Begin – 26.83N 80.06W – 5:30pm – North Palm Beach Harbor – North Palm Beach, Fla
End – 25.18N 80.30W – Anchorage Resort & Yacht Club – Jewfish Creek Key Largo
Total fuel: 103.85 gallons
Travel time: 9:20 hours
Miles traveled: 119 miles
Seas – calm all day, perfect run wind light
Today is going to be a good day… finally going to see my good friend Capt. Bob!
Capt. Bob and I spoke on the phone before we shoved off North Palm Beach and made our final plans for the day… the seas where perfect and we made the entire run pretty much outside all the way to Biscayne Bay.
Bob was our Keys coordinator and mapped out our run… we refueled at his old stomping ground, Lighthouse Point and once more at the top of Biscayne Bay before reaching our destination Key Largo.
At Lighthouse Point we had a little mechanical issue… it’s a bad recipe to leave a line overboard on a ski, needless to say we wrapped a line around our impeller and needed to remove the front intake plate from the bottom of the ski and cut out the rope… it wasn’t too bad, but it set us back around 30 – 40 minutes.
I can’t thank Capt. Bob and my brother-in-law Lee enough, they both where instrumental in getting our wheels to the keys from from NJ. Lee drove from NJ to Fort Lauderdale and then handed off the truck to Capt. Bob, who ran the rest of the way! Not sure if we mentioned it earlier on or not… but after day one we knew we were not going to be running the skis back up the coast so we resorted to plan B, or was it C or D… LOL.
Thanks guys, we couldn’t have made this happen without you two! :-)
The run down the coast was pretty flat and after refueling at Lighthouse Point we pushed onto Miami, we ran into a really cool guy who owns a jet ski rental outfit and he invited us into his channel on the Miami Beach, we obliged and headed in talk a bit telling our tales and drank some water… it was a nice break. If you ever want to go down to Miami and fish off a jet ski this guy is your man! He has four machines rigged for off shore fishing… pretty neat.
After this we pushed southward passed Miami Inlet and headed for Bear Cut, we tried to refuel at Crandon Park Marina, however they DO NOT REFUEL pwc’s at this location… so if you’re ever heading south on a ski count this place out, what do you want from a government ran facility, sorry I digress! LOL
I’m actually happy we made it to Crandon Park Marina because we witnessed one of the most crazy busy marina’s we’ve ever seen, along with a true admirer of club music… you be the judge… watch the clip! LOL
We ended up running back about 6 miles to the Miami Seaplane Tours, across from the Rusty Rudder restaurant where they were more than happy to let us put on fuel.
After fueling up… we crossed under Rickenbacker Hwy and made a course straight for Jew Creek which passed us straight through Stiltsville, Sands Key, Elliot Key, Trotten Key and Ocean Reef Club to Jew Creek, this was our first experience running through the mangroves and I could do this all day long… it was a lot of fun and I’d love to come back and spend some time diving and fishing them for sure.
After we exited Jew Creek it was an easy 6 mile run through Barnes Sound to Jewfish Creek and our day’s destination Anchorage Resort & Yacht Club.
As we passed under the Overseas Highway Bridge I could see Capt. Bob on the dock waiting for us… it was great to see Bob once again… I haven’t seen Bob in over a year… the music was cranking at some hopping party on the other side of the creek… Bob said that was our welcoming party! We checked in, got settled and went out to a fantastic sunset dinner at Snooks Bayside Restaurant. We called it an early night a prepared ourselves for the next day’s run to Big Pine Key.
Over & Out
Captain Kelly, SPC
(Self Proclaimed Captain)