After a great day of sailing and snorkeling yesterday, Bob, Dave and I returned to the mooring field in Key West last night around 1900. Friends Joe and Deb were right behind us in their sailboat, pulling into KW for the first time this season. Gave them a hand setting up their mooring and then returned to the boat for dinner.

We spent over 11 hours on the water yesterday. There was almost no wind when we left at 0830 so we motored to Cottrell Key and tied up to a mooring at N24° 37.088' W81° 54.773'. A guide book had indicated this was a good place to snorkel in bad weather, and since we have had a lot of wind and no luck finding clear water with fish to see, we thought we would give this a try. Beautiful weather but no luck finding much to look at. After a great swim anyway, we decided to try the living reef southwest of Key West once again (we had hit rough seas several days before and abandoned that effort) and what a treat. We went to a part of the reef called Eastern Dry Rocks N24° 27.521' W81° 50.673' and found lots of different kinds of fish and living coral. We wanted to stay longer but were running out of time as Dave and Bob were leaving Monday and needed to get back for dinner and they also needed to pack. We had sailed out to the reef on SW winds, and the winds shifted NW for the return trip back to the mooring field, and at 10 - 15 kts. we had a lot of fun sailing close hauled both ways. Dave was at the helm on the return trip and deftly guided Kristinly around the SW point of KW and around Flemming Key and sailed her all the way back.

I had such a great time with these guys. The old adage of fish and company starting to smell after 3 days did not apply here. We laughed a lot and everyone chipped in and got along so well. Having them with me reminded me of how important good friends are to have and I feel blessed they chose to be with me for part of this adventure. Time to clean up the boat and do some laundry. I may be heading up to Marathon towards the end of the week to have some work done on the boat if I can find the right people and they have the equipment I am looking for. It is time for me to augment the electrical system with things like solar and wind generation. I have been trying to avoid it, but running the engine to recharge the batteries twice a day is impractical.