March 20

Because we needed water and electricity and all marinas in Key West were full, we ended up in Stock Island, not a very nice marina (although Key West prices), but that can happen. At least we got to borrow a bike and Jacques went to West Marine to buy a new water pump, the old one was so noisy, the whole boat resonated when using it. I got to borrow the same bike to do some shopping.

On Tuesday we left for Ramrod Key after we cleaned the boat, was very necessary, it was a short trip where we anchored at the SW side of the island and next day we made the hop to Bahia Honda. We had been there once before, it is a national park with a wonderful beach, I think it would be a good stop with Paul, Karyn and the kids. It was a wild night on the anchor, high winds and thunderstorms in the distance, but in the morning it was all over. We took the dinghy to shore and made walk over the island. There is an old railway bridge, now used for walking and fishing and when I looked down I saw two sea turtles swimming just below the water, great!

On Thursday we left for Boot Key, it was great sailing, two mono-hulls had left just ahead of us and it became very soon a race between the second boat and the Lady Hawk. After the second tack we went to second place and in the end Jacques was steering by hand to try to get as high on the wind as Lady Hawk could to maintain our lead. We would have won but we anchored outside Boot Key and they went inside, but it was a very fun sailing day. We stayed two days on the boat, just being lazy and Jacques started to read! It was the book about “Marley and me” and he enjoyed it very much (thanks to Helena who gave me the book when I visited them Last September).

Ria