Newfound Harbor – We leave Key West and anchor in Newfound Harbor

Note the "rustic" atmosphere of Schooner's

Our departure from Key West was not without excitement. It started well enough with breakfast at Schooner’s and we got out of our slip without incident but when heading to take on fuel, we found a 150 ft yacht tied up to the fuel dock so we ducked in on the other side only to find out that the fuel hose would not reach us. So we back out of there and headed to the A&B Marine fuel dock. We were given incorrect directions and landed in a slip where once again the fuel hose couldn’t reach. Once again we backed out and headed to the other side and finally took on fuel (on the third try!)

Don and Liz Bunch were with us and were kind enough to delay their departure through all this to help with the dock lines on all the exits and entries to slips. Now it was time to depart and they said their goodbyes and started to get off the boat at the fuel dock to walk to their car, a short distance away. The fuel dockhand said, “Wait, you can’t get off the boat! Letting people off a boat is not permitted! Everybody must leave with the boat that came on the boat!” He claimed it was a rule of the marina due to a liability exposure. I had never heard of such a rule by any marina but he was adamant! What nonsense! We were not pleased and told him so in no uncertain terms. So once again I backed out and we returned to our original marina and tied up to an empty dock space so Don and Liz could get off.

These are huge! Always one or more docked at Key West

After all that practice at docking, we finally started out for Newfound Harbor. There was hardly any wind and what there was came out of the west. With our movement to the east, the relative wind was less than 2 kts which made for a very hot day with cockpit temperatures in the high 80’s. So we motored east, moving for the first time in a month. We are now quietly at anchor and plan on leaving early in the morning for Marathon. I called this morning and found out that all 220 moorings were full and two boats were anchored waiting for a mooring. Since we’re expecting high winds for the next few days, we’re headed to Marathon anyway in the morning. We’d prefer a mooring since it comes with free pump-outs and dinghy dock access and it’s reasonable at $105/week.