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

Feb 24^th – It was a hot and sunny day. We went into town by dingy to load up on supplies to prepare for our trip to the Bahamas. We took a cab back from Win Dixie and then loaded up a cart with the supplies. I was afraid my flip flop brakes weren’t going to be good enough as I walked the cart down the ramp towards the dingy. We managed to load up the dingy which was floating pretty low in the water. We then returned to the boat and put everything away and decided we needed to cool off thus we went out to the sand bar with Over Ice and saw a sting ray swim by as well as a number of dolphins jumping and feeding in the area. When we returned back to our boats the noseeums were out in full force. Robert and Brenda joined us on Aqua-Fennatic for a pasta dinner and some cocktails. We tried drinking rum and Koolaid (we used to call these “Killer Koolaids” when we boated with our good friends from Canada – Wally & Jim). We’re hoping that these grow on us since we hear that Rum is inexpensive in the Bahamas and beer is very expensive.

Feb 25^th – Another hot and sunny day. We helped “Over Ice” both out and back in to the spot they were anchored in so they could get some diesel since they were running low. I had to play tug boat captain to help Over Ice win against the current that was flowing down the river. Afterwards Maria and I went on a water run to get 30 gals of water to siphon into our tank. Robert and Brenda had guests arriving thus we all went over to a restaurant across the street from the marina to wait for them as we took advantage of their happy hour. It turns out that they also had other friends heading for Key West that stopped in at the restaurant as well. All of Robert’s and Brenda’s visitors showed up much later than planned since they were impacted by heavy traffic as they drove south from Miami, however we enjoyed meeting them when they finally arrived. The winds are supposed to pick up tomorrow and we haven’t been able to identify an appropriate weather window yet for our Bahamas crossing. We must continue to play the waiting game.

Feb 26^th – It was a hot and sunny day. We headed over to the dingy dock this morning to do the laundry and use the marina’s wifi to update the software on all of our devices as well as use their internet to send pictures etc. In the afternoon we headed over to the Banana Bay Resort for their 8^th annual Looper Sunset Celebration which I hear was lots of fun and very well attended last year. A popular Keys band called “4 Sheets to the Wind” played and fun was had by all. We met a number of Canadian Loopers at the party but I’m sure they’d all agree that the weather wasn’t Canadian like for the winter and the day ended with a great sunset. Afterward Robert’s friends drove us to a restaurant (a.k.a. “Not Robs”) on Pine Key and we had a great meal. We found this restaurant accidentally since we were headed for a restaurant called Square Grouper however we found out that it was closed on the way south thus we stopped at one of the first restaurants we saw … “Not Robs”.