Johnson Key to No Name Key

Day 24: Wednesday, March 16, 2016

To quote Cat Stevens, "Morning Has Broken"

Another glorious day in the Florida Keys.  We again slept well on calm waters.  The good night’s sleep called for sausage gravy on toast for our day starter.

We did our usual morning chores and decided that Little Key near where we are anchored would be a great place to swim and get some exercise so we piled our skin diving gear into the Dink and motored around looking for that perfect beach or spot and found neither.  The island is basically a mangrove marsh and the surrounding waters are quite shallow.  We finally got out of the boat, set her tiny anchor and began walking away from the island.  At about 100 yards out, and in chest deep water, we paddled around for probably a half an hour.  It was quite refreshing.

Back in the Dink and heading back to our Second Wind base, we met the folks in the boat anchored

Cormorant heading our for a favorite fishing ground

near us.  They also were on a dinghy exploration trip.  We came along side, shut down our engines and spent the next 20 minutes getting to know Mike and Frankie.  They were a very interesting couple who have been on their little motor sailor for seven weeks.  Mike describes his little boat as one that doesn’t motor very well and doesn’t sail very well but attempts to do both.  After we drifted about a half mile in the tidal current, we parted and headed back to Second Wind.

A light wind was blowing from the east so, after lunch, we decided to weigh the anchor and head for Big Pine Key.  There are several suggested anchorages in the area and also a famous bar called “No Name Pub.”  Mike had suggested that it was supposedly quite a unique place and they were going to check it out.  We were in a wide open area so I raised the sails, pulled the anchor and sailed away without starting the motor.

We had a delightful 2 hour sail covering the 6 miles to the channel that runs between Big Pine Key and No Name Key.  As we travel, we periodically see a dolphin or two but today, a pod of probably 5 or 6 played around and under Second Wind for about a half a mile. I took probably 50 pictures as they frolicked played about.  What Fun!

There is a low bridge that connects the Big Pine and No Name Key which makes it impossible for a sailboat to reach marina so we dropped out anchor not far from where Mike and Frankie had moored their Bumbye.

The "No Name Pub" on Big Pine Key

We took the Dink about a quarter mile to the No Name Key end of the bridge only to find a lot of mangrove and very shallow water.  We got fairly deep in the shallow weedy water before the little Honda to so fouled with weeds that I had to row the boat back into deeper waters.  Since we found no landing place on No Name, we headed across the channel towards Big Pine Key.  On the way, we again ran into Mike and Frankie and they told us that the famous pub was indeed on Big Pine and that there was a dock where we could tie up near the end of the bridge for a small fee of $5.00.  Mike said that he thought that we could also just tie up at the end of the bridge and avoid the fee.  And that we did.

The walk to the pub was about 2 blocks and we found this typical Keys type dive that was jammed packed with people at 3:30 in the afternoon. The decor is 30,000 dollar bills stapled over the entire interior of the dimly lit room.  The ceiling is completely covered with the bills which were attached in a way that they hung vertically.  Each bill had some comment written on it by the original owner.  We s hared an appetizer portion of coconut shrimp and Janine had a glass of No Name Pale Ale and I had a Yuengling Lager.  The wait staff was a very social bunch who while doing their serving chores were busy discussing all forms of topics with each other behind the bar.  It was a fun experience.

Back at the boat, we collected some Tillamook cheese and a bottle of Gnarly Head red zinfandel and

motored over to Bumbye for cocktails.  We spent about an hour and a half with these interesting folks.  Frankie was a retired speech therapist who worked for the schools and Mike was a retired senior officer in the US Coast Guard.  After his retirement, he and a friend opened a boat service shop in the Norfolk VA area.  They do all forms of large boat repair.  He is in the process of backing away in the form of full retirement but returns in the summer to work.

Upon returning to our boat, we grilled our last two Italian sausages for dinner which also included garlic mashed potatoes and a wilted salad.  We enjoyed the last of our blob carrot cake before calling it a day at around 9:00

Mike and Frankie's Motor Sailors Bumbye