Picnic Island, Florida

We left the high life in our wonderful dock slip at Stock Island Marina in Key West, and have headed on to the next adventure!

We filled our water tanks, gave Ruca her last bath for a while, said goodbye to our friends, and departed towards our next destination, Marathon in the Middle Florida Keys. The journey from Key West to Marathon is about 40 nautical miles. To do the whole trip in one day would be very long and exhausting, and we had no reason to hurry. Therefore we decided we would break it into two legs, stopping at a halfway point 20 miles from Key West for one night. We chose an anchorage off of Looe Key, called Picnic Island.

Our departure day from Key West was a beautiful, sunny day, but wind was lacking, so we decided to motor to Picnic Island instead of sailing. Although we love sailing, motoring offers a faster pace, and less hassle because you don’t have to interact with the sails and sheets constantly. However on the other hand, we had numerous encounters with our arch nemeses, CRAB POTS.

These little contraptions include a crate at the bottom of the sea, attached to a line, attached to a buoy. They’re meant to trap crabs and lobsters by commercial fisherman, but they’re frequently known to catch a boat’s prop, causing all kinds of damage, or in extreme cases, pulling the boat down to take on water! They are a constant problem for boaters, and they were scattered EVERYWHERE along our route. Motoring around these nuisances for the whole journey took all our attention and added a significant amount of time to our voyage, and we STILL ended up pulling a line out of our prop when we arrived to our anchorage!

But, to be truthful, we dodged a bullet considering no serious damage was caused by the crab pot line, and we arrived at our destination safely.

We motored into Picnic Island around dusk to make our anchorage, and loved what we found! Picnic Island is a lovely, charming, and uninhibited with an anchorage about 200 feet offshore. The shallow waters coming into the anchorage gave us a scare (we’ve got a 5 foot draft), but we made it safely to anchor for a peaceful night. The water was calm, and the anchorage was hidden from any city lights, making the starry night shine beautifully.

The next morning, we could tell that Picnic Island is popular with locals for day drinking trips, because we encountered several early bird partiers on shore having a hell of a time! We would have loved to plop down in the sand and share a morning beer with them, but we were there for business purposes – to let Ruca potty.

The cute little island was scattered with an array of items left behind by past party guests, like a propane BBQ grill, a few office chairs, and a tree swing. But the most charming of all the left behind items were the sign posts, where folks from all over the world left their mark on Picnic Island.

Feeling unprepared but desperate to leave a sign behind, I took a quick inventory of all the paints we had on board. Sadly, pickings were slim. With some sharpies, and a can of white spray paint, I was able to come up with a poor excuse for a sign. Hey, at least we left some kind of mark on Picnic Island! Next time, I will come more prepared :) .

After hanging our sign on Picnic Island, and having thoroughly enjoyed the charm and scenery, it was time to head out for another day of beautiful sailing. A new destination was ahead in the Middle Keys. On to gorgeous Boot Key Harbor in Marathon!

Thanks for reading,

Quinn, Ben and Ruca

#destinations #Florida