Jammin Jane Travels: Props, Crocs and a fight! Our crazy run to Key Largo!

Traveling to Key Largo!

We traveled 56 miles (49 nautical miles) from Marathon to Key Largo. We left at 9:00am and arrived at Gilbert's marina (which by the way was dumpy) by 3:30. We traveled on the intracoastal waterway which is referred to as "the inside". It is an inland waterway along the Atlantic coast. It provides protection from the open ocean.

Gilbert's Tiki Bar, this place is packed on the weekends. There is a long dock for boaters to come enjoy some food and live music. During the week it is much easier to get a spot for overnight docking than on the weekends. We are here on a Tuesday, only a handful of people are here today.

Our other option could be to travel on "the outside" which is the Atlantic Ocean. We both wanted to travel on the outside, it has deeper water and it is a faster trip north. But we've never traveled this section of the intracoastal, which takes us through Miami, so what the hay? why not??

Many boats we know have traveled this section and 90% of them have said they rubbed bottom. Meaning they touched the bottom. This part of the waterway is shallow and so we timed our departure so that when we approached the shallowest section we were at high tide. The intracoastal is mostly sand and some rock and coral. All our buddies fared well, except us...we hit something that was not sand! We felt the vibration and knew we hurt a prop. Ben was able to maintain speed of 8.5 miles per hour without any vibration so the trip was still enjoyable, yet we were anxious to get off this shallow section of the waterway. Ben decided he would dive in the water to assess the damages when we arrive in Key Largo.

Jammin Jane docked at Gilbert's Resort and Marina. If you look just forward of our boat you see the mangroves, that is where the crocodiles call home!

His assessment proved what we thought, one blade on our port prop had a minor curl. We are not in a spot to take care of it here, but we called to Hollywood Marina (where we are traveling tomorrow) to see about available divers to fix our props. We are in luck, they have someone to recommend!

After Ben finished diving we took Crocket for a walk and passed a sign, (100 ft from where we are docked) that says we are in salt-water crocodile territory, BEWARE!

BEN WAS JUST DIVING IN THE WATER...100 YARDS FROM THE MANGROVES THEY CALL HOME! I read about these particular crocs, they are very aggressive and territorial. They have attacked kayakers, small boats and the occasional swimmer! Thankfully, Ben was not on the menu today!!

While sitting in the marina tiki bar listening to live music, a huge fight breaks out! I haven't seen a fight since I was in high-school. I did not like it then and still do not like seeing it. Of course alcohol was the contributing factor and thankfully everyone walked away from it. But Ben and I were a bit concerned about what type of establishment we found ourselves in. I guess this isn't something that occurs often here, our waitress assured us. Even still, we ate our dinner, walked Crocket, got on the boat and locked our doors for the evening.