Sailing Agora

Author: Susanna Fontenot

  • From Brunswick Back to the Bahamas

    January 2026: We didn’t actually leave from Brunswick; we left from somewhere better. Saying goodbye to the Jekyll Island community was genuinely hard, but we made it happen. From there we cruised the ICW south to Fernandina Beach: easy, pretty, lovely, comfortable. All the things our last stint on the ICW was not.

    We motored slowly, anchored, and rested for the night. (This stop lacked all the fun stuff from our last stop in Fernandina in November 2025 when we had a haul out and bottom job: a park with a proper playground and a brew pub with craft beer and freshly baked pizza.)

    St. Augustine came next: cold and grey, epic current in the river, an eventual move to a mooring ball. But what did we find at anchor? Some reconnections with already friends and some new boat families we’d end up craving more time with. This life is strange in a lot of ways, but one of the stranger things about it is a particular kind of isolation: surrounded in close proximity by layers of humanity and yet the sustained connections are harder to build than you’d think.

    We’ve met genuinely wonderful people. Fellow sailors learning by doing, families figuring out the same things at the same time that we are, anchorage friends who show up when you need them. I think we’re both pretty outgoing people (maybe less so as we get older, lol), and it’s served us well. But we’ve never quite found our buddy boat yet (the family moving at the same pace, with the same work-week vibe and weekend energy and aligned values). What we’ve done instead is bungie boat: stretching apart, snapping back together, a few days here and a week there with other couples or families we love. Never quite in the same spot long enough to find a real rhythm, though.

    Is that too much to ask? Asking for a friend. (The friend is us.)

    Honestly, we’re grateful for every connection we find, and we hope to spend real time with some of our favorite families again before long.

    But in St. Augustine, it got cold. Colder and windier than we wanted to wait out. A weather window opened for West Palm Beach and a potential Bahamas crossing later in the week.

    So we took it. The official start of our 2026 season. More on that soon.

  • After the Bahamas, It Was the Golden Isles

    We left the Bahamas in August 2025 knowing we’d be back eventually. That’s the thing about a first season offshore: you don’t really leave it behind, you just put it on pause while the summer builds toward hurricane season and you point the bow somewhere a little more protected.

    For us, that meant north: Florida, then Georgia, then more Georgia than we expected. What followed was five months of docks and detours and one island that made us feel like we could stay forever if we didn’t have an itch for blue water.

    Port Canaveral: Limping Back to Land

    We arrived at Port Canaveral Yacht Club a little worse for the wear and needed some TLC.

    That wasn’t the plan. The plan was a quick pit stop: clear in from the Bahamas, grab groceries, point north. But the generator had other ideas, and two weeks at the dock became our unexpected reintroduction to land life.

    It turned out to be a gift. We walked to the port to watch cruise ships come and go. They’re a weird kind of enormous, and they appear out of nowhere. We discovered our love of mini golf. We found a grassy patch with basketball hoops and a kiddie pool. We watched rocket launches, caught preseason football games, and found a tiki bar with fellow liveaboards who became fast friends. Generous people in a surreal, wonderful place. It was our first real exhale after five weeks dipping our toes into the Bahamas.

    St. Augustine: The Stop That Surprised Us

    From Port Canaveral we made an overnight run north, arriving to find the Castillo de San Marcos appearing along with the sunrise.

    We spent a work week there: fishing from the dinghy every day (exciting fishing, too! the kind where you have a fish on the line, watching it splash in the distance, right up until the line snapped from its weight, taking the bait and the lure and the catch with it), exploring the fort, easy enough provisioning, and sunset dinghy runs. We left four days later feeling like we hadn’t stayed nearly long enough.

    Brunswick: A Town We Didn’t Expect to Love

    The overnight from St. Augustine to Brunswick was one of our harder ones. We slowed our approach to avoid arriving in the dead of night, which meant getting caught in a stalled storm system instead. Foul weather gear, a rain-soaked morning, bone-tired parents and bleary-eyed kids. But pulling into Brunswick Landing Marina after holding that reservation for months, delayed by generator repairs and delayed again by weather, felt genuinely amazing.

