Memorial Day 2025 - Florida Keys

Day One: Journey is off the dock, and we are excited!  Dee has been working hard to make this trip super special and knows that I need this time away from the dock to enjoy some nice water.  I do love my blue waters.  We head out behind Ben and Natalie on Nomad at high tide out to Panther Key in the Ten Thousand Islands to anchor for the night and head out at dawn the next morning.  Dee is planning to bottom clean while we are anchored this afternoon.  The problem is that we can’t get anchored.  The windlass is not working.  Dee yells to see if I forgot to turn it on or if it popped off.  I run and check the switch, but it is still nothing.  As I jockey in place, he digs into the front hatch and finds the culprit, which is a broken fuse wire and housing.   Fixed and the anchor is down.  Dee gets back to setting up to clean the bottom of Journey.  About an hour under the boat, he said it wasn’t too bad. Lots of creepy crawls came up with him. He is cleaned up, and supper is ready.  We enjoyed a nice sunset and a few drinks.  It was great to be back at anchor again.  
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Day Two:  We pull anchor by 6 am, and it only takes a few hours for it to get a little rough out in the Gulf waters.  We begin tacking back and forth to make the ride a little bearable, and this also allows us to stay behind Nomad for quite some time traveling this day.  The rough waters do make me a little sick today.  We dodge a few storms and anchor in Tarpon Belly after an 11.5-hour run.  Ben and Natalie join us for pork tenderloin on the deck of Journey as the sun goes down.  We will have their Spanish Mackerel tomorrow night.  They caught two on the ride down.  We head back into Journey to get the generator going to cool her down for the night.  We get it running and cooling, then settling in for a movie, when boom, the generator shuts down.  Well, it is too late to work that problem out tonight.  We hope for a better tomorrow and a good night’s sleep.

Happy Memorial Day!  The generator is still on Dee’s mind but we have our morning coffee and enjoy the beautiful surroundings of the semi-isolated areas in the Florida Keys.  We get a call from Sunshine which makes our day!  But now back to that generator issue.  Dee had just replaced the raw water pump.  He checked the impeller and it was fine but different so he changed it then checking the heat exchanger he found it full of old tines.  Cleaned it out and started it up and it ran for 45 mins just fine so hoping that is the problem.  Time to get LeaAnn down and head to the beach.  We got her loaded, but when Dee fired up her engine well she wasn’t peeing which is important for an outboard engine.  We went on to the beach and enjoyed the afternoon with Ben, Natalie and Emma.  Dee tried to unplug the pee tube at the beach but didn’t seem to work.  While on the beach Ben and Natalie invite us for fish tacos with the fresh fish Ben caught the day before, so we all head back to the boats a little early to get ready and have some down time out of the sun. While back at Journey Dee took the motor cowling off and started working through cleaning out all the hoses on the engine and then Voila!  She fired up and started peeing.  Another issue resolved. We head over to Nomad and enjoy fresh fish and a great evening once again watching a great sunset onboard Nomad.

Day Four:  Today we are going to celebrate Natalie’s birthday a day early in case we are able to head to the Dry Tortogas tomorrow.  We have a lazy morning on Journey, a favorite time for us to just enjoy God’s creation all around us.  We gather up everything and head over to the beach for sun, fun, grilling and cobbler.  Another couple on a sailboat joined us and we exchanged contact information with them.  They are out of Fort Lauderdale and offered space behind their home if we were ever in need.  I love the boating community. Always helping each other out.  We pack up just before sunset to head back. Dee and I hang a little longer in LeaAnn enjoying the peacefulness of the sunset into the Gulf waters.  Back on Journey to get LeaAnn up before total darkness, just as Dee starts to raise LeaAnn the brand new winch breaks in half dropping LeaAnn back into the water.  Of course, our spare is back on the dock in our dock box.  What is going on God?  What are you trying to tell us?  “This year is something else and very hard to understand” - a direct quote from Dee.  It was a rough night on Journey worried about what to do with LeaAnn since she is just tied to the side of Journey for now and we have never towed a dinghy.  We like her up on our davet system. 

Day Five:  This was a long day.  It began with an early morning text from Ben and Natalie - Happy Birthday Natalie!  They are heading out to the Margueses and then onto the Dry Tortogas the next day.  The weather looks good.  We have to break the news to them about the winch failure and tell them to head on as we are unsure what our next move is.  Of course, they head right over to try and help us out.  They spend a few hours on board trying to rig up low tension rings but our davet system and LeaAnn are just too heavy.  We send them on their way and tell them we will most likely head back to the Port of the Islands.  The wind picks up and we are turned against the current so we just have to ride this out a while and talk to Sunshine who brightens our day and makes us laugh as we hear about all her friends (imaginary) and all their adventures.  After lunch the current shifts and we set to work using ratchet straps and the pulley system for over an hour but we got LeaAnn up enough to travel.  We are pretty exhausted but excited and feeling better.  Now that she is up and we don’t have to tow we feel good about being able to move around, but we will be confined to the boat.  Ben and Natalie said that they would cart us around in their dinghy if we got in a comfortable placet.  We still have plenty of daylight so decide to try out how she will ride and head down to Jewfish Basin which is not far from Key West and an area we loved to visit when we were docked in Key West back in 2021.  The ride down went great and as the sunset is dropping we discuss maybe heading on to the Dry Tortugas the next morning.  We run the generator to cool down a little before bed and it runs great.  

