Week 31
Week 31
Feb. 9-15, 2026
Monday
We left this morning for a 70 nautical mile cruise across the gulf to the dry Tortugas national Park. It went pretty good. The swells weren't too bad. I still have dizziness going on from some sort of virus with positional vertigo and the rocking makes it worse. In the middle of our soli crossing no land in sight our most remote location yet, our bilge high water alarm went off. We checked all compartments and found no water. It must be a bad high-water sensor. Nerve wracking! When you are 60 miles out in the Atlantic!
We got to our anchorage off garden key. You can only reach this key by boat or airplane. We watched 2 sea airplanes land and then take off again.
Our bilge alarm went off today. We checked everywhere for a leak but couldn't find one. We hope all is well with the boat. We are in the middle of nowhere! Ed ended up just disconnecting the alarm.
Tuesday
Ed worked on the bilge alarm again this morning but still couldn't fix it cuz the switch is faulty. Then our electric circuit breaker broke. It won't reset. It runs the power to everything! We had this problem once before and Ed was able to fix it. He ended up switching out the circuit breakers and using the AC breaker for the house power. So now we have power in the house and kitchen but not air conditioning. Luckily the temps are only in the 70s so we are fine.
After the ferry left and most of the people were gone, we paddled over to Fort Jefferson. It's the largest fort we've ever been to. It's 3 stories. It was built after the war of 1812. It was never completed and mostly used as a prison. The co-conspirator Dr. Mudd, of Lincoln's assassination was kept here. There's a moat that goes around the whole fort. It is one of the largest brick structures in the western hemisphere. It is massive and takes up the entire island. We walked around the inside and climbed to the top. The water looks amazing from the top. We scouted out where we want to snorkel tomorrow. This is our 42nd national park we've been to. We're doing pretty good on that front.
Wednesday
We went to the island and did some snorkeling today. We went by the fort moat wall and out by the pilings. We saw an old anchor and a portion of a cannon barrel along with some fish. The water was chilly at first, but you quickly get used to it. It was a very warm day.
Sooooo many looper boats came in today. Harold and Kathy we haven't seen since Halloween when we went to shiloh with them. It's fun to see people we haven't seen for awhile. 25 boats came to the anchorage.
Thursday
First thing this morning, I was just checking the side of the boat and saw something big and dark under the water. Ed thought maybe it was just the shadow of the boat. A little bit later I went to check again, but the dark shapes were by the swim platform. At first I thought they were manatees they were so big! But they weren't shaped quite right. Turns out they were goliath grouper. We didn't even know such a thing existed. They're protected here. They like the shade and keep to themselves. They can get up to 8 ft and 1,000 lbs. These were about 6 ft. And 400 lbs. See the videos on YouTube on our channel.
We took the dingy over to loggerhead key. It took us about 90 min to get there. The water was so clear and blue today. There wasn't any wind. There's a lighthouse on the key and some reef snorkeling at Little Africa reef. We saw many fish today. We think we saw a bunch of barracuda! They weren't interested in us though.
We cooked up some yellow tailed snapper for dinner that our friends from Salty Mittens brought over for us. It was so nice of them to share and it was delicious.
We visited with Deb and Randy for a bit. They came in today.
We went over to Doug and Maureen's boat for a small docktails. We met another looper couple John and Terry. Super nice folks from Captain kid II.
Friday
We left the tortugas and traveled 44.5 nautical miles to Maqueses key. There were probably 7 or 8 of us loopers there. It was a very smooth ride. The water was great. We anchored on the west side of the island.
Midge and George from Roam offered to take us in their dingy over to the island. We went for a nice long walk along the beach. We were glad not to have to get our dingy down. We really enjoy Midge and George. On this uninhabited island there are many wooden boxes and crates and logs and ropes from cuban BOAT PEOPLE escaping and floating to the US. We saw lean to shelters but no cubans.
Saturday
We pulled up anchor to travel 33.5 nautical miles to stock island yacht club and marina. We did some chores and then went to an early valentine's dinner at a nice yacht club down the road. It had a beautiful view of the grounds and marina. Great food! Live music.
Sunday
We took an Uber to church. We were able to get a ride home from a nice young couple, Carden and David. He's actually a boat tour fishing captain. He was able to give us good info for some future anchorages.
We did laundry and met back up with the Brown's. Phil took us to the grocery. We were really low and leaving tomorrow.
We had dinner with them and bought them dinner for helping us, and enjoyed our time with them. They cross their wake in savanna Georgia. We don't know if we'll see them again. We have loved associating with them. They're a great family. Sad to say goodbye.
See ya next time.
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