Key Largo, Pilot House Marina

We had an amazing travel day yesterday for our first trip back on the Loop.  We left Marlin Bay at 8:45am.  We decided to split the trip up and took the intracoastal on the Florida Bay or gulf side (ICW) to Channel 5 bridge and then crossed over to Hawks Channel on the Atlantic side of the Keys. 

ICW between Marathon and Key Largo

Our wake on the ICW. Yup, that dinghy is still with us ;)

Crossing under Channel 5 Bridge from the ICW to Hawks Channel

We took our time for a while on the ICW since it was pretty shallow and then decided to get up on plane for a few miles before crossing over.  The marina we booked for the night was pretty shallow and all of our navigation aids as well as the dock master recommended, we come in and out on rising or high tide since the entrance into the canal that was .40 miles to the marina measures 4’ 6” at low tide.  So we looked at the tide tables for Key Largo and saw that the tide wouldn’t start going up until midafternoon.  With that in mind, we took our time on Hawks Channel and arrived around 3:30pm.

If you look closely you can see a pod of dolphins.

One of serveral large yachts we passed. This one happened to pass us. It's name was Debbie. We called her "Little Debbie" ;)

Tom did a great job navigating the channel and marina.  We tied up, checked in and Tom commenced to washing the boat and I decided to do a load of laundry.  We ended up eating at the Pilot House right in the marina.  We called it an early night since we were heading out in the morning to Miami Beach.

Dry stack at Pilot House Marina.

Manatees floating in the marina at Pilot House

It was great being back on the water again and big water at that 😉. 
More later from Sunset Harbour Yacht Club, Miami Beach~