6/14 - 6/22......Our last days in The Keys

6/14 - Bill took care of a few maintenance issues and I restocked the boat to get ready for our trip back up The Keys. I decided that we needed to take a last stroll down Duval Street for the afternoon and have dinner in town. When we got to Duval there was a parade headed up the street. What timing - it was Gay Pride Week and they were celebrating with a parade. What a hoot! Did you know that there was an organized group for the "Florida Gay Rodeo Association"? We've never seen so many rainbow flags!

6/15 - Ready to go! Headed out of the marina and into the channel, when Bill went down for his routine engine room check, he decided it was a "no go". He had been monitoring a fuel leak on the engine fuel injector pumps for a while and decided that he should make the needed repairs before we took off. We turned around and put the hook down in the anchoring field.

6/16 - Bill ordered the repair kits to be shipped overnight and we got a slip back at A&B Marina for a few more days.

6/17-6/18 - The parts came in and Bill started the repairs. He spent all afternoon Tuesday and Wednesday morning in the engine room. Everything tested and ran great - no more fuel leaks! We slipped the lines @ 12:20 and headed to the KW anchorage to relax for the rest of the day.

6/19 - Bill took care of another maintenance issue, then we spent the afternoon "dinkin and drinkin" around Christmas Tree Island and the KW anchoring field. There were some very interesting boats and some very odd things that we assumed the owners called boats. This was our last KW sunset. We had a beautiful evening sky that lasted for a quite a while.

To Date - 741 nautical miles

6/20-6/21 - Got the weather forecast we were looking for and all maintenance issues resolved (for now). Picked up the hook @ 9:00am and headed out. This was our final farewell to Key West (until next time!). Absolutely beautiful weather and calm seas. Cruised up Hawk Channel (Atlantic side) eastward to Marathon. We passed through the 7-Mile Bridge/Moser Channel and crossed back to the Florida Bay side of The Keys and dropped the anchor at Rachel Key/Crane Point @ 1:00. Perfect day and another beautiful sunset.
Saturday was just another lazy day in the same spot.

I thought that these shots were pretty funny. Not only are the locals from KW laid back, so are the cats!

6/22 - Farewell to The Keys - Headed for the Mainland!!! Picked up the hook @ 6:30am for our trip back north. Seas were less than 1 ft., winds SE 5 kts. and we started with a clear sunny day. All of the thunderstorms and rain missed us and we came into the Gordon Pass Inlet (Naples area) and dropped the hook in one of the canals in the Port Royal subdivision. Today was our longest run - 95nm and 13 hours from hook up to hook down.