They spent more than $18,000 on the rent. Every story needs a conclusion. The power went out and we lost some shingles, but the house did fine. There are a few options. But this just seems…different. She has a pretty blue Sunbrella sweater, and hides out of the weather under the helm seat. JOIN NOW →. Copies of all current prescriptions. And then the President announced that all travel by non-citizens from Europe was being suspended. The significant tourism levels in the Florida Keys leads to a higher crime rate. Don't forget to subcribe! No coolant in the oil, no excessive metal wear products. But then someone realized that there are people on cruise ships who would happily pay for the opportunity to do the manual labor, while they just watched and took notes. Is the concern overblown? The weather guessers seemed to be doing a really good job with their models, accurately predicting the path of each storm that headed our way. After arriving in Cozumel, we boarded a van for a trip to the undeveloped eastern shore of the island. Each pair of pictures is taken from approximately the same location onboard, a month or so apart. She’s one of the most valuable crew members on the good ship Eagle Too. And unlike muriatic acid, the usual go-to product for air conditioning and engine flushing, it won’t harm the plastic, rubber and metal parts in your system if you let is sit and soak for a good long while. We still hear the call of the islands in every steel drum or reggae tune. Home marina slip contract. It was a profoundly sad event. We don’t have a lot of travel planned between now and the end of hurricane season, and it’s finally cooling down enough to start spending some time out on the water again , so we recently re-assembled our solar system using these new parts. The Florida Keys are a transient place. I guess the best part of all this is that for less than $20 in parts, we now have a rig onboard that we can use for routine system flushes in the spring and fall, something we’ve never bothered with before. A year in which Eagle Too was pretty much continuously plugged into shore power, since we decided to buy a house last winter rather than head south. If not, then you will be giving up some of the conveniences of the mainland while trying to find something that can help you to pay the bills. Whatever. It’s hard to imagine anything we could add to the Pro list that would offset that glaring red flashing Con. We crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. For others of you, that could be just what you are looking for. If things take a turn for the better, we’ll still be able to squeeze in two or three months of cruising. The majority of these parts were tucked into pockets in the bimini, so I know UV exposure wasn’t the problem. The area was swarming with Magnificent Frigate birds (that’s their name, look it up!) After playing the last hand without a single AC hiccup, we were pretty darn sure we’d solved this particular problem. This isolation works to create a different pace of life for the people who call the Florida Keys home. We always like to begin with the singles nightlife, and here the best spot to try and hook up is on legendary Duval Street. Afterall, our experience isn’t THE way to go cruising, but it certainly is A way, and there’s probably benefit in sharing that. As one of those major anniversaries that end with a zero, we decided to do something special and take a cruise to Mexico. This is the document that issues the official FCC call sign to your vessel. Rhonda has always been passionate about sea turtles. MAR 7-28, 2019/EXHIBITION. Close to the Key West Historic Seaport, Off the Hook is located at 920 Caroline St, Key West, Fl 33040 near the intersection of Caroline St. and Grinnell St. Scroll To Top. With a light breeze, almost every day can feel like paradise. You will want to take precautions with your home and use common sense when handling your business when you start living here. Many of the plant and animal species that you will find in the Florida Keys are found nowhere else in the United States. She had a mind of her own. You’re lucky if you can find a small clinic, and if you do, it’s probably only open a few hours a week, and that’s if the traveling nurse didn’t miss the mailboat that day. One advantage of flexible solar panels is that it’s not a major task to remove them and pack them away. Marinas can be very safe places to live. Something else was wrong. A full game takes about an hour, and the AC purred flawlessly the entire time. Except for a significant spike of layoffs that happened in 2017, the unemployment rate is very low in the Florida Keys and the rest of Monroe County that is on the mainland. Maybe it will turn the corner in a few weeks and everything will be fine. A High Pressure Freon (or High Pressure Fault) code is usually a sign that the seawater suction strainer is clogged and the unit isn’t getting adequate cooling water flow. But believe it or not, these babies had been installed over a YEAR ago! It will be interesting to see what impact a lurid post headline has on our site traffic… 🙂. We asked ourselves in the aftermath what would have happened if we hadn’t bought our house last year. By the way, some of the documents we carry are things we applied for over five years ago, and the process to obtain them may have either changed (almost everything can be done online now) or have become lost to the mists of time. So please don’t ask for guidance on how to acquire this or that particular document. We’re trying to decide whether there’s another boat in our future. What’s in the book? Different in a way we hadn’t seen before. Toward that end, we had already been considering selling Eagle Too, and had recently cleaned her up to take some glamour shots for a possible For Sale listing. Off the Hook Grill Key West, Key West: See 1,431 unbiased reviews of Off the Hook Grill Key West, rated 4.5 of 5 on Tripadvisor and ranked #14 of 360 restaurants in Key West. I just can’t recommend the rigid ones for marine use. And almost every one of them had failed in some way. One look at the water, and instinct kicked in and they were off and running. This combination of factors, and the fact that there is no alternative road, makes this stretch the highest per capita rate of automobile accidents in the entire state. Because we don’t want to have to rely on the bottle labels to prove the drugs we carry are ours, since they tend to get smudgy and hard to read after a while onboard. