Islamorada to Ortona, Florida

After we enjoyed our time at Islamorada, we decided to check out some uninhabited Keys near by. So we weighed anchor on Thursday morning heading to Lignumvitae Key, picking up a State maintained mooring to visit the park. We dinghied ashore only to be informed by one of the Park personnel that there's no tour that day, that they now only open on Friday through Sunday, but we're welcome to walk around the grounds ourself. The mosquitoes were so bad, so we didn't stay long.

Lignumvitae Key, Park personnel working with mosquito net cover

We dinghied back to the boat and decided to go to Crab Key that was only 8 miles away. It was total isolation, nothing around except some bonefish fishermen fishing in the distant flats. We dinghied around, snorkeled, and Mark got to swim with about 10 dolphins.

Swimming with dolphins, sailboat in the calmness of early morning

The weather was getting hotter everyday, from the high 80's to the 90's and the water temperature had been around 83 degrees. So we decided to start heading for home, we had a perfect trawler day on the Florida Bay from Crab Key to Little Shark River at the Everglades. Little Shark River is a very nice anchorage, but at dawn and dusk watch out for the mosquitoes and deer flies, they can't wait to take a bite on you. We also had the longest thunderstorm there, lasted over an hour with lightening everywhere.

Little Shark River and sunset

We left Little Shark River the next morning, heading for Marco Island. We dropped anchor by Keewadin Island in the early afternoon on Saturday, and was amazed by numbers of local boats

that anchored there to party, have fun and just enjoy the beach.

Boats at Keewadin Island and Food vendor on the beach

Keewadin Island beach and sunset

By sunset all the boats had left, the anchorage and the water around it was beautiful. We swam, collected shells and really liked this spot. The next morning we traveled on the ICW from Little Marco island to Naples and came out at Gordon Pass to the Gulf , the wind was light, so we trolled with a fishing line, and caught a 19" Spanish Mackerel near Ft. Myers Beach. Wow, we're happy cruisers again. We grilled it for dinner when we dropped anchor at Franklin Lock, it was delicious.

Spanish Mackerel, Sunset at Franklin Lock

We arrived home on Monday. Three weeks of cruising went by fast, the hot weather brought us home early. But I am content to be home, there's yard work waiting for us, and the cool comfort of an air conditioned house.