Good Day for Sailing

 

Florida Keys,  (high 77, low 62)

 

We took a few days break from boating, not because we want to, but because it’s windy.   If we had a sailboat, we’d be in good shape!

A strong front came through Florida yesterday, and we were under a tornado watch most of the day.   I was concerned about the big red squall line showing on the radar, but fortunately, it started breaking up before it reached us.   It was rainy and windy most of the evening and the winds are pretty strong.   Evidently the cold front has reached the southernmost part of the United States.  Check out our predicted low temps for last night.   Wow.   62 degrees.

The water temperature will be dropping a little, I guess.  It had just gotten warm enough for Al to snorkel.  He was waiting for 80 degrees, and he finally got a chance a few days ago.   He was determined to get wet a few days ago.

We were anchored in shallow waters near the 7 Mile Bridge.   The current is always stronger around the bridges and I could see it was running pretty strong.   I kept “suggesting” that it was not a good time or place to snorkel, but he was determined.  

 

I made him carry a tag line with him that was attached to the boat….just in case. 

He wasn’t in the water 2 minutes before he realized I was right and the current was too strong, and he came back in.

:)   

 

We had a busy day yesterday.  We headed up to the town/island of Islamorada to go to the big Bass Pro shop.  We wanted to look at Tilley hats (like Kevin and Ruth) recommend.   We saw a guy a few days ago that had half his ear removed and bandages all over his face.  We’re thinking he was out in the sun too much.  We always try to wear sunscreen, but we figured a nice hat with a wide brim is the ticket down here.

We stopped at a few roadside shops on the day and made a day out of it.  Our plan was to be back to the Sunset Bar and Grill in time for the happy hour at sunset.

We made a stop at Bud & Mary’s marina to watch the tarpon and visit the dive shop.

They have covered wet slips for boats.  Inside the covered room, reminded me of old barns.

There are a lot of commercial charter fishing boats, and along with the tarpon in the water, plenty of pelicans.

The pelicans can really be a problem because they like to sit on nice clean boats.  

This wood post had nails on the top, presumably to keep the pelicans from roosting on it.

It didn’t work.

 

I felt kind of sorry for this guy. 

Our next stop was to Robbies Marina.  It’s kind of famous for their tarpon feeding.  It used to be more fun before it became so well known.  It’s at mile marker 77.5.

This is one of the tarpon feeding areas. They sell buckets of small fish.  You can see the girls laying down on the dock feeding the waiting tarpon.

Last year, there was a You Tube video floating around where a guy had his arm caught inside the mouth of a very large tarpon.  It happened right here at Robbies.

There are plenty of them there and many of them were 6-7 feet in length.

They rent jet boats and kayaks at Robbies.  These people were coming in after a very windy day on the water.  The tarpon were waiting.

The kayak  launch is very nice and you can see American Crocodiles in these waters.  We have never paddled there, mainly because there are just too many people.  It’s a great place to kayak though with the beautiful mangroves and there are two islands nearby that are state parks. 

Al finally broke down and bought a bucket of fish. 

We made it back to the Sunset Grill just before sunset.  Unfortunately, with the very strong winds and cooler temperatures, it wasn’t the best place to be last night.

There’s Al in his sexy new hat.

The wind didn’t stop these folks from enjoying a game of corn hole.

It got pretty chilly so we didn’t even stay for the sunset.

 

Today, we’re going to a big Seafood festival up in Marathon.  It’s supposed to be pretty nice, and since we have to pay $5.00 each, it better be.

The winds are supposed to die down, so we’re planning on betting back out in the boat this afternoon.