With some dolphins surfing under our bow, we left Islamorada sometime in late January and sailed outside down to Boot Key (Marathon).

I’m having issues posting the actual video though!

It was a beautiful day when we sailed out of Channel Five into Hawks Channel, and we had an awesome sail down to Boot Key.

Caleb was enjoying the sail immensely.

We did not have reservations in the marina mooring field, and the inside anchorage was packed.  Thus, we elected to anchor for the night in the outer anchorage on the leeward side of the island, which was perfect given the Northern winds that had plagued us for the last week.

The thought of being inside with all those boats packed like sardines was also not appealing to us.

After setting the anchor, we enjoyed dinner and a sunset before calling it a night.

The next morning, we took the dinghy ashore to check out Marathon.  Unfortunately, there is not much to see.  We had a $40 lunch at Keys Fisheries (which was not worth $40, by the way), motored around the harbor, then headed back to the boat.

Pictured below is one of two large dinghy docks. There is something like 220 moorings in the harbor . . . CRAZY!!  Not my idea of a good time.

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The outside anchorage was beautiful and offered fantastic sunsets.

The only downside was when the anchor alarm woke us at midnight when a cruiser came in and hooked our anchor rode.