    (Small note: the attitude from the dock crew on arrival should have been a red flag for things to come. We didn’t know that yet.)

    What we found in Brunswick over four weeks wasn’t what we expected. We found a community.

    Taco Tuesdays and sunset dinghy runs with our new buddies Jamie and Lindsay on Paloma. Crabbing and Vampire Penguin frozen ice. Monday and Wednesday community gatherings at the marina, the annual Cruisers Challenge games, Monopoly in the common spaces where the boys also did their schoolwork. Free laundry and free happy hours are HARD. TO. BEAT.

    We loved Makers Brunswick for crafts and compassion and community. We loved Bubba Garcia’s for the TexMex flavors that reminded us of home. We loved Silver Bluff Brewing because weekday hangouts there reminded us just enough of a local brewery back in Houston.

    Leaving felt icky – partly because our slip became unavailable, partly because comfort is hard to leave when you’ve found it. We’d been there four weeks, and it had started to feel like a nice little neighborhood. Full of neighbors we’re still connected with and constantly think of fondly.

    Houston Interlude

    While Agora stayed hurricane-ready at the Brunswick dock, we flew home to Houston for a few weeks.

    The timing turned out to be perfect. A high school homecoming weekend meant the kids’ first Friday night lights experience, and we weren’t even living on land anymore. Birthday celebrations, long dinners with old friends and neighbors, and a trip to Santa Fe for a family wedding. It was a trip that filled our tanks.  

    We flew back, spent one more night on the dock, then untied, and motored all the way around nearby Jekyll Island. Agora’s too tall for the ICW bridge closest to the harbor, so it was as full day trip, and then we found our spot at the T-head of Jekyll Harbor Marina. 

    Jekyll Island: Oh, Jekyll.

    And then we met Jekyll Island, and I think Jekyll Island changed us all.

    Gorgeous and comfortable and unpretentious, natural beauty in every direction. Open fields for soccer and baseball. A resort-level croquet pitch. Sunset s’mores setups that materialized out of nowhere. Christmas light displays worth writing home about. Eerie, beautiful scenery that made you nostalgic for something you couldn’t quite name.

    It was quiet family time and constant new friendships with boaters and locals alike. It was having grandparents join our little world for the holidays, which felt so cozy. It was a riverside location that meant watching dolphin behavior patterns from the dock, observing the resident bald eagle pair on the powerlines, and peering at fishermen cleaning their daily haul.

    In three months at Jekyll, we deep-cleaned the bilge, hoisted Barrett up the mast, and installed a watermaker and upgraded to lithium batteries (shoutout Jamie & Bow to Stern Marine Services!). We also met fellow cruisers and boaters we’ll love for a long time. We’ll never forget the bonfires and sundowners with Michelle and Bash on Avalon. We can’t wait to reconnect with Nancy and Chriss on Serenity.

    Spoiler: we would probably go back to JHM over Brunswick Landing any day of the week.

  • Spanish Cay: The One Where We Almost Left (summer 2025 recap)

    We were ready to go home.

    Not in a defeated way – more in the way that five weeks of Bahamian cruising will make you crave a working generator, a good rinse of the boat, and maybe a grocery store that isn’t a 45-minute trip on the dinghy away. We had a reserved slip in Georgia. We were looking at a weather window. We were on our way out. And then we had a generator that was overheating. Suddenly we were reminded that “plans” in this life can quickly become “suggestions.”

    The repair saga had been grinding on for a week. Barrett had tried replacing fuses. They all blew. So we were stuck. Not dramatically stuck – we were in the Bahamas, after all – but stuck with a ticking clock, because getting back to the States for a real repair meant not dawdling. 

    Spanish Cay made the being-stuck part easier than we expected. It’s a private island with a marina, which sounds like the setup to an exclusive and slightly intimidating experience, and instead it was just great. Quietly busy in a way that felt special. The kind of place where you look around and think: we would never have come here on purpose, and we’re really glad we ended up here. 

    The fish cleaning station alone was worth it – sharks circling for scraps every day at the same time, the kids absolutely riveted, a crowd of fellow boaters gathered around like it was the best show on the island. It was. Lobster season had just opened, and the energy around that felt celebratory in a way that’s hard to explain if you haven’t spent weeks anticipating it, unsure whether you’d be there for it.