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Rhonda and I broke out a deck of cards and settled into the salon to play a game of 3-13, a version of Rummy that some cruisers we met in Great Exuma taught us. When you live down on the islands, you will discover that the weather is sunny and hot almost every day. We recently had some friends join us onboard Eagle Too, and we were pleased when they commented that our boat didn’t smell like a boat. A guide to help others who might be considering selling everything, moving onto a boat, and following their distant star. We certainly wouldn’t let it affect our desire to cruise. I’m not saying there won’t be more to Life On The Hook. Since the storm, we’ve dealt with salvaging what we could once she was refloated, said our goodbyes, and settled with our insurance company. If you don’t mind the weather a little bit during this time, then the warmer days that you’ll find here can be quite pleasant. And strengthening. While we have plumbed our drip pan to an enclosed shower sump to be pumped overboard, the pan still gets a bit slimy with muck, which would undoubtedly smell unpleasant if we didn’t do anything about it. The first step was a quick stop at Harbor Freight to pick up a $6 fluid transfer pump. No one has ever asked for it and I really don’t know what purpose it serves. About a gallon of nasty black yuck with embedded chunkies came out the the overboard discharge. Expect to pay at least 10% higher fees for your fuel than you would on the mainland. Florida liveaboard mooring fields give you a chance to live on your boat without having to spend as much as you would on a typical marina slip fee. Back home in Pensacola, we get all excited if 10 or 12 turtles lumber up onto our miles of beach to deposit some eggs. Get a roommate. The Customs officers will always want to see your original documents, but I remember in Mexico the official seemed quite pleased when we said “and you can have a copy if you wish” and presented him with color copies. You can’t put on hold things like dealing with a dragging anchor or thunderstorm preparations or setting up and running the water maker until you feel better. Some may find this lack of a specific plan, and especially our casualness regarding arrival and departure dates, somewhat unsettling. Bartenders are always in demand with the tourism industry, but it could be a struggle at times to pay your bills. Plus they’re handy to have around, because you should probably be using them at home as well in order to keep the condensate line clear on your air conditioning system. So the weather was starting to look pretty good. After a certain point, I had to take over because the hole was deeper than the girls could reach. Anchoring or ‘living on the hook’ is going to be your cheapest option, but it also means that you’ll have to be fully self-sufficient. These two shaft zincs had been installed over a year previously. That marina was completely destroyed by the storm. 7. Unlike the other islands that exist in the Caribbean region, the keys are built from animals and plants through coral creation. So, do you have a boat book? Better to plan for that by buying a boat more easily driven than be forced ashore by the diminishment of age. We then added the ones we’d collected. More Economy. And for that, it goes on the exclusive list of Life On The Hook approved gear and gets our official LOTH Seal of Approval! I’ve even toyed with the prospect of taking these hundreds of posts and condensing them into a book. There is the occasional threat of a hurricane or tropical storm. Even during the coldest days of the year in the Florida Keys, it will feel like a summer day to those who are used to the seasons that happen further to the north. While I can only remember one time when we had following seas high enough to wash a little seawater into the cockpit, I do know she gets a bit wet from rain runoff or boat washing. But sometimes bureaucrats gotta bureaucrat, and they want to apply a requirement that’s meant for ocean-going cargo ships to a small sailboat as well, and ask you to fill out a crew list. They live “on the hook,” meaning on a boat tied to a mooring ball or anchored in the near shore waters of Key West, some living beyond the marinas or the city’s mooring field. If not, well, I guess there’s always next year…. And from now on, whenever we spot a sea turtle while out sailing, we’ll ask ourselves, “Is it one of ours?”. Sometimes a cruising permit is good for longer than the few weeks or months we’re visiting, and if we return, the document might still be valid. how can a couple that look so young and active have been married for 40 years? It takes a couple of years to really start fitting in when you begin to live here. Sometimes though, her feet do get a little wet. Sure enough, our seawater strainer was completely clogged. Because our local Honda parts dealer hardly ever answers their phone, I found the new set of shoes for Gennie on Amazon at a really good price. But since I was poking around her insides, I decided to see if there was anything else that might need some attention. Seawater system to dissolve the internal growth and scale game takes about an hour, and will... The follow up of living on boats off Key West, … in Key West a game. Rescue the slackers need for CBP when clearing back into the country was! 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