Days 292 -293

Stock Island Marina - Bahia Honda State Park

• Start 10:35 AM
• End 2:45 PM
• Underway 3:40 Hours
• Distance 28 Miles
• Total Miles on Trip 4604
• Av Speed 7.5 knots
• Weather Sunny , 79 Degrees, Wind 11 Knots ENE

It is so wonderful to be underway again! Key West was wonderful, but both Angel & I really wanted to get moving again. We both knew that we would be spending the winter in Florida, and staying in Key West for a month, but it was too long in one place. If we ever do the Loop again, rather than spend a month in one spot we will do one week stops at several places instead.

Getting underway turned into a challenge, as we were getting ready to pull off the dock, I confirmed with the dockhand, that we would be able to get a pumpout at the fuel dock, as we fueled up. His fisrt response was we could not get fuel, they rented the fuel dock out to a 148' boat, and it would be there several days. After a quick call to the office, they found a slip we could pull into that the fuel hose would reach but not the pumpout. We had to stop at another slip on our way out for a pumpout. Once again the key to doing this trip is flexibility! They dockhand told us, we needed to go get the pumpout right away, before they moved onto another dock for the day, or we would might have to wait for a while to get it done. Ray had gone for a walk, and we pulled of the dock without him. I have always said, when it is time for the boat leave, we leave. We only went one dock over, but there was Ray walking back to an empty slip.

Once we got underway the trip was pretty good. It was a little choppy and times very sporty, but considering that the wind had been blowing over 20mph for the last week, it was as good as we could have expected or hoped for. As we approached Bahia Honda State Park, we went through the Old Seven Mile Bridge. The original bridge was built in the early 1900's as part Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway's Key West Extension, also known as the Overseas Railroad. We were able to walk on part of it from the park.

The entire key Bahia Honda is a state park, with camping, boating fishing and snorkeling. We spent the next two days just relaxing, swimming and a little bit of snorkeling. The snorkeling was not very good, the visibility was very poor from all of the wind, and where you could see, there were no fish!

We also meet back up with Dan and Cherri (Cherri Baby II), who we will be traveling north with. We had made plans to meet here when we split up last month. There are no restaurants, bars or stores on the island which was a very nice change from Key West, and both nights we fired up the grill for dinner. On Tuesday night Katie Ross came to join us for dinner and bring my hat that I left in their truck that they lent me. (THANK YOU again, both for the truck and bringing me my hat!).

We spent most of our time at Bahia Honda relaxing on the beach, and one short walk up to the old bridge. It was a little disappointing that we could not walk to the end of the section we can access. About halfway down the bridge is a barrier because the rest of the bridge is unsafe. Thursday we will be leaving at daybreak, heading for a reef to snorkel, then to Islamorada for a couple of days.