May 09, 2012 — Fort Jackson, The Dry Tortugas
Boca Grande is what I had envisioned when I dreamed about cruising: very few people, open spaces, slightly wild, almost completely off grid. Very cool.
Our first stop out of Key West on May 08, was Boca Grande Key. It’s a small key about 20 mi out of Key West. En route, I trolled a lure. As we got out of the harbor channel, I hooked a decent sized Mahi Mahi (Dorado). The fish was about 10 lbs, and therefore a keeper. Mahi Mahi are very pretty. They are brilliantly colored in golden yellow blended with blue-green. Taking this fishes life was something that gave me a lot of pause for thought. He was beautiful. It seemed like a shame to kill him. Denise the daring was given the task of dispatching him, gutting, and filleting him. I’m not quite up for that yet. he was dinner for a couple of days.
Boca Grande is the prototypical deserted island. It has one palm tree and a lot of scrub. That’s it. The water around it was shallow and crystal clear. Denise and Cita got quite excited when they started to see the bottom as we approached. There were two other boats when we arrived. We anchored and headed in for some time in the warm blue water that we’d been craving. This was what I had been hoping for ever since Pearl left Texas.
The next day after Densie whipped up one of her customarily hearty breakfasts, we headed off for the Dry Tortugas.