The Keys and back to Ten Thousand Islands

6/26/23Tarpon Belly Key was beautiful and serene. This rocky little island used to be a shrimping station and even had a restaurant on it. Today it is visited by day boaters and the odd person camping but we generally have it to ourselves for most of the time. The water is pristine and Cali loved looking for her fish all day especially being able to see them so well with such clear water.

We stayed for 3 nights and moved on to No Name Key for a night. We had such at No Name pub and petted the friendly deer that make the island their home; the only place in the world that they exist

Bahia Honda Key was just lovely. It is a pristine Nature Reserve Park and you can walk on and under the broken railroad bridge that Henry Flagler built to originally connect the keys but it was destroyed by a hurricane and it was never used. Idyllic beach days here and beautiful sunsets at night. We really loved it here.

We were watching the weather patterns carefully with the start of hurricane season and did not want to find ourselves stuck in the Keys as we needed to get back up Marco Island to make it back to Tampa to fly out for our family 4th of July vacation in Kennebunkport this year.

A tropical storm was brewing in the Atlantic and so we decided to meander back to Tarpon Belly for a night before heading back to Tiger Key in the Ten Thousand Islands

We left at 7ish the next morning for a very rocky rolling trip in the gulf. Because it was so rough we took an extra hour and anchored 8 hours later

We love our little beach so much and as we sat int he ocean sipping a cocktail I mentioned to Shaun that with this whole East Coast trip experience, I’ve come to realize that our coast is just the best for boating and that we still have so much to see on this side. Grateful that we have all this on our doorstep really is such a blessing.

We stayed for 5 nights and on Saturday, headed out for Marco Island where we would dock and leave Happy Wife while we go away. Ten minutes into the trip our starboard engine started overheating so we took the long way around to the Marina with far less turning as we only had the one prop to rely on. Turns out it was just the impeller that needed replacing so that was an easy fix thank goodness

Happy Wife stayed at Rose Marina for exactly a month as we headed out to our family vacation in Maine and then to finish the buildout and move in of my parents new tiny house.