The trip down to Key West was full of things to see. It started with an overturned vessel. We saw a diver in the water possibly attempting to flip it? Hope nobody was injured?

As we got closer to Key West, the water became a beautiful green-blue color.

 

 

We passed SV Toucan, a 40’ Manta catamaran underway and hailed them on the VHF offering to take some pics of them. Capt. Elizabeth thanked us and returned the favor.

The crew of Toucan would later invite us for a “Sundowner” which is live-aboard speak for why don’t you dinghy over to our boat just before the sun sets and we’ll do drinks and appetizers. They were terrific hosts and I enjoyed getting a tour of their amazing catamaran. If I get a copy of the selfie we took,  I’ll post it here.

When you approach Key West from Hawk’s Channel (ocean side) you see sights such as huge cruise ships underway in the channel and others docked.

You pass Margaritaville Marina and many anchored boats.

 

 

 

 

The US Coast Guard Key West station is down here and they have a large ship docked.

The Navy’s Naval Air Station and Army Special Forces Underwater Operations have a presence in Key West. We passed the many buildings with military logos and such.

 

At one point a couple of inflatables with Army Special Forces motored by.

 

We grabbed a mooring ball in Garrison Bight Mooring field rather than fight the crowds in the different anchoring locations. Garrison Bight is the only real transient mooring field that I am aware of here in KW. The mooring field is run by Key West City Marina. Getting onto the mooring is a lot like in Boot Key Harbor where the mooring ball has a short pennant line that comes up from below the ball (rather than on the top of the mooring ball as it’s better to keep the scope angle low leading to the mooring anchor itself). Up North in Rhode Island, most mooring ball pennant lines are mounted on the top and have either a single long pennant line or a single that spits into two lines with loops for throwing over your bow cleats. Here in Key West the mooring pennant line is very short with a thimble that you must thread two of your own dock lines through. They ask that you keep a minimum of 10 feet between the boat and the thimble. The winds can really blow down here and they don’t want you short tying to the ball and potentially dragging the mooring anchor.

Once tied up it was a bit of long dinghy ride into the marina office which is located in a different location than the transient dinghy dock.

We arrived on St. Paddy’s day so we wasted no time getting an Uber to Duval St. and hitting some of the local watering holes like Hog’s Breath Saloon. Want to see the drink menu? It’s on your plastic cup (not a bad idea). I had to do a Gumbash Smash just to make  Danny & Dina smile. (Inside joke)

We found that the Sunset Pier had a good band playing and spent some time there taking selfies and enjoying the cool breeze off the ocean.

We ate at Margaritaville’s and found it was less crowded than adjacent restaurants due to the St. Paddy’s day crowds. The food & drinks were good.

The dinghy ride back to the boat was hysterical as we had not paid enough attention to where we left the big boat and we were driving around in the dink trying to find Simple Life. Fish were jumping out of the water as we skimmed over the shallows at high speed.

While there I got to visit places like The Green Room.

The Whistle Bar (AKA the Bull)

We joined the 1st ever Key West Cruisers Net Social at Key West Waterfront Brewery (right on the water). We had lots of fun sharing drinks and stories with other live-aboard cruisers.

They teased me a bit being a live-aboard cruiser on a trawler vs. Sailboat but I like to tease them back a bit 😉

Some nights were dead calm which can get hot aboard without a breeze. Other nights the breeze was blowing in through the hatch and you needed a blanket to keep your toes warm. The funny thing about no wind is… the boats tend to spin randomly rather than all lining up with the wind. Our neighbors on a Manta 44 power catamaran had to jump in the water to untangle their mooring line that was wrapped around their mooring ball.

At night we would see amazing sunsets as we relaxed in the aft cockpit with a drink or two.