Come Sail Away

Billy's trip to Florida was capped off by a visit to see his mom and stepdad on the west coast of Florida. During the winter, they live on a sailboat in Punta Gorda, which is outside of Fort Meyers on the Gulf of Mexico. Last time we visited was for Thanksgiving, and since there were more of us and Thanksgiving is mostly centered around eating mass quantities of food, they rented a house for all of us to stay in. It also wasn't ideal sailing weather then, so we ended up not actually going anywhere on the boat.

When Billy told me we were "going sailing," I thought he meant a quick day outing around the bay before coming back to the marina for the evening. I realized I was mistaken when Billy looked at me like I had six heads when I started packing running shoes. "Don't you want to run around the marina while we're there?" I asked him. "We're going sailing...as in we will be anchored out in the water overnight," Billy responded.

OH. That's even more exciting! I had never gone out on a big sailboat beyond the half hour trip around the Elk River I experienced a few times at summer camp, so I was pretty pumped to be going on a true nautical adventure. I captured a few of the highlights on video, including me driving the boat, attempting to blow the conch shell at sunset, and kayaking with manatees.

As you can see, the manatees were much friskier than usual. The most I was expecting to see was a nose come up for air, since that was all I saw last time I was in Florida. And because I had only seen their noses, I grossly underestimated their size. Apparently, it is manatee mating season, so they were in a baby-making frenzy which made for some great nature-watching.

Until they started bumping the kayaks. Usually they are quite mindful of whatever is in the water, staying away from boats and generally being very shy. Not surprisingly, all bets are off during mating season. I was extremely nervous the entire time that I was going to get bumped, and was staying out of their way as best they could. I thought I was floating in a safe zone, until I saw a little nose pop out of the water right next to me.

"Aww hi buddy," I said with delight. Second later, I was much less delighted as I was riding the back of an especially amorous manatee. According to eye-witness reports (aka Billy, his mom, and his stepdad) I was almost two feet out of the water at one point as the manatee breached out of the water and took me for a ride. Suffice it to say, it was the most terrifying five to ten seconds of my life. Unfortunately this was not caught on camera, although I'm told my face was absolutely priceless (I was internally panicking about capsizing and getting stuck in some sort of manatee lovefest that I wanted no part of).

After that, I decided I'd had enough of the manatee lagoon, so we paddled back out to the boat, not before catching some dolphins nearby as well! One of the coolest parts of this trip was all the wildlife we saw up close, and while the manatee experience took a turn for the worse at the end, my (not-so-secret) inner animal nerd was thrilled.

Apologies for my atrocious videographer skills. I'm already unsteady enough without getting overly excited about NATURE. 

This trip was the perfect mini-vacation and I can't thank Jan and Dave enough for hosting us! I don't think I can come up with anything that would have made our trip better...we had perfect weather and had a wonderful time kicking back with family (and a few tropical drinks and beers). I came back feeling totally refreshed, although sad that it meant Billy was leaving.

Now, on to the last two weeks of the horse show! I think I can, I think I can...

Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude

Billy hopped on a plane to Florida last week after finishing up school in Denver. Between his grueling school schedule and my hours at WEF, we were more than ready for a break, and we wasted no time taking off.  We set out for the Florida Keys to see Leah, who works with Billy on Base Directory. She lives on Summerland Key, which is about 30 minutes north of Key West, and was kind enough to host us for a few days. Leah was amazing and we could not have asked for a more generous hostess - or a better tour guide!

Escaping Wellington for our fill of island life!

We picked up Leah in Summerland and went in to Key West for lunch and a quick driving tour of Key West. Spring break was not quite in full swing yet, but there were still plenty of frat bros and people of all ages alarmingly intoxicated for mid-day. From Leah's description of Key West's festivities, most of them involve partial to full nudity, which isn't even illegal in the "Party Zone" on Duvall Street. Fortunately, we didn't run into any of that and instead fruity drinks and yummy food at Sunset Pier before heading over to the Key West Legal Rum Distillery. 

