Well, our adventure is almost at its end. Today, around 9:30 a.m., we set sail out of Key West Harbor and plan to make the 28 hour journey back home to St. Petersburg. We had a pretty windy morning, and we were able to sail almost all day. We made it to the Everglades right around time for one of those nasty thunderstorms. We turned a circle to try to stay out of it, and other than about a 30 minute rainshower, we were pretty successful. We saw an absolutely amazing sunset (thanks to the thunderstorm). [View Full Entry]

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Today is our last full day in Key West. We started the day with breakfast at Pepe's, a local gourmet breakfast spot where we started with mimosas and fresh strawberries. After breakfast, we decided to play tourists of Key West. We walked into town and hopped on the World Famous Conch Train (Scott's mom would be proud). The kids were a little leary at first, but they really enjoyed it. The tour was an hour and a half and went all around old town Key West, which by the way is 2 miles by 4 miles (and has 250 liquor licenses). [View Full Entry]

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Some of you may know that Pamela and I share the same birthday - June 6th. We awoke today to the sound of Happy Birthday. After a relaxing breakfast at Harpoon Harry's, our husband's treated us to massages and facials at the Pier House Carribean Spa. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable way to spend our birthdays. We were reminded of our birthday last year, which we celebrated together in Costa Rica. I think that Pamela and I have celebrated every birthday together since they moved in next door to us almost 9 years ago! After our spa treatments and [View Full Entry]

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Today started out very early...as in 6 a.m. We decided that we would do a half day fishing charter, because Josh was itching to go fishing. We made plans with Mr. Z and headed out around 6:45 a.m. Josh was so excited, he could hardly get to sleep last night. We caught 15 dolphin! Most were fairly small, but they were definitely biting. After a while, we decided that we would only keep a few of the fish, because our freezer on the boat just isn't that big! It was defniitely one of the most exciting fishing trips we have been [View Full Entry]

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Today was just all around another great day. After breakfast and cleaning up, we decided to take the sailboat out to Sand Key Lighthouse where there is another portion of the huge reef that lays a few miles off the Keys all the way down. The lighthouse reef is just as amazing as Looe Key. It only takes about an hour to get to Sand Key from Key West, so it was not a bad trip. We were the only boat there when we arrived, but within an hour, there were 3 or 4 of those huge catamarans filled with people. [View Full Entry]

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Today started out as lazily as the rest of our trip. After our clean laundry arrived (that's right, I'm on vacation and I sent our laundry out to fluff and fold where they pick up, wash, fold and deliver all your clean clothes), we hit Harpoon Harry's for breakfast. After breakfast, we loaded up the dingy, piled on the sunscreen and headed out to sea for a cruise. We were in search of a snorkeling spot and/or a sandbar to hang out. We found a bunch of patch reef right off one of the islands just outside the Key West channel. [View Full Entry]

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Well, today was one of the laziest days yet. The boys got up and rushed down to the Ron Jon Surf Shop to pick up a paddle ball set and hit the pool. I actually got to lay in bed and relax until well after 10 a.m. Unheard of for me! We had lunch and spent the afternoon by the pool at the Conch Harbor Marina where we are staying. Once we'd had enough, we headed back to the boat to relax and watch a movie. We headed down to Duval Street for the evening. We stopped in for a drink [View Full Entry]

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Today started with a trip into Marathon. We needed to pick up some fuel filters as Scott realized that one of the problems we had was that we got some fuel with a little too much water, so we are going through filters faster than you can imagine. After some blueberry pancakes on board, we took the dingy to the Marathon City dingy dock, where they charge $13 a day!!! Can you imagine, for the priviledge of tying your dingy to their plastic docks, they want $13???? We walked about a mile to West Marine and got what we were needed [View Full Entry]

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On Saturday morning, we took a ride up the Shark River in the dingy. After that, we decided that it was time to head to the Keys. We planned to make a quick stop at Cape Sable, which is the southernmost beach on mainland Florida. We got ashore, but decided pretty quickly that despite the gorgeous shells, we just couldn't stay. The deer flies were in full bloom, and we could tell they were hungry. We strolled for shells for a few and then were on our way to Marathon. We approached the 7 mile bridge around 3 p.m. and got [View Full Entry]

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Early Friday morning, May 30th, we decided to head out from Naples Yacht Club and head toward the Shark River. The Shark River is on the lower west coast of the Everglades, so as you can imagine, there are a lot of mangroves. It is truly beautiful there. The journey would take just about all day, as it is about 60 miles south of Naples. No sooner did we leave the channel in Naples and head into the gulf, but we saw a set of large dolphins swimming literraly 2 feet along side our boat. We tried desperately to capture their [View Full Entry]

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