Rick and Mary,

Jay and I wanted to offer a big 'thank you' to y'all for your kind hospitality, great food and drink, and worthwhile advice this weekend past. Y'all got us off to a great start to a wonderful Christmas week.

We made it to Islamorada, where during the 'blow ;-)' we hung out at World Wide Sportsman, anchored in Little Basin, met Dave Calvert, and ate great food at Pierre's/Morada Bay Beach Club and Bob's Bunz.

We made it back on Thurs, with one reef for the 20kt gusts (hey, we were cruising, not racing) and still saw 13kt and averaged 10, that upwind, reefed and loaded down. How bout that?

Again, thanks for making our week! Y'all get over Biloxi way, get in touch and you have a place at our place.

sea ya
tami n Jay
ps. What'd y'all end up naming the bush?

Tami and Jay,
Thank YOU for coming to visit us.

I'm glad you guys had a good time down here in the Keys. I kept thinking about you all week, because the weather was not exactly great, and I was wondering what you were doing and where you went and what you ended up doing.

Thanks for the report.

Mary

P.S. We still don't have a name for the "bush." I guess we will have to call it "Wilma" until we think of something more creative. (The "bush" is a big bi-lateral stump that remains from a tree that we lost during Hurricane Wilma, and I decorated it with lights, but it's a pretty free-form thing, and we were hoping that somebody would see something in it and come up with a name.)

Well, How'bout posting a photo of it. Maybe we can all help

Well, fyi, here's the blow-by-blow:

After we saw y'all doing the Sunday race thing, we stayed anchored there off Carib.Club whilst we completed rigging the boat. Then we toured the periphery of Blackwater Sound. Tried to get into Little B'water Sound, but ran aground and decided it wasn't worth the hassle. We left B'water that evening and anchored in Tarpon Basin for the night.

We were visited by the Park Rangers that evening there at Tarpon. Nice guys, we chatted a bit about storms.

Next am, we headed on to Tavernier and gassed and watered at Mangrove Marina. It was blowing some by then, and we were watched very closely by the owner of the large cat at the entrance to the fuel dock, as I had to back out, not having enough room to spin with the Fboat's head tending to blow off. She is SO light... Anyway, we had thought to hang out there at the Mangrove Marina basin, but decided to go have a look at Tavernier Creek. Glad we did, for it was quieter and more private where we ducked in off the creek in a little hurricane hole. Apparently the little niche we found is well-used as there were bits of line we found to tie up with.

We woke a bit late and haggled over whether we wanted to go over to Long Key or hang at Islamorada. We decided to go Islamorada because a. there really isn't much north shelter at Long unless we went thru Channel 5, and b. Jay was worried about taking too much time to beat back up to Largo. It didn't look as if the norther would let up, and we had been used to the Tiki's abject inability to go to weather.

Anyway, we went around to Islamorada via Lignumvitae, which of course was CLOSED! on Tues and Wed (this day being Tues.) so we wound around the channels on the s. side of Lignumvitae, which are silted up or something since we ran aground a bit. We rounded Lignumvitae, and turned back north by the highway and out toward the next channel n'east, around into Little Basin and hung out at World Wide Sportsman.

Since the wind was putting the marina at the long end of the basin fetch, we decided to anchor off Tue. night and spend Wed. on the hook at the edge of the basin opposite the marina. Good choice, we rode comfortably, if a bit chilly. There were several abandoned boats around us which was a bit sad.

Wednesday, we cleaned the bottoms and snoozed most of the day. It seemed like the norther was laying down, so we went on in to the marina and tied up, wanting to go have supper in town. The World Wide Sportsman folks were nice to us. They showed us into the employee showers since their public showers were being reconstructed. We had a nice supper at the Morada Bay Beach Club. Food great and service excellent. A bit pricey, but then it was rather fancy, and really not out of line for the type of restaurant and food presentation the place offered.

We returned to the boat to find the wind back up, and spent Wed. evening getting the hell whaled out of us at the marina dock. We musta woke up fifty times, hearing creaks change as the fenders kept wallowing out from between the boat and the dock. Although Little Basin doesn't have much fetch, there was enough to make a bumpy evening.

Thurs. am we woke, to yet AGAIN another day not as forecast. Keep in mind, we'd been listening to the weather radio every day and it had been wrong every time. Well, the weather for Thurs said that it would blow in the am but by pm wind would lay. So we decided to hang out for a bit, going to the Bob's Bunz for breakfast and tripping over to Calvert's shop to meet them. Nice folks, the Calverts.

We restocked at the Trading Post, and decided to head out, since the wind wouldn't lay. I called for a reef, Jay agreed, and we headed back northeast. We were going to stop back at either Plantation or at Tavernier, but we were sailing along great guns and having a rather large time of it, so we went on in to Largo, to Gilbert's and their excellent hot conch chowder. Which was a blessing, as it was a chilly ride back.

So that's about all they is...
again, thanks for the large time at the house and parade, and thanks for the advice. We did find the cruising guide Rick recommended, and it was most helpful as well.

sea ya
tami