Boot Key Harbor

Finally we made it to the Florida Keys. We spent a couple of days in Key Largo and then headed to Boot Key Harbor in Marathon Key. The month of January had rough weather. Seemed like one storm after another passed through. Fortunately we were well protected in Boot Key Harbor, but it also meant we couldn’t leave. The winds shift so quickly in a 24 hour period it is hard to find a good all-around anchorage. We ended up spending several weeks anchored out in the harbor. And while we don’t have to pay to anchor the boat, we did have to pay the marina to use their dinghy dock. Dinghy dock usage fees included access to laundry, showers, the club house, and even a place to park the van. There is a Home Depot, Publix, West Marine, and a Post Office, all within a few blocks.

This anchorage is huge. Here is the view looking out a porthole.

All those lights over the water—those are anchor lights. When at anchor or a mooring ball a boat is supposed to shine a white light 360 degrees — usually for a sailboat it is at the top of the mast. The picture doesn’t do it justice, but there are hundreds of boats in this harbor.

And the best part of Boot Key Harbor? Boat kids!! There is a park right next door to the marina for all the kids to get together.

One of the boats we met in Miami was also down there, so the kids got to continue their friendship with Grace, Rita, and Sam on Scholé.

This January there were a lot of storms that came through the area, I guess that is normal for this time of year. One evening we had kids over for a game and movie night. The wind started picking up, whistling through all the masts in the area. Kim and I were taking turns, going outside and looking around, making sure nothing was blowing, the boats around us were doing ok, that we weren’t dragging anchor. One of those time I looked up toward the bow and saw a trawler named Blessing just a couple of feet right off our bow. I started yelling, “Kim, Blessing! Blessing!”. Fortunately she knew this was not an urgent request for a benediction and came running. I started blowing the air horn, we turned on our spreader lights so the whole top of our boat was lit up like a baseball field. The wind was howling, it was starting to rain, and the back of their boat was trapped on our bridle which connects to our anchor line. The couple on Blessing ran out just in time to see the kids on our boat started making their way up– five in total. I’m sure they were wondering just how many kids we had on this boat. 🙂 . Anyway we attracted quite a lot of attention in the anchorage and someone passing by in a jon boat stopped and helped them get untangled from our line and they were able to move their boat and anchor further away from us. Fortunately, no damage occurred to either boat. We felt bad for them, they were a really nice Canadian couple and it was a rough night, they had to re-anchor several times. Kim was up until 4 am on anchor watch, making sure no one else around us dragged. We found out the next morning that the winds were greater than 35 mph. After this we decided to get on the waiting list for a mooring ball. It took weeks of waiting but then we were assigned N13. Look at how huge this mooring field is!

Being on a mooring ball means we feel more comfortable about leaving the boat if we need to. It means the boats surrounding us are also on mooring balls, so they won’t drag anchor and run into us during a storm. And honestly it isn’t that much more expensive than their dinghy dock rates.

Not a boat activity but definitely a big reason we moved on to the boat—spending time with people we love. My friend Lisa, her husband Eric and son Burke live in Key West, only an hour drive from Marathon. I have known Lisa for 40 years! (and she looks exactly the same) We spent a couple of weekends with her family having so much fun–Superbowl party, Mallory square, drag shows, movies, restaurants, hot tub, Mimosas. Relaxing and laughing until our faces hurt. It really did my heart good.

While in Marathon we’ve spent some time exploring local restaurants, eating conch ceviche, smoked fish dip, stone crab claws, and of course Key Lime Pie. We even dinghied to a restaurant that had a swimming pool. They kids swam while Kim and I relaxed.

Overall we enjoyed our stay in Marathon. We had so much fun connecting with friends, new and old!