We’re still at Boot Key Harbor waiting for the arrival of our forwarded mail. We’ve got our route to the Bahamas planned and will head out after our mail and a favorable forecast arrives.
As it turned out, we were put back in the water a bit too soon after our haul out to re-bed the rudder post’s packing gland. The caulk hadn’t cured and we continued to have a small leak. The yard hauled us again and re-did the job, leaving us in the travel lift overnight (not a new experience; we got to do that in Lake Charles when the cutlass bearing was replaced) with heat lamps on the work to expedite the cure. We must have bonded well with the guys at the shipyard. Before we left, they brought us some shark and grouper fillets. John even gave us a recipe for the shark. We tried that out our first night here and it was GREAT! Claudia is fixing the grouper tonight with a recipe out of the Bahamas Cruising Guide.
While at Ft. Myers, I had a local autopilot guru, Heinz Buhrig of Heinz AutoPilots, Inc., come and evaluate our installation since we’d had it redone. Along with his blessing, he gave us the latest software upgrade (no charge because we’re still under warranty). Wednesday, after recalibrating its electronic compass and other sea trial settings, we were on our way to Key West, 102 nautical miles due south. Seas were 1-2 feet (good news), winds were calm, 5-10 knots (bad news) and were from the northwest (just wish there was more of it) so we motor-sailed, making very good time. At 0320 next morning, the northeast wind picked up just a bit so we shut down the engine to slow down enough to make landfall after sunup. It is still so cool to watch the GPS (Millie) and autopilot (Otto) work their magic, bringing us up to the northwest channel buoy waypoint and then rounding it to make our next waypoint.
As mentioned previously, since we arrived at Key West so early, since we’ve “done” Key West before and since the anchorage didn’t look that protected, we decided to continue on to Boot Key. I programmed in the new waypoints and we changed course. We never touched the wheel until we got to the Boot Key Harbor channel markers (156 nautical miles, 11 waypoints later).
Maybe it’s because we’ve been through so much just getting here, but this place seems to have been maligned. We’ve read and heard how over-crowded and polluted this place is but we haven’t seen that. The cruising boats far, far outnumber the derelict boats. We found a great spot to anchor and the water is the best we’ve parked in yet. By the way, the weather is perfect. While dinghy-ing around, we found some manatees. Took pictures, petted them and gave them fresh water to drink. Never did that in Kemah! We paid $15 to a local marina (Sombrero Marina) for a week’s dinghy docking privileges which includes trash disposal, bike racks and receiving mail. It’s walking distance to Publix grocery, K-Mart, Eckerd’s and Home Depot. We’ll be ready to go when our mail gets here, but it’s a nice place to have to wait for it!
See you in the Bahamas,
David and Claudia
Two weeks after our first Bahamas landfall, we’ve made it to George Town on Great Exuma Island, Bahamas. Apparently it takes more than two weeks for the senses to adjust to waking up everyday in paradise, for we haven’t yet made the adjustment. I hope we don’t get too spoiled to it because I don’t know how we’d beat it. We made the 38 mile offshore run to George Town today from Galliot Cut. While anchored there last night, I caught a 4 foot nurse shark off a 5 
inch bait fish that I caught during the day off a 5 inch lure. (That should improve the gene pool for the stupid 5 inch fish species). It was an experience getting the shark off the hook to throw him back, but we finally succeeded. We got a keeper today when I landed a 39.5 inch dolphin (mahi mahi, not Flipper). He’s all filleted and in the freezer waiting to be grilled.
Travels of Ma'alahi 