Monday, January 5, 2015

Leaving Key West




Leaving a rainbow behind in Key West

And we’re off!  It’s been a great three weeks in Key West. It was a perfect place to celebrate the holidays.  New Year’s Eve in Key West was a bit less crazy than we had anticipated, though we had a fabulous evening none the less!  Martin and I invited a few couples from the marina to come over for a drink early in the evening. Every day we pass folks on their boats and say hello.  It’s nice to get together and actually meet them!  We had a lovely time and really enjoyed our happy hour with everyone.  Then we went off with Sean & Louise to see what was happening around town. We had 10pm reservations for dinner but were relieved to find a nice restaurant with a cancellation that could take us, right on Duval. We walked up and down Duval Street after dinner and then decided to return to Blossom so we could watch the wench drop from mast of the pirate ship across the way. I was bad about taking pictures, other than a banjo-playing Darth Vader, but Sean got a few good ones from the evening.  


Darth and a banjo

On the 2nd we had to move out of The Galleon Marina so we popped over to the City Marina fuel dock, just across the waterway from Vector.  We were a bit sad to leave The Galleon as we were making friends with some of our neighbors there and enjoying visiting with everyone.  Our new home, however, is in the thick of things and a stone’s throw from Vector.  We have an amazing view of the entrance of the harbor and all the tourist boats coming and going. 


Vector, second boat on the left, we moved to the fuel dock directly in front of them

We had a couple very exciting wildlife sightings last week. The day my Mom left, we were walking along our dock and saw a crowd gathered around. There was a manatee sleeping peacefully in one of the slips. He even let us pet him (felt like wet leather).

Manatee

The next day we were on the west side of the island visiting another Nordy and another creature appeared. This was a giant grouper. I’ve never seen one before and it was amazing!  He was about 5 or 6 feet long and Huge.  He was big enough to have a couple small remora hitching a ride.

Big Guy

As our time here has been winding down, we’ve been making plans for heading out to the Dry Tortugas on Monday. There’s a front coming in on Thursday so we may end up staying there for a few days longer than we might otherwise, but we’re looking at it as a break from busy Key West. We’ll be off the grid, with no phone or internet so I imagine we’ll all be very productive J  We’re hoping for some serious “play time” with the toys.  If weather permits, this will be a perfect place to take out the kayaks and SUPs and get in the water for some snorkeling and maybe even go diving!

Once we get a fairly calm weather window we’ll head to the St. Petersburg/Tampa area. We expect that to be sometime next weekend. 

Vector leaving for the Dry Tortugas

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