From Heidi Maitland, Victorious 37VT26
We last heard from Victorious as they were cruising this past Winter in Florida. Heidi provided us with an update on their travels and their adventures - ed.
The next stops after Boca Chita were all in the Florida Keys: Key Largo; Islamorada; Lignumvitae Key; Marathon and Bahia Honda. The 3-1/2 foot draft is a real plus for the Victory Tug where the Florida Bay's water depths are 6 to 8 feet deep maximum. Key Largo was a provisioning stop for the us, with a good anchorage right off of a park at the town offices. There is an inexpensive bus that runs every hour, but we chose to use our folding bikes (stored on the dinghy deck) to move about here.
We broke up the leg from Key Largo to Islamorada with a stop in a small bay off Windley Key. Our first morning we awoke to find that sometime in the night our anchor had dragged. We learned our Danforth anchor, which we changed out from our Forfjord last month, is not very good in grassy bottoms. Luckily we had anchored far enough away from the other boats so that we didn't drag into anyone, but from now on we will have to be more choosy about our anchoring spots. The next night we picked a sheltered corner off the north side of Islamorada. Here we used our bigger Danforth, a 35 lb. Fortress, even though it wasn't rigged to the windlass. We were very secure despite the fact that it was quite windy. It was about a mile to dinghy to activities down the shore but we liked the peacefulness and safety of the secluded anchorage. Our inflatable kayak was perfect here for exploring along the shore and around the mangroves. We stayed for four nights and especially loved the beautiful sunsets.
In Islamorada we moved to the Lorelai Restaurant dock for Super Bowl Weekend. Friends joined us, staying with us aboard and sleeping in the main cabin's pull out settee. They enjoyed being aboard and who knows, maybe a Victory Tug is in their future! We spent our days walking, riding our bikes, kayaking and somehow always seemed to end up eating our meals at the Lorelei Restaurant at the head of the dock. With no TV aboard, Super Bowl Sunday found us "die hard" New England fans once again at Lorelai's watching the best Super Bowl ever!
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