Made it to the Keys! (Florida Boating, Post 16)

Sunday, February 7

After a week on the road, we’ve finally arrived at our vacation rental where we will stage for the big adventure part of the vacation – the actual sailboat trip!

Ours is the end unit in this 4-unit building.

It’s an older style resort where each room has it’s own windows and door to the outside, and its own little wall heating/cooling unit that vents outside. That is, it’s not sharing a huge building-wide HVAC system with all the other rooms. There’s no ductwork and we don’t air-share with any other rooms. When we arrived we aired it out for an hour or two (all windows open and a fan on) while we messed around outside getting our boat unloaded. We felt it was covid-safe to occupy our room after that. 

I spend most of our down time sitting at a little plastic table on the deck. This is my view. The temperatures are mostly in the 70’s going up to the low 80’s.

Here’s a map of the resort. You’re like, “Kristina, why are you posting that?” Well, I like maps, and maybe one of you does too, who knows. Someone might! We are in the room called “Gull” and our boat is in slip “C”. (This is your “Where’s Waldo” puzzle for the day.)

We had a bit of a time getting the boat off the trailer. John had installed a new anchor mount on the bow and it somehow got wedged against the trailer bar when the boat first started to float off the trailer. We had to winch it up and try again, but we got it in. You can see the narrow little boat ramp in the background. Phew, the boat is now safely in the water where it belongs!

The first day we wore our masks when outside walking around the resort, but then we quit by the second day. It seems like only a few of the “just-arrived” tourists wear theirs. I wonder if it’s because it starts feeling like “home” rather than a public space? I’m not going anywhere near the swimming pool though! I’ve got my own pool back home.

Speaking of posting pictures no one wants to see, here’s John fixing the toilet when we first arrived. It kept running, which was annoying, listening to it turn itself off and on all the time. I’m easily annoyed and John’s very handy, so we are always fixing things. (Thanks, John!)

It’s not exactly a fancy place, but we are quite happy here.

OOOPS! Here’s me at the end of the day. Yikes, I look awful! (My friend who recommended I post more selfies is really regretting that now I’m sure!)

I have no idea how I got so sunburned that first day. I didn’t do anything in the sun other than help guide the boat off the trailer and into its slip. I didn’t do any sunbathing and wasn’t out on the water. And it’s not like I’m coming from spending all winter on a couch in Michigan or somewhere! I’m outside in the sun in Tucson all the time! Turns out the burn it wasn’t as bad as it looks, and I’m being more careful now.

Also on our first day here we walked to get some take-out from a nearby restaurant. It was our first (and so far only) restaurant food on this trip. Unfortunately the food was absolutely terrible. The only thing recommending that restaurant was it was within walking distance. And it had a cool vehicle out front. Stickers!

The key lime pie looked good but unfortunately didn’t taste like anything except sugar. There was no lime bite at all. Good thing we only got one slice. It still took us 2 days to finish it. Two people! Two people two days to finish ONE slice of pie. Ugh.

We’ve since gone back to happily eating the food we brought from home. There’s a mini-fridge in the hotel room and a microwave in our van. We make it work 🙂

Here’s some pictures from our walk to the restaurant:

It’s common to see houses on stilts, with vehicle storage under them.

I asked John about that, because a lot of the bigger, newer boats (not ours) cost more than it would cost to refurbish a flooded house. Why would they put their most expensive possession in harms way, and elevate their lamps and couches and things? John says when the hurricanes come, it’s a mad rush traffic jam to tow the boats inland. Doesn’t sound fun to me.

There’s lots of evidence of past hurricanes. It’s a real jumble of new construction and remnants in disrepair, such as this less-than-flattering view of a section of our resort:

There’s also falling down buildings, abandoned rusty boats, trash heaps – it’s a real mix out here. We’re about 2/3 of the way down the keys – I’m sure it’s different out in Key West.

Cool plants along the road:

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