Day Six:  We are up early a little after 6 to check wind and weather and make the decision to go to the Dry Tortugas and meet Ben and Natalie.  We secure items and prepare to leave.  When I (Allie) go to start the starboard engine - Nothing. We checked the starter, battery, gear shift and still nothing.  We realize God is sending us a message and we are not moving today.  Dee continues to trouble shoot and finally realizes the gear shift is not getting into neutral.  Finally she fires up but the morning has gotten away from us.  We are a little disappointed and feeling sorry for ourselves, but decide to make the most of it and Dee begins frying bacon and I make Bloody Marys and we are going to have a great big breakfast!  Dee fills my Bloody Mary with a few strips of bacon and heads down to get the eggs ready to fry up on the back deck.  I love these mornings and we are beginning to feel better about our situation.  We will head back to the Port in the morning.  
As Dee returns to the cockpit area he hears a sound that doesn't sound human but sounds like a moaning distress sound. We both feel like it is an animal.  The wind is blowing 15 knots out of the SE.  Dee grabs the binoculars and we both take a look.  All he sees is what looks like crab pot buoys, but as Dee is scanning we hear the sound again and he sees an arm come up out of the water.  There are two guys in the water,  Do they mean to be there? What are they doing?  We debate it briefly, but Dee is feeling the Holy Spirit move him and realizes that this might be why we are in Jewfish Basin, and why so much has been happening to us over the past few days.  Dee tells me to start the engines and he pulls the anchor. Obviously, we can not drop LeaAnn so the only option is to take Journey.  Both engines fire right up!  We are off faster than we ever have been. We have some shallow areas to navigate, so Dee takes the helm and I begin searching and prepping with lifejackets and lines to get them out of the water.  As we move toward them I begin waving the life jackets at passing boats but they are too far and not recognizing we need help.  Dee is on the radio with the US Coast Guard and hailing traffic but apparently no one has radios on.  As we get closer we lose one of the guys, we are searching frantically for him and feel like we just let someone die.  We head toward the one guy we can still see, but suddenly we hear “Help, I’m dying”, it’s the other guy miraculously there again, Dee makes a decision to head for this guy first as he appears to be in shock.  So hard to make these life and death decisions.  I yell to the first guy that we will be back.  Dee is navigating strong current and shallow areas that could hinder Journey.  We get close to the first guy and I throw him a life jacket. I tell him we are going to go get his friend.  Just rest and stop fighting the current because we will be back. He is begging to get on board and for us not to leave him, but we have to leave him.  We turn back to the first guy and I get him a life jacket and throw him a line.  I am able to tie off the line and pull him in and get him on board Journey.  I tell him to sit down and he sits and doesn't move until the Coast Guard arrives.  I get him some water and then head back up front to prepare to get the second guy on board.  This guy is bigger and still in panic mode.  I get the line to him but he starts climbing up the line and almost pulls me in.  I just barely got it tied off to get him on board. He climbs on and puts our ladder up.  This is just the beginning of his shock that we will have to deal with until the Coast Guard arrives, but he is on board and the line is in so Dee can head back to safe anchor.   When he sees his friend he starts crying and saying how he thought he was dead and he has lost him.  As we are getting back to anchor another boat approaches and tells the older guy that he knows where the boat is and he wants us to let him jump on board that boat.  Dee has to ask the guy to move away as the Coast Guard is on the way and they must stay on board until they arrive.  
Finally the Coast Guard arrives and they both get on board.  The Coast Guard thanks us and they are gone.  Just like that it is over.  Dee and I are exhausted and emotional, but we know we heard the call of the Holy Spirit and we answered.  We may never know what happens with these two or God’s plan for them, but we were a part of their stories and that legacy continues.  
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**Note in the video below the wind and waves in the basin area.  This is what the two guys were up against and Dee and I as we moved Journey around.

We realize that God had to break a lot of things to get us where he needed us to be.  If we hadn’t been there would they be alive?  It takes us some time to decompress from this event, but we enjoy another sunset knowing that God uses all for his good and we saw that miracle that day. 

Day Seven:  We are up early and off to head back to the Port.  We have a great trip back to Naples.  During our stay in Jewfish basin we talked to Sandy and Joe, the soon to be new owners of Fat Cat, Carlos’s boat in Naples.  They hire us both to take the boat from Marco Island to the Chesapeake Bay.  Sandy will be on board and wants to learn as much as possible.  We are excited but nervous about this coming adventure so stay tuned for that blog post coming soon.