Annapolis to Key West October 24 - November 2, 2020


In my previous report I wrote about our 9 day passage. If weather conditions and everything else had been perfect we could have arrived on Friday...but fortunately everyone's personal schedules were flexible, so the extra 2 days on the water didn't matter too much. 3 crew had scheduled Sunday afternoon flights home, one would make his flight, one would miss his flight by 5 minutes, one would wisely change her flight to Monday, and two of us had no travel related stress approaching our slip at 1415 hrs Sunday, that was a good thing.
I could see my wife waving at a distance as we approached the marina on Stock Island, beautiful sight!








Once secured my wife handed everyone an ice cold beer, thank you my pot of gold!...ahhhhh! At this point I sat on the bow and realized my batteries were drained, I was completely exhausted as were the rest of the crew, my friend told my wife he's never been so exhausted in his life. My wife climbed aboard after 1 crew member sprinted to an UBER (he missed his flight). There was lots of cleaning to be done. My wife rented a car so we soon took my buddy to his hotel, then checked into our townhouse in the Truman Annex, beautiful! Near sunset we returned to Ganesha to retrieve our last crew member who would spend the night with us. We drank, told stories and eventually we were sleeping sitting up with our eyes open. I slept 8 hours straight, I don't do that at home! When we found out our friend missed his flight we said he should have stayed with us, he said he found a hotel and slept for 15 hours haha!!









In the morning we walked down to Blue Heaven for a big breakfast and bloody mary's! I texted my buddy and he was already there, joined us for a morning drink before he rushed off to the airport. While walking there on vacant streets I was reminded that there were no cruise ships out there. Actually while we were there a local vote passed that will limit the number of daily cruise ship passengers to 1500 and limits the size of the ships that can actually stop there. As a visitor that's a good thing, as a small business owner I'm sure it probably stings a bit.













After breakfast all we wanted to do was walk and stretch our legs! We walked all over then we continued walking some more! A couple cold drinks here and there of course! The weather was nice even though the forecast called for rain all week, sometimes clouds, often blue skies and the rain held off!


















Everybody was respectful of social distancing and masks were very popular even outdoors in Key West. Of course we removed them when we were away from people or at a table or bar stool, the bartenders, restaurant staff and store employees always had a mask on. With the limited amount of people we could easily avoid big crowds. We drove our last crew member to the airport then we were alone, alone at last!! Let's get a drink!! Donna wanted to show me where she stayed the first night, the Perry Hotel at Stock Island Marina. She really liked it and I could see why, nice place....boats!
















Later we would take advantage of the beautiful townhouse she found, grilled up the last of the Mahi Mahi I caught!







Still early, caught my second wind! Let's find some music...Captain Tony's Saloon had an open corner at the bar and live music! First guy was good if you were drunk, but then came Wynn Taylor, a former Cavalry Scout turned musician, this guy was great! It was a long night at the bar, my wife said I was "pingponging" all the way home, I said was I "high stepp'in?" she said no, then it must have been boat rock, ha!
















Good night, to be continued......