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

Feb 18^th – It was a hot and sunny day. We really enjoyed Alan’s meal that he made on “Over Ice” last night and afterwards we played Left, Right, Center. This morning a total of 8 dingies, loaded with people, went on a long dingy run around Boot Key. We started on the Gulf side running north and then went across a pass to the Atlantic side and headed south until we reached Sombrero Beach and we all stopped and pulled the dingies up on the beach. After some beach time everyone was getting hungry thus we decided to go to Lazy Days restaurant for lunch and the food was great. After lunch a few of the dingies went for a final run to a mangrove river and then back to the boat. We helped Brandon and Alan (guests of “Over Ice”) take their stuff over to the dingy dock and load their stuff and dingy onto their truck. They have a 14 hour drive ahead of them to New Orleans. When Rob and I got back to the boat the noseeums were out so we hid in the boat and just relaxed for the evening.

Feb 19^th – It was a hot humid and sunny day. I checked our US credit card items this morning and found a fraudulent charge thus I spent a fair amount of time this morning with the fraud department of our credit card company providing them with details as well as figuring out the logistics of getting replacement cards. What a pain! We can have the cards couriered to the marina, however they won’t sign for the cards thus I have to try to figure out when to be at the marina so I can sign for the replacement cards. After I dealt with that I decided to clean the bottom of the boat today … I used the Hookah device with a make shift weight belt to dive under the boat and it went well! I spent at least an hour under the boat cleaning the bottom. After I finished the bottom cleaning job including putting all the equipment away we went to the dingy dock to get 30 gals of fresh water to add to our water tanks. I think I’m going to be a little sore tomorrow but for now we’ll have a couple cold ones while I BBQ an early dinner so I don’t have to battle the noseeums!

Feb 20^th – Another hot and sunny day. It’s a holiday in both Canada (Family day) and the US (Presidents day) thus I expect that most places on shore will be closed today. We are especially interested in getting to a bank to take out some US cash to use while we wait for our replacement US credit cards, however, we’ll have to wait until the banks open tomorrow. I cleaned a few things this morning and we decided just to sit out on the front of the boat this afternoon and listen to music while we soaked up the sun. We did absolutely nothing and it felt so relaxing. Tomorrow we have a captains meeting with a group of Loopers to talk about timing, weather and routes to take to go to the Bahamas.