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

Feb 21^st – It was a warm day with a mix of sun and clouds. Yesterday I noticed a loose bolt in the windlass as I was sitting in the sun on the front deck. This morning I went to investigate further and it turns out that a number of the mounting bolts for our windless were broken. It looks like this may be an old problem, however I wanted to address the issue so we went by dingy to town and walked up to Home Depot to buy replacement stainless steel bolts, washers and nylock nuts so I can fix the issue. While we were there we stopped by the bank and found that our TD debit card is useless for taking money out of our USD bank account. I have to do more research to see how I can get US cash … I may resort to taking it out of our Canadian account with our debit card. Ugggg! We then did some shopping at Win Dixie and returned back to the boat to drop off our supplies. We then had to rush back to the dingy dock so we could walk to Faro Blanca for the Bahamas captains meeting. Many people showed up and a lot of information was disseminated by various people that have previously visited the Bahamas by boat. The next crossing window is this weekend, however it’s a short window and not many boats will be taking advantage of it. The next one may be more than a week after this window thus we need to figure out if the upcoming short window is good enough to get us deep enough into the Bahamas so that we can continue to travel with the winds that are predicted, otherwise we may get stuck in one spot for a while. Decisions, Decisions!

Feb 22^nd – It was a warm cloudy and rainy day … it’s been a while since we’ve seen that wet stuff falling from the sky! At some points the rain and wind gusts were strong and on a positive note I expect that it should rinse or blow the remaining salt off the boat! Since we were stuck inside the boat I figured that it would be a good day to install my tax software and begin to populate our tax information with the goal to file our tax returns before we leave for the Bahamas, however I’m still waiting for some info that won’t be available until the end of this month. Maria was reading a very thick book throughout the day and she’s getting close to completing it. I called our US credit card provider to follow-up on the delivery of our replacement credit cards and they gave me a tracking number. I checked the tracking number and apparently they tried to deliver the cards today. Their next attempt is tomorrow thus I’ll need to hang around the marina to ensure I don’t miss their second attempt.

Feb 23^rd – It was a warm sunny and windy day. We used the dingy to go to the dingy dock to wait for our replacement US credit cards which arrived as part of the UPS delivery. UPS left a yellow card yesterday and one option was to sign the card so they would leave the package without the need to be physically there to sign for it, so that’s what we did. We headed back to the boat to fix the windlass and then we got a call from Robert (“Over Ice”) that happened to be at the marina when UPS arrived and luckily he was there since they wouldn’t leave the package without additional information. We now have our replacement US credit cards … yea! Maria and I worked as a team to replace the broken bolts on the windless … I was stuck in the chain locker on the bottom while she was on the deck above. It was difficult to line up the holes however after a few attempts we finally completed the job. Unfortunately we will not be able to make tomorrow’s weather window since we need to go shopping, do laundry, get cash from the bank, etc … too much to do in one afternoon. Oh well, there’s a big Looper Sunset Celebration on Sunday which should be lots of fun thus I’m not too disappointed. We’ll get ready for the next weather window.