Good-bye Marathon!

This gentle giant stopped by our boat the night before we left Marathon.  They love fresh water and our neighbor had hung up his hose after bathing his dog and it was dripping.  He rolled over on his back and opened his mouth and enjoyed his “nectar of the Gods”.

We were up early enough to see the sunrise on Friday!  The plan was to leave at 8 a.m. with Marcs Ark.  We said good-bye to our new friends in Marathon and made our way out of the channel to the ICW on the west side of the Keys!  With the high winds that we had been having we were glad to see that the seas were relatively calm!

It was a beautiful day!  As we traveled up the ICW, the Florida everglades were off our port and the Keys were off our starboard.  We tied up to a mooring ball off of Shell Key to spend the night.  We jumped in the dinghies and went out exploring.

At first I thought this was an eagle but turns out it was an Osprey, equally as big and majestic. 

We watched the sunset from the top of Marcs Ark and ended another great day!

Today we headed up the ICW to anchor in Tarpon Basin and snorkel at John Pennekamp State Park.  The picture is Cowpen’s Cut.  The waters we traveled today are said to be some of the shallowest we will encounter.  It is a good thing too as it is very nerve racking to see < 5’ on the depth finder when we draft 3’.  That doesn’t leave much room for error!  Stay in the channel and oh by the way, don’t forget to dodge the crab pots!  We made it into the anchorage and dropped the dinghies and headed for shore.  Marc and Michele joined us for lunch but they didn’t come snorkeling with us. 

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is the first undersea park in the U.S.  It was created to protect and preserve a portion of the only living coral reef in the continental United States.  It is named for one of the early proponents of the preservation of its reef, John D. Pennekamp.  Pennekamp was a Miami newspaper editor who also helped establish Everglades National Park.  

We ended up arriving at the reef at low tide which meant that some of the reef was out of the water.  Still we saw lots of sea life and had a great time!

Here are shots of a FL lobster, a rainbow parrot fish and coral heads. 

We were visiting with a group of five gals on the boat with us.  They are part of a group of 9, most of them from Atlanta, that were on vacation together.  Reminds me of my trips with my wonderful dive buddies.  Anyway, they were excited to hear about our trip and I promised I would make them famous on our blog.  Here are the “housewives of Atlanta” and friends! 

We took a taxi back to the dinghy dock and headed back to 20BUCK$ that was patiently waiting at anchor for us.  It has been a long day.  The captain has already crawled into bed! 

Tomorrow we are heading up to Boca Chita Key for more new adventures.

Time for me to say good night!  Pat