Passage - Gilberts Resort, Key Largo, FL to Bayside Marina, Islamorada, FL
10:29 AM Underway
3:00 PM Docked Gilberts Marina
5.4 engine hours 28 miles

Odd. We were told by the dock master at Gilberts we would need to leave between 9 and 10:00 AM as he had 50 large Cigarette Boats from the Florida Powerboat Club ( http://flpowerboat.com/project/miami-boat-show-poker-run/ I asked him how that would work, since the face dock only might hold 10 at the most. The rest of them would raft to each other for lunch before heading south to Marathon, FL The regatta would be departing Gilbert’s about 1 PM and would certainly pass us going between 60 and 80 MPH. About 1 PM we pulled out of the channel to anchor for lunch and to watch the show, as these high horse power boats would certainly be passing by us soon.
And it was probably 10 minutes after we anchored that we heard the rumble of these boats coming our way. What a sight and sound. Most of these boats had twin 1,500-1,600 HP engines and were painted very beautifully. All going 60 to 80MPH. One boat had FIVE 400HP outboard engines. As the boats passed us we saw them swing out of the channel and head for Bayside Marina. That’s where we were headed, too, back to our slip.
Oops, there is someone in our slip. The entire crew worked madly to get Liquid Therapy tied up somewhere. And, of course the dock master had granted the guy in our slip a 30 minute dock time that he totally ignored. We untied the boat in our slip and moved him back so we could squeeze in. Yea, Crew.

We hopped off and took pictures of all these crazy, high powered cigarette boats.
It was quite a sight and sound when the boats cranked up to depart for Marathon. I was walking along the dock with Carter and Susan and saw one of the giant tarpons that swim around the marina and said to Carter “ Look a giant tarpon” Susan says “Where is Johnny Crawford?” It was kind of loud with the rumbling boats. So I repeated “Look A Giant Tarpon” and Susan repeated “Where is Johnny Crawford?”

Todays picture is a few of the cigarette boats.