Departure Is Imminent – Again

On October 29, 2017, we posted the very first entry of our travel blog documenting the Adventures of OLOH (see Departure Is Imminent).  We knew at that time that we weren’t exactly sure where we’d be six months later but we had a really good feeling that the unexpected was going to be wonderful.  Isn’t it nice to be right?  We have really fallen in love with what became our winter home and will have stayed a month longer in Key West than expected by the time we head out.  It would be very easy to keep pushing off our departure but staying put for this amount of time has largely served its purpose (there’s always going to be more we wish we had accomplished and seen) and OLOH is itching to run, so we are preparing to slip the lines.  One of the great things to have come out of our stay here is that we are all but certain that we will make it our winter home again next season over an even longer stay.  We’ll have a comprehensive write-up on our time in Key West soon, but for now, a few pictures…

Cruising to The Bahamas on one’s own boat and not having a real schedule to adhere to is the dream of almost every boater we know who hasn’t done it before.  For those who have there is almost a universal desire to return.  We have met so many new friends on this journey who have done the trip and a few who are over there right now, venturing it for the first time.  At the moment, the Bahamas, specifically the Abacos, is our next major destination.

There is much to be done before we can cross from Florida’s east coast to the island paradise that is The Bahamas.  We had tentatively set our upcoming two-month anniversary-in-Key-West day for our departure from the Southernmost city but are remaining flexible with that for weather, potentially leaving a few days later.  We have been finishing up as many boat projects as possible. We’ll be having a mechanic spend some time going through our generator to make sure it is in top form as we will be relying upon it heavily as we hope to spend a lot of time at anchor (oh yeah – our new anchor will be arriving any moment now – more on that soon).  Our diver will ensure that OLOH’s bottom is clean and that everything else below the waterline is as it should be.  And then there’s what seems like endless ordering from Amazon as we don’t know when we’ll next be reliably in one location to receive deliveries.

When we leave Key West we plan to have relatively easy days and still take some time to experience the rest of the Keys.  We plan to spend a couple of nights in Marathon, then perhaps Islamorada before pulling into the Miami area.  We have not yet decided on our point of departure for our crossing from Florida to the Bahamas.  We’ve been getting lots of great advice from people with lots of experience but there are many opinions on the subject which we are still sorting through – and still open to in case you have one you wish to leave in the comments section.  To that end – nothing beats local knowledge and we are compiling all of the “must-visit” suggestions and any other helpful information about this trip, so please contribute if you’ve got something to add.  We love it all.

We’ll keep you posted as our plans synthesize and as we get underway.  Even though the journey has been going strong for just about six months, in many ways it feels like it’s just beginning.  See you out there!

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