    We met cruisers there who were also trying to time their departure, also watching the weather, also doing the mental math of how long they could stay before the window closed. There’s a specific kind of camaraderie in that. Everyone a little tired, a little ready, all of us standing on a beautiful private island being very reasonable about leaving it.

    We’d found a local guy on the island who works on the generator that powers the whole place – which felt promising, like if anyone could fix it, it was him. And he did fix it, technically. It started. It ran. It just didn’t charge the batteries, which is, as it turns out, the main thing we need our generator to do.

    We finally needed to just leave. The generator situation meant we were moving with a little more urgency than we would have liked, and the return trip to the States had its own energy: purposeful, a little bittersweet, the Bahamas shrinking in the rearview.

    But Spanish Cay was a good last chapter. Unexpected and unhurried and full of sharks at the fish station, which honestly is a pretty solid way to end a summer.

    Agora on the hook at Spanish Cay
    a frozen rum drink and the pool where we met friends, waiting for generator repair
    what a view!
    starfish and clear water
    generator wasn’t the only thing that needed repair – a fresh water pump died on us too…
    …and the bathroom shower wouldn’t drain
    but mostly the issue was the generator
    Barrett swam in sharky waters to see whether it was an issue below the waterline…
    …it wasn’t, but we needed shore power to stay charged, so we took a slip.
    Barrett spent days trying to fix the problem.
    the boys wandered
    the kids explored
    they fed sharks
    Barrett tinkered
    more sharks!
    our unexpected home for a bit
    amazing creatures
    final night at Spanish Cay Marina
    our final night in the Bahamas – we left from Grand Cay

  • Green Turtle Cay: The One That Made It All Feel Real (summer 2025 recap)

    There’s a version of this cruising life that exists in your head before you do it. The turquoise water, the unhurried days, the feeling of being exactly where you’re supposed to be. Green Turtle Cay was the first place where the version in my head and the version I was actually living balanced out.

    We’d met a family from Florida at the dock in Coco Bay, where stingrays and turtles eat out of tourists’ hands – a mix of anchorage and beach hang that defines Bahamian cruising. It was the kind of meeting that starts as a wave, an introduction, a “Cheers!” and then turns into something real before you quite notice it happening. They were generous in the way that many boat families tend to be. They were there on their center console power boat, I’s on the Prize, for vacation, not as full-time cruisers. They loaned us a spear pole before we’d really earned the right to ask for one, showed up with good energy, and had kids who matched ours in age and temperament in the ways that matter most when you’re all stuck on boats together. Different in plenty of ways, but similarly the same in the ones that count.

    The snorkeling off the dinghy was on a reef in calm water on perfect day. We just dropped in. The water was the kind of clear that makes you feel like you’re floating in air, and the reef beneath us was alive in every direction. There were sharks – just a few of them, moving through at their own pace, curious in the way that sharks in healthy water tend to be. Not scary. Just present, going about their business, occasionally glancing over at the strange creatures flapping around above them. The kids were cool about it. I (Susanna) was excited and pretending to be calm, which is basically the same thing. 

    We missed catching a fish that day. We could have speared it upon first sighting, but then our snorkel adventure would be over almost as soon as it started, so we passed on it. We learned lessons about patience and timing – both fishing and snorkeling. We came back with no fish but also no regrets.

    And then there was the beach.

    I don’t know exactly what set it off. The sunlight, maybe, or the particular shade of the water. Perhaps it was the kids playing on the paddle board while Barrett enjoyed the swing over the water. Maybe it was just the accumulated weight of weeks of actually doing the thing we’d talked about doing for so long. I was sitting there in a hammock, and it just hit me. The beauty of it. The reality of it. We were here. We had made it here. This was our life, at least for now, and it was more than I had let myself believe it would be. 

    I cried on a beach in Green Turtle Cay, and I’m not even a little embarrassed about it.

    That’s the thing about staying longer than you plan. You get past the logistics and the anxiety and the learning curve, and somewhere in the middle of an ordinary afternoon you look up and realize the life you wanted is the one you’re in.

