Well, with a 100 percent chance of rain today, I thought I should share a few days of exploring with you. We will start with kayaking the Mangrove Caves. For those of you who have no clue what a Mangrove is.. It a tree. They look like shrubs to me with exposed roots. That means their roots are partially out of the water. Oh let me tell you… if you anchor too close to them, they are full of No-see-ums at night when there is no wind. Yesterday, we finally decided to kayak through the tunnels of the Mangroves. The pic below is me kayaking through the Boot Key mooring area over to Sisters Creek where we will enter one of the tunnels.

Okay, Just past this concrete seawall is the canal towards Sister Creek. You can see the Mangroves behind the palm trees.

Look what we found this little guy is hiding from the world….

Just before Sister Creek there is a cutoff. Bryce and I for many weeks now have watched many kayakers explore this area. Now lets see where all the paddlers are going! This is what we saw. It is an opening, so it must be where we go in. We have no map so we must not get too carried away.

Bryce went in first…Now you know I wouldn’t. He has to remove all the spider webs for me….LOL

Me… well I am a little skeptical about whether or not I really want to go into the jungle of man eating Mangroves….  Or I am sure something could eat me in here.  As we paddled deeper into the rooted jungle it got harder to paddle as the stream flowed heavy with the tide current pushing us through narrow paths.

The current is a bit strong so I reach-out to hold onto a root as Bryce was taking photos

We decided it was time to head back, there are a lot of different paths to take and we really did no where they were going to lead us. We we felt we were already deep into the rooted jungle. As we paddled back, we ran into another couple. Kevin & Norma who had kayaked this route just a few days ago. So we latched on to our new friends and headed back in to the unknown.

As we paddled through the rooted Mangrove we would eventually end up in a small pond. The water was very clear; you could see the jelly fish and these weird looking balloon shape whitish-clear looking things sitting on the bottom. I sure would hate to fall out of my kayak here. As Kevin and Norma escorted us through yet another part of the jungle I had the crap scared out of me!!!!  I noticed a brown looking pencil shape snake sunbathing in a tree.  The worst fear is what would happen if one fell in my lap while I was kayaking. We paddled deeper and deeper into the mighty jungle. It was tight to paddle; as I lifted my paddle to turn or move I would hit a root!!! I did try to separate my paddle but that didn’t help. All of a sudden we heard Kevin say watch out for the Florida panther on your left. They run wild in the Mangrove jungle.

We had a great time with Kevin & Norma thanks a mint for adding a great day to our adventure.

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La Luna

As time flies by and we wonder how some of our friends are doing that we meet along our journey.  Then as we are standing in line to pay our water bill in the harbor, I looked up and to my surprise Denise & Etienne were standing there.  Their boat name is La Luna.  We met them Thanksgiving Day in Charlotte Bay. It was so nice to see them again. We invited them over for diner and discussed our adventures since we last talked. They sailed from the Netherlands around the world in there 35 foot Benateau. We were able to visit with them for a few days before they sailed out.  They have emailed us and told us they made safely to Bimini.

Etienne & Denise

A few bottles of wine later🍷🍷

Until we meet again our friends… Safe voyage

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I have a New LOVE

In my office at home I have a photo of a Catamaran pegged to my peg board. It wasn’t until I glanced over my shoulder as we had our morning cup of coffee. Bryce, I think we need to really check into looking at this vessel as our next boat. ALA is a Leopard 40 she belongs to Mark & Gwyn. They are a very nice couple who invited us on board and shared their experience sailing a Catamaran. Thanks Mark & Gwyn.

So Bryce took us up to Dania Florida to the Leopard Catamaran dealer. We found out that the new model is 25% bigger then the older model.

Look at the galley!!!! 👀 I love it…

Me again….  suits me just fine 🙂

 Get this…. if the day comes and we really get this 🙏🏽we are thinking of going to Africa and sailing her home…

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Boot key pictures

Here is a view of Beauty in boot key harbor..

Bootkey Harbor at night..  Hundreds of mast lights on looks cool..  COLREGs require anchor lights on; even on mooring balls.

 

We get to shore using the dingy.. So a dingy dock is required.  Here is the small one.. Larger one is at the entrance to this channel..