Leaving Key West - blue skies - light breeze - the strains of the 'Star Spangled Banner' floating in the air, plus the aromas of coffee and cigars. It's always best to leave with good memories intact, and to look forward to the next visit.
We motor-sailed out into the Hawk Channel for our 30 mile trip to Newfound Harbour. We'd spent one night there on our outbound journey and, as the weather forecast was for calm, warm days into the foreseeable future, we decided to treat ourselves to an experience that would be the exact opposite of Key West. There was one other boat on the horizon as we slowly and carefully navigated through the shallows. It was 'Jumasi', our neighbour from Key West with Martin & Sigida from Ontario.
Newfound Harbour is large and enclosed by Big Pine Key, Little Torch Key and Ramrod Key among many others. Upon our arrival Martin & Sigida told us about the two local 'watering holes' - 'Parrotdise' and a Tiki Bar. We made an arrangement to dinghy together to find the Tiki Bar, and then chugged around the bay to explore. Of course, we couldn't resist taking a look at 'Parrotdise'. It didn't look at all exciting viewed from the end of the long and rather rickety pier where we tied up. But we were out to explore, and so made our way towards the salmon pink/parrot pink barn-like structure. Imagine our surprise when, upon stepping inside, we were greeted by cries of, "Here comes Lake Ontario", by the large crowd at the bar. We were so stunned by this reception, and mistakenly thought these must be boaters we had met somewhere en route (Remembering names and faces is not one of our srengths!). As we chatted to this animated bunch we realised two things - that $1 Happy Hour beers had been flowing for a couple of hours, and secondly that Bill's T-shirt had had a large map of Lake Ontario prominently displayed on the front of it! With promises to return the next day...and the next and the next...we dinghied back to Southern Vectis before setting off on our trip to the local Tiki Bar with Martin & Sigida.
Our voyage of discovery took us right across the bay - about two miles - and in through an extremely narrow channel bordered by razor sharp rocks just waiting to test their edges on tender dinghies like ours. As we entered the channel a boat full of young people (polite description) came screaming outbound on a power boat, and almost hit Martin & Sigida's dinghy. Undaunted, (or maybe slightly daunted) we carried on, and soon found ourselves in a long, dank, and seemingly endless canal to nowhere. At this point, Bill remembered we had forgotten to bring our lights for the return after sunset! To cut a long story short, we found the Tiki Bar - it was right beside the busy highway - and had a nice meal eaten fairly quickly due to the fading light. We may have broken a few speeding rules on our way back down the canal in the encroaching darkness, but we all breathed a sigh of relief when we got out into the open harbour and could just about make out Jumasi and Southern Vectis in the last glow of the day.
The weather for the next two days was perfect - 30C each day with clear blue skies. We swam and explored, and didn't miss a single Happy Hour at 'Parrotdise'. Then, on another clear blue day, we set off for Boot Key Harbour with a lunchtime anchorage at Bahia Honda State Park. The depth at the Bahia Honda anchorage is fine, but the holding and the proximity of two huge bridges - there's a gap in the old rail bridge to allow for boat traffic - does not make for a comfortable overnight anchorage. Later that day we arrived back in Boot Key Harbour to find there was no longer a waiting list for mooring balls, and that Jumasi was bobbing on a mooring close by.
So now we have been here for the past week. We've had two major storms during that time, and it has been extremely hot and humid - at least 7F above the normal high temperature of 80F. Last year at this time the low was 58F, setting a low temperature record, and necessitating a production run of T-shirts with "I survived the winter of 2010 in Boot Key Harbour"! Maybe they'll do the same for this year with the record high temeperature of 91F and winds of 44 knots!
Many of the boats that were here when we left are still here, so it was rather like coming home - with the Monday night dinghy drift, the Wednesday get-together under the Tiki Hut, the Thursday afternoon game of 'Mexican Train' dominoes. We've enjoyed them all. We dinghied up to 'Castaways' and had a good evening out with Martin & Sigida. We've also had a few outings to the 'Dockside' bar. Tonight will be our last outing with our bikes. We sold them this morning on the Cruisers' Net, but can use them for one more night to cycle down to our favourite bar 'Salty's', for a sunset dinner and farewell to Martin & Sigida. We think we have a two day weather window to get us up to Miami before the next unsettled weather comes in. The cruisers' weather guru, Chris Parker, had both his radio antennas knocked out by a tornado last night, and today's weather, though warm and sunny, has a very unstable feel about it! We can always change our mind about going - and there's a great BBQ featuring the 'Barnacles' music group, at the Marina's Tiki Hut tomorrow!
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