Day 46: Stuart to the Florida Keys

This is it! The last day of my Loop adventure. We cast off at the Burr Yacht Sales marina at 0815 on another bright and calm morning, and head down the St. Lucie River for the final 8½ miles to its confluence with the Indian River/Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. At this point, I'll have achieved the whole point of the Great Loop exercise... to cross my wake.

This happens at 1030 at the famous 'crossroads', and we turn right to head the last 5 miles of my boating journey, down the Great Pocket to Peck Lake (part of Hobe Sound on the Indian River), and into the Loblolly Marina, whence we departed on 14 April. The marina staff tie us up and we're done.

I've completed America's Great Loop... 5,374 miles; 3,009 miles from Hobe Sound, Florida to Traverse City, Michigan via the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, and the Great Lakes (negotiating 39 Locks and taking 48 days, including a forced 2-week delay on the Hudson River), then 2,365 miles from Traverse City back to Hobe Sound via the western rivers and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (negotiating 30 Locks and taking 37 days). So, I'm a Looper and my sister Jan and brother Graeme and his wife Lorraine from NZ, and Rosie Inglis from Benalla, Victoria, are Half-Loopers. And thus, I'm twice as loopy as thry are!

Nina and Leland Louise look after the boat while Preston runs Rosie and I across to the Enterprise Car Rental agency. We have a 4½-hr drive down I-95 and US-1 to Islamorada on Plantation Key. We have 7 days to investigate the Florida Keys. Rosie will fly out from Miami on the rest of her U.S. holiday on 26 November and I'll do likewise on 1 Dec, for Dallas, and on to Melbourne.

Rosie has an old Japanese friend who--many decades ago--was sent to Florida by his employer to learn about the 'space race'. The story goes that he befriended an astronaut who owned an apartment down on Plantation Key. The Japanese chap went to stay there, liked it, and purchased it from said astronaut. Mr Japanese then returned intermittently to vacation, but has not been back for 2 years, and we get the key from a neighbour per prior arrangement. You might be able to imagine what greeted us when we opened the door, despite a very reasonable job of dusting and vacuuming done by the good neighbour.

So, the place may be pure 1971 inside, and stuffed full of household items as if he'd just moved house from Japan to here, but the kitchen works and so does one of the toilets, there are beds to sleep on and a dining table and couches in the lounge, the a/c, lighting, and hot water works too, after I flip the various circuit breakers, and there's still a bit of room in the fridge for our stuff. Importantly, there's a pool and an excellent outdoor cooking area with two gas BBQs and a large community/games room. So it'll do... it'll HAVE to do. Although it's free, I'd have preferred a hotel with every luxury, but here we are.

I just want to see the engineering that's gone into connecting these keys together, including Henry Flagler's "overseas" railroad. Rosie want's to see the wildlife, particularly the Manatee (sea cow).

The Overseas Railroad (also known as Florida Overseas Railroad, the Overseas Extension, and Flagler's Folly) was an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway down to Key West, a city located 128 miles (206 km) beyond the end of the Florida peninsula. Work on the line started in 1905 and it operated from 1912 to 1935, when it was partially destroyed by the Labor Day Hurricane. Some of the remaining infrastructure was used for the Overseas Highway on which we'll travel.

And thus endeth the big day...Read more