Key West

12/17/16
Key West, FL
Position: 24 33.749N, 081 47.998W
Posted by Bill

We wrapped up our visit in Marathon with a stop at Harbor Cay Club to visit with our friends there. Having stayed there for a couple of winters, we have made some good friends. It was good to catch up and we hope to see some of them in Key West while we are there. A few of the boats were not home, so we missed a couple of people unfortunately. Maybe we can catch them coming north in January.

On the 14th, we shoved off and cruised to Key West, the of the road if you are traveling by car in the Keys. There was a lot of sea grass floating around, especially in the first half of the trip, and several boats had to clear their raw water intakes a couple of times. Other than that, the trip was uneventful, and we pulled in to Conch Harbor Marina in Key West Bight in mid-afternoon. Here is what Key West looks like as you are coming up the channel:
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(Mallory Square where the sunset gathering is:)
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We have been to Key West several times via land, but this was our first time here in our boat. It is sssoooooo expensive to pay for slips here, and we are pretty frugal, so we never opted to do it. This year we decided to splurge and check it out for at least one time. Everyone says that Christmas and New Years is a blast here, so we opted to stay until the middle of January. The other reason we have not stayed here on our boat is because we thought we might need a liver transplant if we stayed longer than a week (the longest we stayed before this was 5 days, and it about killed us!) If you are not familiar with Key West, it is known for an endless chain of bars and “anything goes” behavior. There is live music everywhere you turn, and plenty of shops and stores with some unique stuff. One of the best things is the people watching. You can see pretty much anything here.

The marina we are in is gated, has pretty decent restrooms and showers, free laundry (yes, I said free), a nice pool right outside the gate, free bikes, and is right in the heart of the action in the most popular area of Key West called Old Town. The pool is part of a restaurant/bar called Dante’s. Right next door is Half Shell Raw Bar and Schooner Wharf Bar, so if you have been to those places you know where we are. I’ll post some pictures of the area in the next couple of posts.

The night we got here, there was a Christmas boat parade that we could watch from the end of our dock. It was very cool, but the pictures did not turn out too good. Here are a few:
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We jumped right in to the happy hour scene and have been having a great time the last couple of days. I’ll post more every couple of days. Everywhere you look, the town is decorated up for Christmas. It makes me think of my Mom. She loved Christmas, especially the lights and decorations. She would be loving this!!! Sure do miss her!

4 thoughts on “Key West

    1. bwehmer Post author

      Hey Deb! We will be back up the keys and to the Bahamas the end of January or beginning of February. Our plan is to duplicate last years general route…Exumas to Eleuthera to Abacos. Maybe a stop in the Berrys. Hope all is well.

      Reply

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