Tuesday, Mar. 5 – Friday, Mar.15

[WARNING: When it comes to our video links, please don’t expect too much – they are very short and taken by non-professionals! 😉 ]

We left Marathon Marina on calm seas taking Hawkes Channel (on the Cuba/Atlantic Ocean side of the Keys rather than the Gulf / Florida Bay side) to Stock Island Marina Village (SIMV), next to Key West.

[Video link: Saw another flying fish on the way but it is nearly impossible to catch it on video and it seems to be invisible, just making a few small marks in the water toward the center of the picture. https://youtu.be/4eAu_hkjtXM]

Toward the end of our almost five hour journey we encountered a little more wind and following seas (waves from behind us) causing some rolling that Bo didn’t like but he took it well- no cuddling up to or hiding behind Sue. He’s making progress! Another Looper at the marina had arranged what they called “Cinco de Marcho” docktails that night (since none of us would still be here in May) for the 10 Looper boats there. Most of the Loopers were new to us and many will be finishing the Loop over the next few months along the east coast of the US.

So, what is Stock Island, anyway?

History Lesson: There used to be herds of livestock on the island which may be where it got its name, or it may be where the Spaniards brought their stock: horses, cattle, goats, sheep, etc. when they arrived, or it may just be the name of an early settler. No one really knows why it’s named Stock Island.

Geography Lesson:

Stock Island is only about 75 yards to the east of Key West separated by Cow Key Channel.  It is somewhat circular in shape, about 2 miles in diameter. The Boca Chica Channel on the east side separates it from Boca Chica (island), home of the Naval Air Station Key West.

Speaking of the Naval Air Station, their jets are REALLY loud! They’re also REALLY fast!

It's challenging to get a good picture of them because when you hear them and look up, they have already gone past – grrrr! However, they seemed to come in groups of 8 to 12 a couple times each day, morning and evening with an occasional stray during the rest of the daylight hours. Thankfully, they did not fly at night! They would soar over the marina, loop around to the northeast and then land on a runway lined up with the marina, so we’d get two times the earsplitting noise for each jet. Occasionally we’d see a larger plane and even one for aerial refueling! Fortunately, they’d often fly in pairs, sometimes two of the same plane, sometimes one larger than the other, then split apart so one would loop around and land, then 20 seconds later the other would loop around and land – getting the engine noise only 3 times (instead of 4 times from 2 jets) while you couldn’t speak to the person next to you. (Sue says this reminds her of when she was a kid and they lived about block off the Kennedy Expressway in the 1960s and had to pause conversations while the jets flew over to land on O’Hare’s runway that lines up with the Kennedy! She even remembers seeing shadows of the planes go across the yard while playing outside.) Here are some video links - be sure to turn your sound up for the full effect!

One jet going overhead: https://youtu.be/L7TpyPZWxLI

Two jets going overhead with a little disruption in the middle while changing from the side to the front window of the flybridge: https://youtu.be/Lxa9Px8eURw

One jet coming around to line up for landing: https://youtu.be/7HcyZJo6fW0

One of the first times we saw the navy jets, it looked like one plane, then it got closer and we saw it was two. Then one split off and there were still two! Then another split off and there were STILL 2! There were actually four navy jets flying in perfect formation so that we couldn’t see all of them from our angle until they began splitting off for landing! These pilots are amazing! We actually wondered if they were Blue Angles, though they are based at Pensacola, only a couple minutes away at the speeds these travel.  

Back to SIMV…

We enjoyed our stay at SIMV which allows full use of the adjoining Perry Hotel pool and hourly free shuttle to Key West from 9am – 8pm. There is also a full restaurant and pool bar with snacks, salads and sandwiches. All of the food was delicious!  Bo was thrilled to have a good-sized dog park to run around in a couple of times per day. He made lots of friends, especially Rooney and Logan. We became acquainted with their “parents” too, but it took most of the week to learn their names other than “Rooney’s Mom” or “Logan’s Dad” etc.

We had our 5th stay-onboard visitor while we were at SIMV – our daughter, Alyssa, who spent 12 hours traveling by plane and bus to escape the Chicago cold! It was great to see her and she stayed with us for a week. We all took the shuttle into Key West’s old town a couple of times for meals, drinks and entertainment. She got to visit the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum, which still has polydactyl cats (we saw it a few years ago when we were here looking for a boat to do the Loop) and we toured Truman’s Little White House, also an excellent tour. We all noticed that there seems to be quite a few chickens wandering around Key West, and some very colorful roosters too – one walked right into the bar we stopped at for a drink! Also, we all went on a very interesting 2-hour Kayak eco-tour with a great guide named John from Lazy Dog Adventures. He had a wealth of knowledge about the area and showed us a sea cucumber, starfish, and queen conch that we got to pass around the 7 kayaks. He also pointed out many types of birds along the way. Though our bikes got a typical workout from our trips to the grocery and hardware stores, Alyssa took Sue’s bike for long rides across Stock Island and Key West! During the hot afternoons, the hotel pool offered a cooling diversion, but after a week, Alyssa had to head back home to Chicago, her job and her three cats.

Some of the other wildlife we saw in the marina included a 3-foot long barracuda hanging out in the shadow of a docked sailboat, a nurse shark lurking on the bottom of the marina, and another manatee! It was enormous! (See pictures) Sue was walking along the pier and thought, “There isn’t a giant rock here next to the pier – I would have noticed it before!” Correct! It was a giant gray manatee with a few barnacles on its back! It was almost as long as a slip is wide, 12 feet minimum. It slowly swam toward one of the docked boats, turned around and hung out as word got around the marina that it was there, thus drawing a crowd. Video links below. of it taking a breath at the surface, swimming and turning near a boat can be seen at…

Manatee up to take a breath: https://youtu.be/H9T1-RAYuV4

Manatee swimming: https://youtu.be/5ca69dQswPk

Manatee slowly moving away from aboat: https://youtu.be/q-Hevb1pTb4

Nearby our dock at SIMV, we saw a beautiful 2-masted schooner going out for sunset cruises on a daily basis. It had an interesting name, When and If, and Sue spoke with the captain, Dylan, one evening after they returned from a sunset cruise. It was built in 1939 according to General (then Colonel) George Patton’s specifications. Patton named it such because he’d stated that "When the war is over, and If I live through it, Bea and I are going to sail her around the world."  Patton’s death, due to complications after an automobile accident in Germany in 1945, prevented the accomplishment of the When and If’s intended voyage. It stayed in the Patton family until 1972 when she was “gifted to the Landmark school in Prides Crossing, MA where she was the centrepiece of a sail training program for dyslexic children.” Since then she’s been damaged in a storm, become privately owned again, refurbished, re-launched, cruised the coast of the U.S. occasionally racing in regattas, sold and restored again. The current owner/captain, Seth Salzman (brother of the captain Sue spoke with) was part of her crew a few years back when there happened to be a bank broker on board who agreed to finance his purchase of the vessel! The brothers intend to raise funds through sunset sails and private chartering, here and in the northeast during the summers, so they can eventually sail her around the world as was originally intended!

https://sailwhenandif.com/an-historic-vessel/

Now it’s time for us to head back east and begin our northward trip up the east coast of the US!