Marathon / Boot Key Harbor

After leaving Key West, we spent 3 weeks in Marathon / Boot Key before heading out of the Keys to our current location, Boca Raton, FL.

We traveled the 50nm / 8hrs to the Safe Harbor Marina due to some generator issues. Without a functional generator, we were not able to use our water maker or keep our batteries topped off efficiently. It was nice to have the security and convenience of a marina again but I did have my struggles getting on and off the boat. The finger piers were not floating and were quite high, even at high tide, and we don’t have a high freeboard on Nymeria (freeboard = distance from the water to the boat deck). Once we had our old Next Gen Generator replaced with a portable Honda, we were more than happy to get out to the Boot Key Harbor Mooring field.

We had read that Boot Key Harbor had a “sticky bottom”, meaning that boats tend to stay much longer than they had originally planned. We were able to be the exception, I guess, as we were ready to head out after almost 2 weeks moored. We were able to hit all the recommended restaurants a couple of times by bike and by dinghy. We toured the Turtle Hospital and even got to see them release one back into the wild. We saw some beautiful sunrises and sunsets and even rented a car for the day to drive to Islamorada to hit the local breweries / distilleries.

As we were planning our next move, it became obvious that this would be our last stop in the Keys. According to local knowledge, Active Captain, and the Waterway Guide, our draft was too deep to access available marinas and there is limited to no land access via dinghy moving further East through the Keys. It was apparent that it was time to move on to our next stop to see friends in Boca Raton. We would take our last Easterly sail around the Keys and turn North up the Florida East Coast. Skål!