Miami Boat Show and Key West

Boats! As far as you can see!

After weeks and weeks of projects we decided we needed a vacation. Some would say living on a boat is a vacation, and we don't disagree. But it is a fair bit of work and, well, we needed to get away from it.

The Miami Boat Show served as a good place to start. Many of the projects left us with lists of things we'd like to buy. Things like a seasucker handle (since we cut in new steps on the back we removed a handle, so a suction-type would help getting on and off the dingy without permanently installing something), a new diving hooka, an emergency self-inflating raft, and an LED searchlight to replace our current one. 

BIG boats, too! Fun to check them out.

We'd been to the boat show before, but it had been a couple of years now, since before Covid. It had completely changed since then; now it was in a new location and clearly had a much higher entrance fee for the vendors. As a result, many of the small vendors weren't there. Seasucker, which had been there before, was missing, and we didn't find any LED lights. Tons of boats, engines, flooring, beds, and furniture -- all the high end stuff.

Despite that we did have a great time. We got to see the crew of High Wind again, Hannah and David. They were seeking some warmth in Miami since their boat was stuck in Baltimore. We also got to have dinner with an old high school friend of mine, Bill, who lives in Miami.

Raw bar is right next to a marina.

From there we headed south to Key West for a couple of days. Mostly we walked around the nifty town and ate pizza, tapas, and oysters (not at the same place, mind you) and sipped Dark and Stormys on the porch of the Rum House. This was our first visit to Key West since a cruise we took 25 years earlier. We even found the raw bar we ate at back then. Still open, but the $9/dozen is now $22/dozen, and that's the "happy hour" special!

Key West gecko hanging out by the boats.

During the 4 days we walked anywhere from 15k to 18k steps each day. Once we got back to the boat we kicked our feet up, needing to take a break!