hercules, which was pounding through Chicago and much of the rest of the country.  We could not (thankfully) be having a more different experience: the only white stuff we are concerned about is sea salt!