Wednesday March 21: Calm Seas and a Turtle Rescue

Finally the weather was again cooperating so we could leave the marina and anchor out for a couple of days.

Love You More with Randy and Cindy aboard headed out with us on a perfect day to be able to make sure all of the boat systems are working well. The plan for us is to leave Banana Bay at the end of the month and travel north along the west coast of Florida before putting the boat up for the summer.

We were headed to Little Pine Key for the night but first wanted stop along the way to check out a fishing spot one of the neighbors told us about.


We were going slowly looking for the elusive small coral head which was somewhere! And of course dodging the crab pot buoys which are seemingly everywhere. One buoy looked a bit strange. Like there was a very large amount of seagrass stuck on it

After going past it, Steve and I both decided it may be a turtle stuck on the buoy but couldn't see any signs of movement. But to be sure, we turned around to check.

We radioed Love You More to let them know what we were doing. Cindy did a GREAT job capturing the ongoing drama.

First drive close enough to grab the buoy line after verifying it was indeed a turtle and it was alive! We could see that both front flippers were wrapped with the line. Of course we couldn't do much unless we could bring the turtle to the back of the boat and reach it from the swim platform.

As I drove forward, Steve walked backwards - still keeping the boat hook pulling the buoy along. Finally at the rear of the boat we were able to get a second boat hook hooked on the line around the left flipper.

Steve went down to the swim platform and cut the line around the left flipper. Then the line around the right flipper.

Now all that was holding the turtle was the line which ended up was wrapped twice around the turtle's neck. By pulling the line and basically rolling the turtle over twice, Steve was able to pull that line off of it's neck.


We were a bit concerned that it would be ok after all of the pulling and tugging at the lines entrapping it.

Once the line came free from it's neck, that turtle took off for the bottom so quickly, we knew it was going to be just fine!!

Best as we could estimate, the turtle was about 3 feet long and likely weighed 150 lbs. Good thing we didn't need to get it in the boat :-)

Total time according to the time stamp on Cindy's camera was 13 minutes from start to finish.

For more info about the green sea turtles, click here.

Interestingly enough, even though Steve cut two lines the buoy for the crab pot was still attached to the trap on the bottom!

Having given up on the fishing we continued on to the chosen anchorage for the night.

It was a joint dinner aboard Yesterday's Dream with a great meal of salmon and Key West pink shrimp on the grill, rice and tomatoes.

Of course this was after happy hour on Love You More's flybridge. The stars were out in full force thanks to the reduced ambient lighting as we were several miles away from the nearest town

By the time we were in for the night, the winds were non-existent - which was nice as there were no slapping of waves on the boat side. And it had cooled off quite nicely. Definitely going to be a good night to sleep!


Saturday we moved a few miles to be near the sandbar close to Bahia Honda State Park. Steve and Cindy headed off to do some fishing under the highway bridge there.

It was a pretty good day with lots of catching but only 4 keepers.




Biggest catch of the day though came from Randy who pulled up a 3 foot sand shark - caught in the 5 feet of water in which we were anchored!

Pat and George on Reflection stopped by the anchorage for a while. They wanted to check the boat systems as they will also be departing before too long to head back north. Seems like many folks are taking advantage of the weather to check that all is ready for the exodus from Banana Bay!


After spending  the day near the sandbar, we decided to move to East Bahia Honda Key so we we were away from the highway noise.

The wind had again really calmed down and by the time we anchored, it was time for another joint dinner - this time on Love You More.

It was St. Patrick's day so Cindy had made corned beef and cabbage in the crock pot.

Delicious :-)


The colors at sunset were once again very nice.

Early Sunday morning, Randy and Cindy backed away and headed back. They were leaving the next day to go on a Caribbean cruise and wanted to get an early start on the day.

We stayed for part of the day enjoying the great weather. The north winds were coming in a few days so we knew the cooler weather and winds were on the way.

Steve did manage to have a nice kayak ride as well :-)