AquaFennatic Great Loop Blog: Hanging around in the Florida Keys - Boot Key FL

Feb 11^th – It was a hot sunny day with moderate winds. We found out that there’s a CruiserNet on VHF channel 68 every morning at 9am. They introduce new arrivals and say goodbye to those leaving the area and then move on to news, upcoming activities, buy and sell and finally trivia. It’s quite entertaining to listen to and it has given us insight into upcoming events that we’d like to attend. We headed to town by dingy and walked with Rob and Brenda to West Marine to order parts for their head to resolve the issues they’ve been experiencing. Afterwards we walked to Kmart which we haven’t been to in years and then to Win Dixie. On the way back we decided to stop off at an all you can eat Chinese buffet and now I’m soooo stuffed! We walked back to the dingy and returned to the boat and then relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat dinner tonight.

Feb 12^th – It was another hot and sunny day. This morning I had a look at the steering components on the boat since it occasionally binds while we’re underway. I believe I found the issue which relates to the installation of the new rudder packing that was done by Green Turtle Bay. The grounding cable on the rudder post was tightened in such a way that it would rub on the wood causing the steering to bind. I re-adjusted the grounding cable and everything seems to work fine now. We had a visitor this morning at the back of the boat … Robert yelled over to us to have a look and we’ve got some great pictures. Robert went to pick up a couple of friends that will be staying with him for a week or so while Maria and I went on a water run and put 30 gals of water in the boat. Afterwards we met Robert, Brenda and their friends at the sandbar for some socialization and on our way there we saw a stingray perform a hard belly flop after jumping out of the water in front of us. After the sandbar we went by dingy down a river surrounded by mangroves and found a number of old sunken boats as well as a homemade submarine. It was kind of spooky back there! When we returned to the boat Robert and Brenda invited us over for dinner with their boat guests.

Feb 13^th – Once again it was a hot and sunny day. We went into town this morning and I had my first land based shower since we left Palm Island marina while Maria caught up on her internet using the free wifi provided at the dingy dock. We’ll need to use the free wifi more often during the next few days since we’ve almost used up our 10 GBs of data this month. Maria called our US cell phone provider to add another month to our plan and find out if they can provide us with Bahamas coverage … which they can not. It sounds like the Bahamas cell and data plan will be quite pricey thus we’ll have to determine how to modify our usage to fit the plan. This may mean that I may not be able to post Blog entries as often as I have been. Afterwards Maria and I walked into town to buy some provisions from Home Depot, Walmart and Win Dixie. Then back to the boat. The dingy is getting lots of use here!

Feb 14^th – It was a hot and sunny day and the hottest Valentines day I’ve ever had. A bunch of Loopers went out on a couple boats to a reef on the Atlantic side to go snorkeling. Artie and Laura “Leap of Faith” invited “Over Ice”, their guests and us to join them on their boat … Thanks for the ride! It was the most amazing snorkeling that I’ve ever done … I saw a Caribbean lobster, turtles and fish of all colors and sizes (like on Finding Nemo) and luckily no sharks, however we did see a number of very large barracudas! The aquatic life wasn’t afraid of us thus it was really easy to get up close and personal. I only wish that I had an underwater camera so I could share it with our blog audience. Afterwards we went back to the marina and bought a big bag of crab claws for our Valentines dinner. They were a challenge to eat and we had shells flying everywhere as we tried to figure out the best way to eat them. They did taste good but they are too much work for the amount of meat you get from each one. I did figure out how not to eat them after I cut my finger while doing it the wrong way! My blog entry is late since we are very close to using this month’s cell data. I was planning on posting my blog using the free wifi at the dingy dock however I just haven’t had time. Maybe tomorrow.