Monday - 6/8/2020 - Key West to Key Largo

Sunrise at Sunset Marina Key West before our departure

  After 5 day and 5 nights stationary in Key West it was now time to get the boat ready and begin to cruise northward.   Up early as usual to fill water tank, empty waste tank and top off the fuel tanks.  We departed Sunset Marina at 7:30 am with the route on Navionics set to an anchorage at Islamorada which was about 65 miles.   It was a great day for cruising with mostly clear skies and waves under one foot and timed 3-4 seconds apart.   It was nice to have a much better view of all the islands along the way that we largely missed seeing on the way down because of the rain.  We ran mostly at about 14-15 mph.   As we were cruising we kept tabs on a fellow AGLCA boat “Quite Nice” out of Texas with Yvonne and Peter by tracking their position on Nebo (another boat tracking app that we utilize).   They had told us they would be departing Marathon and heading north this morning.   They are a larger 49’ trawler that travels at 8-9 mph so we knew we’d be likely to catch up to them and they were also planning to anchor out in the Islamorada area (Barley Basin).  The cruising was smooth and we enjoyed the dolphin sitings, some kite boarders and a blimp overhead.

About half way into the planned trip Quite Nice messaged us stating that they had gotten an earlier start than anticipated and were now planning to go further on up to an anchorage in Key Largo (Sunset Cove).   We decided that we would follow suit and make it further as well.  Since we are planning to purposefully skip through the Miami area by having a couple of long cruising days this would actually be better to even out the two days ahead.  After re routing our charts we continued along and we could see on Nebo that we were coming up on Quite Nice.  About 18 miles from Key Largo we caught them and another boat that they were traveling with, “Why Me Lord”, and we fell in behind them slowing down to 9mph all the way into our chosen anchorage.  

The path we cruised today on Navionics 

The reviews on Active Captain were accurate and the anchorage location did not disappoint.   Crystal clear 6-7 feet of water and good protection from the wind.   Renee dropped the anchor and it set with no issue.  Within 2 minutes we had the systems all shut down, swimsuits on and were ready to cool off with a dip in the water.   Dawning our snorkeling 🤿 gear and sliding off the swim platform we experienced the perfect conditions we’d hoped for, but not gotten, the day before down in Key West.   We swam around diving below to check out all of the creatures.   We didn’t see any spectacularly colored fish but did see an array of shells 🐚, colorful jellyfish, sea anemones, small fish and other various cool things.   Ahhhhh.....beautiful!

Renee ready for a dive

The bottom was a combination of sand, shells and grasses 

All of the activity and long travels of the day, which actually turned out to be a 107 mile cruise, had us hungry so we fired up the grill and enjoyed cheddar jalapeño brats and fresh guacamole that Erik had made earlier in the day.  The sun ☀️ was still fairly hot so after waiting the requisite 30 minutes or so we both got back into the waters for some additional snorkeling before the sunset.

Did somebody say sunset?!?!  Oh my....Gods handiwork in the sky was spectacular this evening!  With coffee in hand and our feet up in our zero gravity chairs it was a relaxing and awe inspiring end to another wonderful day of journeys. Photographs never quite do a brilliant sunset justice however more so than a thousand of our words......No captions needed for these next three pics!

Inspired by the boat name of our fellows here in Sunset Cove with us Renee couldn’t get this tune out of her head while having morning coffee....so here it is.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g2u_rEcWW8M

Since we are here Tuesday morning in Sunset Cove enjoying a colorful sunrise we may as well add a couple pictures of it as well.

turn the chairs 180 degrees from last nights sunset and we were ready again this morning

Here comes the sun