The leading edge of the expected cold front has arrived. Today was quite cool, overcast and with scattered light showers. We found it necessary to dress in our foul weather gear and fleece - this is the Florida Keys?

The weather forecast remains the same. The next 2 days will see increased but acceptable winds of 15 to 20 and on and off rain. However, the seas forecast for the Florida Bay(northern route) and Hawk Channel(southern or outside route) is for "rough" seas through Sunday night. "Rough" is on a scale of smooth, light chop, moderate chop, choppy and rough. The only place to wait on the outside route for the weather system to pass are unattractive and pricey marinas.

On the northern Florida Bay route, however, Tarpon Basin at Key Largo represents an attractive anchorage where we can tuck in to avoid North and Northwest weather so it was the obvious choice. Unlike our experience
anchoring last night at Long Arsnecker Key, this afternoon our Mansion bit on the first try so we are now closed up below enjoying our quiet evenings aboard as we always do.

Our plan now is to read and relax and complete several projects then depart on Monday for Channel Five with a departure the next day to the outside and Hawk
Channel for our run down to meet Gary and Kathy in Marathon where they have
been since December. Weather permitting, we hope to dinghy into Key Largo in the next few days to do a little provisioning and visit West Marine.

And thank you, again, to Mike and Bejay. On the way by Cross Key, we tied up at "Gilbert's"' a relic of the 1950's, sort of. They had suggested it as an
interesting stop along the way. The very old banged up motel still sits by the waters edge but the old restaurant has been replaced by a modern and nice Tiki Bar. We picked up some water and ice and then had lunch by the water. It was quite enjoyable, especially with very good live entertainment.

To date, we have had no problems with depth or crab pots on the Florida Bay
side. We religiously stick to the markers, allowing them to overrule what we see on our chart plotter and even our very helpful "Active Captain" software. Let's hope that continues.