    Next up: Spanish Cay, a broken generator, and the unexpected gift of being stuck wsomewhere beautiful.

    stingrays at Coco Bay
    a mural spotted on a walk up the hill in GTC
    GTC was about more than just playing – we did boat and life chores too. Here: propane fills.
    we enjoyed a celebratory lunch at GTC Marina
    We also did much-needed loads of laundry
    The kids with a new friend from Florida.
    Our goodbye to I’s on the Prize.
    The beach were it all finally felt real.
    The beach were it all finally felt real.
    Snorkeling from the beach.
    Abacos water is unreal,
    A SUP trip in Manjack Cay.
    drone shot over GTC
    the pool table at Sundowners – a fave hang out in GTC
    our first spear fishing excursion, mostly great snorkeling
  • Great Guana Cay: The One Where Everyone Showed Up (summer 2025 recap)

    Great Guana Cay: The One Where Everyone Showed Up (summer 2025 recap)

    There’s a certain kind of magic that happens in the Bahamas when your cruising world – which has been quietly overlapping with other people’s cruising worlds for weeks – suddenly collapses into the same anchorage during the same week. Great Guana was that place for us.

    We’d been following Driftwood’s path since Bimini, randomly. A family from South Carolina, also on a sailboat, also doing the thing for the summer. We waved at each other in an anchorage in there and then jumped into a blue hole together in the Berries – the way you do when you recognize kindred spirits and the timing just lines up. It lined up in Great Guana again.

    And then there was Peaks. We’d connected with them during our intense crossing from the Berries to the Abacos through an online sailing family community – one of those friendships that exists entirely in a group chat until suddenly it doesn’t. We’d already had a reunion of sorts down near Lynyard Cay for Fourth of July fireworks after the long passage, but Great Guana gave us the real version: Nippers beach bar, a dad taxi on their dinghy, the kids all in the water together, the kind of afternoon that stretches out in the best possible way. 

    Nippers, if you haven’t heard us mention it before, is the kind of place that shouldn’t work as well as it does. A beach bar on a tiny Bahamian island, perched over the Atlantic side, with a pool and a pig roast on Sundays and music that carries across the water. It works completely. The Driftwood crew was with us for the pig roast – and for the afternoon rainstorm that rolled in with very little warning and absolutely zero concern for anyone’s plans (including a wedding complete with rain soaked fireworks on the beach). We stood under whatever cover existed and laughed about it, which is more or less the correct response to weather in the Bahamas.

    Grabbers, on the harbor side, had its own kind of energy. A little more tucked in, but no less special, the kind of place where the afternoon just slows down while the sunsets. Our Texas friends the Scotts – we’d spotted their flag coming into Lynyard, then crossed paths again at Elbow Cay almost by accident – made it to Grabbers on a Sunday and we met them there after a quick provision stop in Marsh Harbour. There was swimming, there was jumping off things, there was a swing post that the kids felt needed to be climbed to its full height. There were good drinks and the easy comfort of people you don’t have to explain yourself to.

    It was a lot of people, a lot of overlap, a lot of happy noise. The kind of week that, when you’re living it, feels almost too full – and then you get to the other side of it and realize that’s exactly what you were looking for when you decided to do this.

    More from the Abacos coming soon. Next up: Green Turtle Cay, and the afternoon that made me cry on a beach.

    the walking path to Nipper’s
    fire on the beach at Grabber’s
    vacation mode engaged
    beautiful beach
    sunset at the swing posts
    Texans unite!
    another beautiful beach

  • A Couple of Intense Crossings: The Berries to the Abacos (Part 2)

    We woke early enough for this passage, but the weather had other plans. Conditions were stormier than predicted, and the swells were two to three times what the forecast suggested. We were in the middle of the Bahamas with no land in sight, crossing deep water that commands respect.

    Then we approached Hole-in-the-Wall, where the Atlantic meets the southern end of the Abacos, and let’s just say: that stretch is legit. Even in fair weather, the ocean there is ancient and powerful. At thousands of feet deep, the depth finder doesn’t even register. My mind went to all the places sailors’ minds go when you’re in big water: what if something breaks? What if we misread this? What if we should’ve waited?

