I emailed Kings Kampground in Key Largo about their catamaran launching facilities and for reservations for Tradewinds and I got a short, appearing to be negative, response equivalent to 'go away'. I could be misinterpreting it and will be calling them today for more details. Does anyone know anything about this facility?

Jake,

Did you state wanted to rent dockage for the day, week etc. If you just want to launch, it has been my
expericence you will get negative, from many Marina's.I launch at nearest public location, in which usually fee is the way locals tell you, please go away. If that is case many times simply, rolled cat in predawn hours on beach, and launched and came in at dusk, after life guards retreated for the night.

Mike

For RV's Kings Kampground is fully booked for January. They just do not have any space. They have very few transient spaces anyway because they are mostly a residential facility.

You can try Florida Keys RV Park, Key Largo Campground, Calusa Campground and America Outdoors.

For rooms, Gilbert's Resort (305-451-1133) at Jewfish Creek has vacancies for the Tradewinds -- good place to launch and pretty big beach area. Rates are $110 downstairs and $100 upstairs for two people, plus $10 for each additional person. They can handle a lot of boats.

Neptune's Hideaway (305-451-0357) has several rooms still available for the Tradewinds @ $65 for two people, and additional for more people. They are three doors south of us, and they also have a small beach that can accommodate several boats (if you are staying there). You could launch at the Caribbean Club or here and sail your boat over to their beach, because you cannot initially launch at Neptune's. I don't think there is any problem with keeping your trailers at Caribbean Club, they just don't want the sailboats there right now because of pending lawsuits.

Kelly's Motel (305-451-1622), two doors south of us, still has a few rooms available for the Tradewinds weekend, starting at $60, but they have a big group coming in on Saturday, so call soon. If you are staying there, you will have to launch either here at Rick's Place or at Rowell's Marina.

We are hoping to have a lot of space available at Rowell's Marina for boats to launch and stay during the regatta. Rick and I went over there today but have to go back tomorrow to talk to the person in charge. Initially, we were told they do not want sailboats there overnight with their masts up because of insurance problems, because a sailboat blew over once and damaged something. But when they found out we are talking about catamarans, they said, "Oh, catamarans are okay -- it's just sailboats that are a problem." So is this the first time in history that it has actually worked in our favor that somebody does not consider catamarans to be sailboats?

I will give you an update after we talk to the other person at Rowell's tomorrow and find out for sure. But they have enough room for hundreds of boats if we needed it. Wish us luck in the negotiations.

Exellent! Thanks for the info Mary. Turns out after a call to King's Kampground that it was a misunderstanding (the people that wrote me the email are apparently foreigners and English is their second language). They were simply telling me that they were booked...their message previously was only "we have no accomodations for you." Hence I thought it might be because we were cat sailors!