At Anchor in Tarpon Basin

This is Alex, Joann and Adrian, they live on their 27 foot boat in No Name Harbor for the Winter while their Husband/Dad (Alister) works as a captain aboard a 103 foot motor yacht. Joann says they are camping out for the winter to be close to him. Joann gave us a ride in her car to get our generator and some supplies. She is home schooling Alex and works very hard doing all the chores for daily survival, laundry, supplies and water to name a few. They have no power or running water or head aboard. They chose to remove tanks in lieu of storage space. It was fun being with her and the boys, she is 4 years older than our oldest daughter and the boys are the same age as our Grandsons. If they stay in No Name we will probably see them on our return trip.

Yesterday after lunch we pulled up anchor and motored though Jewfish Creek (Key Largo bridge) and stopped at Gilberts for fuel and water. Of course we forgot to toss the garbage. Well isn't that what the garbage scow (dinghy) is for. We arrived in Tarpon Basin to anchor about 4 PM. Unlike the night before when there was one boat with us, we were with 7 other boats, 5 sail and 2 trawlers. The winds continued to blow and increase late in the evening but we had visuals with the anchor lights on the other boats for our postion. We were also fortunate with no wind direction shifts. This made for an easier night but our sleep was still broken to make many checks on postion during the night. Three of the boats left early this morning the rest of us are staying put to wait out the Noreasterly that is blowing though. The wind is to come out of the east by tomorrow and we will have protection to anchor in Islamorada off Lorelei's. We will see if the weather prediction is correct and decide tomorrow morning to move or not. By Sunday the wind is to ease up and we may be able to go out Channel 5 and sail down the coast inside the reef. We are in no hurry but it woud be nice to have calmer winds.