    Conditions weren’t gnarly, just uncomfortable. And for the first time, I cried during a passage. I was tired, unsure, worried. The kids were being their usual low-key, low-energy as they do on a passage. Barrett was holding it together and helping carry the team while also feeling tired, unsure, and ready to get where we were going. 

    It was July 4th. We were leaving the Berry Islands and heading toward the Abacos. There were hardly any other cruisers around – just a couple tankers and some cruise ships. One tanker actually radioed us and altered their course because of the stormy weather and our speed/direction. I don’t want to know what that maneuver cost them (or do I?), but I’ll forever be grateful. That was our first real weather-passage experience: 16–18 knots of sustained wind, rain, then sudden calm, and then building swell again.

    Somewhere in that crossing, I realized a truth we’d been circling for months but had yet to really connect with: we don’t control the schedule. We can plan, but the wind, the weather, and Agora decide the real timeline. Yes, we’re steering this boat, but we’re also surrendering to the pace of the sea. A new definition of “cruising life” settled in on that passage.

    Eventually we reached an entrance to The Abacos near Little Harbour, but the swell made it uncomfortable, so we pushed farther north toward Lynyard Cay to meet up with a family boat we’d been in touch with through our cruising-with-kids community. We anchored in a peaceful spot, made dinner, dinghied to the beach for fireworks, and ended the Fourth of July around a fire pit with new friends. Major relaxation after a grueling day.

    The next day we decompressed, acclimated back to life on the hook instead of on the move, and explored a new string of islands. We attempted a blue hole (twice) and failed (twice) thanks to the tide changes. But we played in the water, snorkeled in swelly conditions, and connected with some boats who would weave in and out of our Bahamian adventures, eventually meeting again in Great Guana.

    Hard, beautiful, humbling. Those two crossings were ones to remember.

  • A Couple of Intense Crossings: Bimini to the Abacos (Part 1)

    A Couple of Intense Crossings: Bimini to the Abacos (Part 1)

    Leaving Bimini gave us our first reminder that even small departures can turn chaotic fast. From our anchorage via the channel near Alice Town, a combo of speed, current, and maybe some residual rain meant our dinghy started taking on water. So Barrett moved from the big boat to the little one mid-transit to pump out Squeasel (don’t tell the grandparents). We found some space outside the channel, waited for a moment of calm, did the thing, and carried on.

    A little while later, we stopped and dropped our first open water anchor so Barrett and the kids could snorkel the SS Sapona shipwreck just south of Bimini while I wrapped up a work day. At the time, it was a little nerve-wracking, but mostly exhilarating. And looking back, it was an incredible opportunity I’ll never forget and feel so grateful to have.

    From there, we overnighted off Cat Cay – apparently a private island, but we didn’t know or care. It was calm, quiet and easy to anchor. We made dinner and stayed on the boat, appreciating the scenery and feeling of anticipation for the unknown ahead.

    Storms passed around us just far enough away to make the sky dramatic without being dangerous. It was one of those nights where the unexpected felt exciting instead of stressful. One of many nights in succession where we were alone in a Bahamian anchorage. Truly special.

    Morning handed us a new lesson. We hardly considered the tides and didn’t plan to leave early enough for the passage we were going to make. Rookie cruiser learnings: not mistakes, because nothing went wrong, but clear reminders of how much we don’t know until we know it.

    The water was shallow nearly the entire way out of Cat Cay, and while it was gorgeous, it made the day long. Add in the energy of passage-making with kids – feeding everyone, keeping the boat comfortable, staying present – and it was just an intense day.

    The bank from Cat Cay to Chub Cay was stunning, though. We skipped any storms in the distance with just the occasional drizzle, avoided grounding, and navigated a day full of “what if we diverted?” conversations.

    Sticking with our planned route taught us about our weather thresholds and about each other. We dropped the hook at Chub Cay just after dark (our first nighttime anchoring), and the charts were spot on. It was rolly, perched right off the Tongue of the Ocean, but our anchor held just fine. It was an isolated anchorage that left us feeling small in the best possible way.

