Working our way up the keys and Heading North

Our Friend at Bahia Honda State Park

We stayed at Stock Island for an additional day to let the winds die down.  As we departed with a forecast of great weather and 1-3 foot waves, we thought it would be a nice trip to Bahia Honda State Park.  The 1-3's turned into 2-4's that were hitting us on the starboard rear quarter.  Not too bad, but not so great either.  As we neared Bahia Honda, with an hour to go, the winds picked up and created 4-6's and this was in a rather shallow area.  The waters around us were like a washing machine, as there was no pattern in the sea to make any navigational adjustments.  At this point Vicki did not feel too well.  When we arrived, it was low tide, and could not enter the channel to Bahia, and had to anchor out for 3 hours in a semi protected bay, to wait out the the rising tide.  We finally made it is around 5 PM.

Blue Willow at Bahia Honda

Bahia Honda SP is a great place. It has two beaches, picnic areas, trails, nature center, play area, store/gift shop/office and a boat for snorkel tours, camping, and much more.  We planned to stay two nights, alas, the wind blew, and blew, and blew, forcing us to stay six nights.

Manatees arrive.

Something magical about these guys

Hi Buddy!!

Would you give this guy a shot of Fresh Water?

Arrest this guy!!!

While at Bahia, we saw several different Manatees.  What fun.  The Manatee are not to be fed fresh water or fed anything. They are conditioned to the location and its visitors and/or sound of the water running and will seek out a drink.  They will drink from, the heat pump discharge fittings from the boats, and any water running from a hose will have them at your boat.  I follow all rules, thus I did not feed them water from the hose (lie).  It was too tempting not to squirt them a shot of water.... it was really a fun illegal activity.  To demonstrate their desire for the water, I was wrapping up our fresh water hose, and draining the hose into the basin, and guess what?.... There was a manatee there drinking the water.  As the water diminished to drops from the hose, the manatee was still there lashing his tongue for every single drop, drip by drip!

Actor portraying Mr Flagler

I visited the nature center, and learned about Mr Flagler who was responsible for the now non functional train tracks that lead to Key West.  Great story.

We did some bright work maintenance on Blue Willow.

Where there is water there is Daisy

She hates to pose

Daisy had several swims on the oceanside, what fun for her.

I walked the portion of the bridge that was part of the train system and later the older car bridge.

We were running low on provisions, so I grabbed the backpack,  and took the bus to Marathon and back.  Nice to have that option.

The concession stand sold frozen dark chocolate covered Key Lime pie as a treat.  We had to try one, at 380 calories per slice, you know they were good.

Bahia is where Vicki started to feel a bug coming on. (more later)

Listening to the band

We  had several locations that we wanted to visit moving up the Keys.  The wind kinda put us in a bad mood, and we simply wanted to find a location off Hawks Channel, and go Bay side.  We decided to go to Mangrove Marina located in Tavenier.  Nice place.  With several stores to reprovision.  We were basically winded in there too, as the winds reached 25 MPH with gusts to 32MPH.  One night at 3:30 AM a rather large boat that WAS anchored in the area, drifted  into us!  His anchor and  rode was lodged between my dingy engine and the one pontoon nearest my stern.  The anchor lodged on my dingy was preventing him from moving further down wind.  I had to lift the anchor off, while he actuated the windlass to reduce tension on the rode, thus allowing me to throw the anchor off.  The only damage was slight scaring to the transom of the dingy, and tore both davits pads that are glued onto the dingy.  (not happy)

Fun place

Good people, cold beer, great fish

As Vicki was not feeling better, she went to the emergency room at Tavenier.  Diagnosis: pneumonia (left Lower), and Bronchitis.  I on the other hand, went to Alabama Jacks with JustUs and their friends Roger and Gail (Roger took me to Key Largo to get my new dingy engine, story later). What a destination, Tiki bar restaurant out in the middle of nowhere, but good food and cold beer.

Communications tower at Key Largo

As we passed Key Largo, we reminisced while on Tarpon Basin of the  Hampton Inn there, as we have used this as our 'base camp ' for several trips to the keys for diving, snorkeling, and RnR.

The Inter Coastal Magenta line runs through many nice Mangrove Channels.

Goat Cheese, Mango Salsa YUM

The next stop was a surprise in Biscayne Bay west side, in Black Point.  We thought is would be a small place, but wow.  330 seat  Tiki hut restaurant, two marinas, and a rather large park system for bikers, hikers, fishing etc.

Ruins of the Marine Stadium

Next stop was Marine Stadium.  Click for more  This location was an awesome anchorage.  The view of Miami was beyond awesome.  What fun to see (and not hear) the beautiful change from daylight to evening to nighttime lighting.  Marine Stadium has a great history of boat racing, water ski shows etc. There were many boats anchored there.  There is a rather large rowing club that utilizes the waters there too.  (click) Here is a guy sailing in a hydro racer at the stadium. The seating for 6,500 is now condemned, but there are plans to revive the location, including housing the world famous Miami Boat Show.

Thanks for peeking in on our blog.