I made the fatal error of forgetting my ID during Spring Break season, so I did not get to partake in the rum tasting. Leah and Billy told me it was delicious though haha. The distillery made their own white rum as well as key lime flavored rum, which apparently was amazing. As a sidenote, I didn't realized that the "key" in "key lime" came from the Florida Keys. Apparently they have their own lime species here! Obviously, we had to indulge in authentic key lime pie, which Leah whipped up for us our first night. I quickly bonded with her boyfriend over his philosophy of pies being split into six slices, max.

Tuesday was our only full day in Key West, so we packed as much in as possible. We started off with a running tour of some Key West landmarks, beginning with the Southernmost Point in the United States.

Next stop was the Key West Cemetery, which I didn't take pictures of because that would be creepy. It had a really cool, eclectic assortment of memorials - everything from very modest to incredibly ornate. Then we turned back for the car before stopping at Ernest Hemingway's house, which was gorgeous. We were running out of time before snorkeling, so we snapped a quick picture courtesy of a friendly tourist and were on our way!

Leah recommended Looe Key, a protected coral reef off the coast of Summerland Key that takes people out snorkeling around the reef. In retrospect, after getting to know Leah a bit, I should've known that this would be a more adventurous snorkeling trip than I originally imagined. I didn't realize we were going out into the ocean, but as the shoreline quickly shrank behind us, it became more clear what I had gotten myself into. Coupled with the fact that our boat captain told us we would see "anything and everything" (read: sharks) out in the water, by the time we stopped at our first point on the coral reef I was pretty nervous.

I hopped in the water with only a slight death grip on Billy's hand. After seeing hundreds of tropical fish immediately upon looking underwater, I was having the time of my life. We saw a ton of very cool fish, including a goliath grouper (think a 200 pound brown bumpy giant) AND a blacktip shark. It was a very small shark and was not swimming towards me, so it was all fun and not terrifying! The grouper actually started swimming at me, so I was legitimately more scared of that than the shark.

The water was beautiful and the weather was perfect. We also had some great company on the boat ride out (not including the idiot spring breaker, who in a fantastic stroke of justice got incredibly sea sick). 

I highly recommended the Looe Key Dive Center for anyone visiting the Keys! The staff is great and super friendly. 

Since Billy and I hadn't been together for Valentine's Day, we had a belated celebration that evening in downtown Key West. We avoided the crazier/more Spring Break-y sections of Duvall Street and opted for dinner at BlackFin Bistro, again on Leah's recommendation. Since I was in the Keys, I decided to expand my seafood palate and try out grouper. Our food and wine was amazing, and the tropical patio behind the restaurant was the perfect setting for dinner.

Great wine and a beautiful tropical setting.

Even better company!

We ended the evening at yet another recommendation of Leah's (she's three for three!), a dessert and drinks restaurant called Better Then Sex. If that doesn't sum up Key West's overall persona, I'm not sure what does! Their signature is chocolate rims on different drink pairings, as well as fantastic home-made desserts. Between the chocolate rimmed drinks and the peanut butter pie we tried to take down, we didn't end up finish everything in fear of going into a diabetic coma, but that's not to say we didn't try! 

The pie tasted like Reese's Peanut Butter Cup filling...and the crust was cookie dough!

We packed as much into two days as we could, so while our trip went by way too quickly, we had a blast. It was great to meet Leah in person after hearing about all the great work she does for Base Directory with Billy and Tony. Her boyfriend is in the Navy and is stationed at Key West, so unfortunately we didn't get to see him too much, but their house was the perfect tropical oasis for us to unwind at.

I've gone on long enough for now, so stay tuned for details of our nautical adventure with Billy's mom and stepdad! Billy didn't quite tell me we'd be anchored offshore, so that was an exciting surprise when we headed out early this Monday! Unfortunately, Billy headed home Wednesday, but I'll be back to Denver soon enough :)