    We’re grateful to be always growing and learning.

    From there, we headed to the Berry Islands, which deserve their own chapter of this journey, but the crossing from the Berry Islands to the Abacos belongs here, because it was one of the toughest passages we’ve had.

    And that’s Part 2.

    first sights of the Bahamian blue waters
    cruising life -> kids on shore, parents on dinghy
    bailing out Squeasel
    storms near Cat Cay
    stormy skies at Cat Cay
    surrounding weather
    crossing the Bank
    our first anchoring after dark
  • From The Keys to Bimini: Four Stops Before the Big Hop

    From The Keys to Bimini: Four Stops Before the Big Hop

    We left Key West on Father’s Day – the kind of morning that felt like a channel marker. A quiet “here we go” moment after months of planning, packing, unrooting, and re-rooting ourselves into boat life. Agora pointed east, the twins munching snacks in the cockpit, and the Straits of Florida stretching out like a long blue road. It was a rocky first part of the day with unexpected swells and both kids feeling sick before we moved further toward shore and found comfortable positioning in the Hawk Channel. 

    Anchored Outside Marathon: Just Us & the Stillness

    Our first night after Key West was an anchorage outside Marathon. Quiet and still, it was a pocket of calm where it felt like we were the only people anywhere for miles. No dinghy rides, no shore runs, no errands – just the gentle reminder that this life can be slow when it wants to be.

    I don’t think we realized how quickly that stillness would evaporate.

    Rodriguez Key: New Friends, a Mackerel, & a Packed Anchorage

    The next day brought Rodriguez Key – and our first “race,” if you can call it that, with another sailing family aboard Paradise II. Thank goodness for open radio channels and a growing community of folks sailing with kids. 

    Somewhere in the friendly chaos, we caught a mackerel. The kind of catch that makes everyone cheer, even if it’s not going to win any size contests.

    The anchorage that night was crowded by comparison at that point. Boats sprinkled about like everyone had gotten the same memo and decided Rodriguez Key was the place to be. Or maybe it was just one of a few anchorages along that route. 

    No Name Harbor: Miami’s Chaos Meets Our Floating Home

    Then came No Name Harbor, right outside Miami. Miami boat culture is… an experience. Let’s say we witnessed an educational range of powerboat behavior. Speed limits? Optional. Awareness of anchored boats? Debatable. But the water was warm, the sun was generous, and the current was strong. 

    We stuck around for a few days. Dinghied into the harbor. Walked the sandy path with iguanas and herons like extras in our private nature documentary. Ordered groceries via Instacart and somehow experienced 50% convenience and 50% comedy and 100% human. Ate at the little harbor restaurant and reveled in the simple magic of not doing dishes.

    It felt like a tiny pause before the next push.

    Fort Lauderdale: Inlets, Party Boats, & My Hardest Weekend Yet

    Leaving Miami meant entering Port Everglades at Fort Lauderdale – our busiest inlet so far. Boats seemed to be everywhere. Party barges weaving between fishing vessels. Vessels that fit under the drawbridge shooting through while we held position and waited for the bridge to raise. I swear Agora held her breath with us. Shoutout to Barrett for his composure, experience, and general calm/cool/collectedness.

    We tied up at Bahia Mar, a marina with its own little ecosystem: laundry, showers, a pool, walking distance to the beach, and a sense that maybe we could pause again after being fully on the move for weeks. 

    And then Barrett left for Dallas to attend a family funeral.

    It was my (Susanna) first weekend on the boat alone with the twins in a long time. No emergencies. No disasters. Just the reality that this life – beautiful and freeing and transformative – is also demanding. And doing it solo, even briefly, can wring you out.

    I was tense. Tired. Probably annoyed more often than I needed to be. (I’ve learned so much since June about pacing myself emotionally.) When Barrett came back, I think relief hit me in a way I didn’t even know I’d been holding in.

    We reset. Regrouped. Did some boat prep we needed to do.

    Because next up was the part we’d been dreaming about:

    Our first Bahamas crossing.

