Great Loop & Cruising Adventure Blog

After four months of being on the move we’ve gotten settled in our slip at Key West Harbour on Stock Island. This will be our home for the balance of the winter and early spring and we’re both looking forward to enjoying our time docked, not being on the move and taking in all that Key West has to offer… including the heated pool at the marina.

Although we like to cruise to new destinations we’ve returned to Key West for a second time to explore more of what we didn’t get to see last year and revisit some favorite places.

If you think Key West is laid back you should visit Stock Island. It is the next island up from Key West and for us it’s just a half and hour bus ride to where all the action is. We stayed on this island last winter for the month of January and enjoyed the lazy atmosphere.

Just outside of the marina grounds sits the Stock Island Lobster Co. and not too far away is one of the finest seafood markets around, Fishbusterz. You know the fish and shellfish are fresh because if you walk out the back door (where there also is a small restaurant called Shrimp Shack) you’ll find wall to wall fishing boats.

You can’t be in Key West long without at least hearing about the Hogfish Bar and Restaurant. A favorite among the locals and very colorful.

Louis and Diane drove down from Marathon, with their friends Reba (top-middle) and Jim (bottom-left), to pick us up for a shopping and lunch in downtown Key West. Lunch was at Black Fin where we met up with Karen and Donna, more friends of the Wade’s (top front-left and right).

We bumped into the DeGrows (below-we met Bill and Mary a year ago in Palm Coast, Florida but they are actually live very near our homeport – Charlevoix, Michigan) during a morning walk. That encounter lead to a happy hour at their rental house on Stock Island and dinner at a favorite Mexican restaurant. We were joined with Ron and Bev, fellow Fathom owners that night as well as for dinner a week later at a favorite local Cuban restaurant, El Siboney. It’s always great fun to visit with friends over a good meal.

This same week I was walking the docks, in the big basin, here at Key West Harbour and met a woman who informed me they were having a sunset happy hour on their boat that evening and invited Lisa and I to come. Not wanting to miss a party we went, both curious to meet new people and to tour their 60-foot Florida Bay Coaster boat. Terry and Lois, the owners of Coconuts (their dinghy’s name is Lime) were gracious hosts, we met some wonderful people, made some new Key West contacts and had a fun time. Boaters are very friendly people!

Florida Keys – here we come!

We had a relatively smooth cruise  across Florida Bay to Marathon today. Vivid blue skies and turquoise water.

We were so happy to meet up with all of our cruising buddies at 1 Palm Court (Sombrero Marina). We had to anchor out in Hawks Channel since Marathon is a busy place this time of year and we couldn’t get a slip or even a mooring ball. So we dinghied in to Sombrero for a big breakfast at 1 Palm Court.

Due to very unpredictable weather lately and having to pick our weather days to move along our route we had to move quickly through the Everglades. This was disappointing for us as this is one of our favorite places. Tonight we anchored out near Indian Key. It was calm as could be tonight and we hope the weather holds for our trip to Marathon tomorrow.

From Fort Myers Beach we took the outside route to an anchorage just outside of the Naples harbor right in the middle of some amazing million dollar homes.

On Tuesday we moved to the Naples City Dock’s mooring field for a three day visit to catch up on some work and to visit with some friends from home who have rented a house down here for the winter.

Our friends Gary and Carol (below), from Traverse City, picked us up on Tuesday for a road tour of the area and lunch at their place.

Yes, that’s our dinghy there, the one in the middle. Pete the pelican and his pals have decided to excercise their squatters rights over the dinghy dock.

After three days of extremely windy and cold weather we left Fort Myers Beach at day break, in relative calm waters, for the run to Naples.

First order of business when we arrived in the Fort Myers Beach harbor was to take on some fuel at Ballards (below). Jim enjoyed talking to the attendant, he had a lot of boating stories to tell.

Next we had to grab a mooring ball to tie up to for the next three days.

Our Looper friends Charlie and Linda, Freedom’s Turn, joined us for a night, they are traveling down south from Michigan visiting all the Looper friends they met on their trip last year. We were glad they included us on the list. Dinner was at Doc Ford’s.

We met Tom & Jan Mertz, Monique, by email yesterday and planned to meet in person for lunch at the Parrot Key Caribbean Grill. They are future Loopers, in the planning stages and wanted to meet us to gather information about some questions and concerns they had. We hope we were able to help it’s always fun to be of help to other boaters.

A peaceful afternoon and evening in the right outside of Tarpon Point Marina. Tomorrow we head for Fort Myers Beach to wait out some predicted windy weather and to meet up with some friends.