...................................--- Book Key Harbor (Marathon) ---
...............................................................--- April 13 to 17, 2011 ---
Nights Anchorage: 024o 42.556' N -- 081o 05.273' W -- Boot Key Harbor--Mooring BallTrip Odometer: 305.2 miles
Days Mileage...: 0.1 miles
The next morning I took the dinghy over to the city marina office and paid for a mooring ball. They didn't like the idea of us leaving the boat on a ball for a couple days but we got a guy on a boat next to us to keep and eye on it and that went over better.
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If you come in here and register and want a ball be prepared to have a boat with a holding tank that can be pumped out. We use wag bags, so no such holding tank on our boat. They will give you up to a week to install one. We planned on leaving before the week was up and did. If we went back with the Mac we would have a tank that they could pump out.
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Boot Key was starting to empty out as boats started north to avoid the hurricane season.
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It was interesting there, but not really our kind of place. I know a lot of people go there...
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... and spend considerable time there, so it is just a matter of what you like to do.
With the boat on the ball, which went easier that we though it would, we got out new neighbor to take us to shore and took a taxi to the airport where we rented a car. From there it was a 240 mile drive back over to Ft. Myers Beach. That took up a day and then we looked at the Endeavour over there and haggled over the price some and decided to buy it with the closing to take place a few weeks later.
Once at Ft. Myers Beach we were about 60 miles from All American Boat Storage where we had put in and left the Suburban and trailer. We went up there and got it and we drove both vehicles and the trailer back over to the east coast. We left the Suburban and trailer at South Dade Marina where we would take out and drove back to the boat at Marathon. All of that took place between a Wed. and Sat.. The car wasn't suppose to be back to Monday so on Sunday...
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....we drove down to Key West.
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I thought the old bridge above was pretty cool. It had been the railroad bridge when the railroad went down the keys before the Keys Highway. When the highway came along they...
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...put the highway up on top of the bridge. Of course now it is just an attraction and a new bridge parallels it. We found out that Key West is also a place that we had a different view of vs. reality of actually seeing it. I thought that it was somewhat laid-back, but even on a Sunday morning it was busy, busy, busy. There again I can see why some people love it, but just not our cup of tea.
So after driving around Key West some it was back to the Marathon and our slower life style.
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There are huge dinghy docks at Boot Key and this dinghy gave us some....
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...ideas for dinghy chaps for our inflatable which we implemented where we got back home and....
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....this is how it came out. The whole project is ( HERE ).........
Boot Key at night and we were lucky to ...
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... have a full moon.