  • A Key West Address

    A Key West Address

    Our first morning in Key West started with phone calls home – catching up with family, showing off the new anchorage. During one call with my parents, we realized our mooring line was chafing badly. Oops. Quick fix: we swapped it for a bridle setup (probably what we should have done from the start).

    Barrett changed the oil while I tackled other chores, and then we packed up for an adventure. Dinghying over to Key West Bight, we bought a day pass to leave our wonderful dinghy, Squeasel, at the dock and hopped on a bus to the beach.

    There, we met up with friends – Megan, Jon, and their son Thomas. The plan was a beach BBQ, but another group had claimed the grill and fire Jon had started and refused to share. Classic curveball. Instead, the night morphed into sushi appetizers by the ocean, followed by dinner at their house. The kids got to play, the adults caught up, and laughter filled the evening. Sometimes the best memories come from plans gone sideways.

    Our week in Key West unfolded in a groovy rhythm – a mix of work, play, and wandering.

    Highlights included:

    • Fresh baked donuts at the docks.
    • Uniquely cruiser laundry and provisioning experiences.
    • Shopping, splash pad adventures, and long lunches.
    • Spotting horseshoe crabs in the marina.
    • Daily dolphin sightings around the anchorage.
    • Sunset after sunset that left us in awe.
    • Making phone calls on a vintage, yet functional, pay phone (for free) at Pepe’s Cafe.
    • The kids chatting with folks on the wharf, spouting fish facts as tarpon and parrotfish swirled below.
    • Meeting local artists, enjoying delicious food around town, and exploring Mallory Square.
    • A slightly rolly but beautiful Father’s Day sail north to Marathon.

    Like most of our favorite stops, this one felt like more than just a stopover – it felt like a little chapter of our story. A Key West address, even if only for a week.

  • Family of Four Journeying to Open Waters

    Family of Four Journeying to Open Waters

    An Overnight Passage: Marco Island to Key West

    On June 5, we set out for our third overnight sail – this time from Marco Island to Key West. It turned out to be our most exciting one yet.

    We pulled anchor in the late afternoon, around 5:30 or 6:00 p.m. Dinner was on the stove, Barrett was juggling some charting and kid-wrangling, and spirits were high as we pointed south. The air felt beautiful, buzzing with that mix of anticipation and nerves that comes with an overnight run.

    Storms hovered on the horizon but never touched us. I took the first shift and kept us steady, even as the weather radar lit up in the distance. Through the night we had good wind – mostly 16–17 knots, with gusts creeping into the low-to-mid 20s. The forecast hadn’t quite captured the reality: rockier, rolly seas with bigger swell than expected. It’s becoming a bit of a theme – no matter how many times we check PredictWind, the ocean writes her own script.

    Still, the sunrise was magic. After a long, intense night shift, Barrett got some rest while I took the helm and watched the sky turn from ink to watercolor. By morning, the water shifted to the stunning turquoise we’d been dreaming of – our first glimpse of the iconic Key West palette. We were giddy, knowing this was the kind of view we’d get to soak in for the next few weeks.

    Our plan was to grab a mooring ball at Garrison Bight, just around the corner from Key West Bight Marina. Protected? Yes. Pretty? …Not so much. The water was murkier there than the clear shallows we’d just passed through. But we were tired, happy, and ready to tie up.

    That’s when the real comedy began.

    Mooring Ball Grab Attempt #1: I leaned over with the boat hook to snag the mooring eye, only to find it stuck. With too much momentum, I had to let go – sending the boat hook floating away. (Thankfully, it bobbed up “stick side” first, sparing us a loss and any lectures.)

    Ball Grab Attempt #2: We lined up again, this time certain we’d nail it. Nope. Same problem. This time the hook went in the water again and started sinking instead of floating. Cue another scramble.

    Ball Grab Attempt #3: We regrouped. I took the helm alongside Barrett. He lined us up, then ran forward and grabbed position on the bow. With one last try – success! He hooked the mooring ball, secured the line, and exhaled in relief.

    Showers. Laundry. A tiki bar around the corner. Bingo (we even won!). Live music, ferrying laundry, fish-cleaning lessons. That night, we slept like rocks, grateful for our safe arrival in Key West.