MIDORI ADVENTURES

Photo is calm, clear Florida Bay waters in MIDORI'S wake


Goodbye to old friends, new friends, kind friends, and a cousin or two
Goodbye to five-dollar lunches; twenty-five cent shrimp and chicken wings
Goodbye to long walks, relaxing dinghy rides
Goodbye to spectacular sunsets accompanied by cockpit sundowners and a conch horn or two
Goodbye to huge starlit skies, iridium flares, rocket launches, space station fly-overs,
Goodbye to dolphins and manatee frolicking together; morning bird song from the mangroves; startling coloured iguanas,
Goodbye to fabulous musical entertainment and jam sessions
Goodbye to great seminars on everything from A to Z
Goodbye to flea markets, seafood, music and art festivals, movies and plays
Goodbye to snorkelling and fishing excursions
Goodbye to hot sunny days and cool breezy nights
Goodbye to exciting thunderstorms

We look forward to returning next season.

We departed this morning at 8:00 a.m. and meandered through Sister's Creek to the Atlantic "outside" route called Hawk's Channel. Of course, the winds were light and on our nose, so no sails!

We motored the 20 miles to Channel Five Bridge and crossed to the "inside" route. Figured that if we had to motor we might as well enjoy the scenery. The shallow waters of Florida Bay were calm and quite clear. It felt like there was only two feet of water beneath us, when in fact, there was at least six feet. We saw a sea turtle, lots of dolphins and Brian thinks the big fish we saw were tarpon.

As always, there were lots of crab pots to dodge.

We anchored in Tarpon Basin, on the west side of Key Largo at around 5:30 p.m. Beautiful calm evening in this mangrove protected basin. Beautiful sunset.

It took us 9 1/2 hours to cover 50 miles running the engines at 3600 RPM's and an average speed of 5.3 knots.

Destination tomorrow is the Coconut Grove Sailing Club just south of Miami.

Stay tuned,

First Mate Lynn