Luckily it wasn't as bad as the picture above but it was not smooth. So we finally have the boat on the trailer and are ready to embark upon our adventure. As we are driving on 75 we notice a smell, you know the type of smell where your BRAND NEW car is overheating........aka sign #3. We thought about ditching the boat but once we slowed our speed down the smell went away. We traveled across the alley without any real hiccups minus the torrential downpour, car radio/navigation system freezing, traffic jam but it really all could have been worse.
So we found a cute little place in Islamorada and decided to call it a night. It was a little mom and pop type establishment that was very tight on space. Bob, the owner decides to maneuver our boat down to the ramp. To make a long story short nearly two hours of twisting and pulling the boat it was finally in the water. Every time we would try to back up our car the trailer wheels would lock. This nice patron volunteered his big truck and created tension and finally he was able to maneuver his truck and launched the boat that way, Repeat after me....."it could have been worse." It was really close to being horrific when ole Bob was an inch away from crashing the side of the car on a cement drop off. So let the pictures do the talking........
Yes that is a piece of the boat in Andrews hand.
That night we went to a little tiki bar and pretty much were exhausted and decided to call it a night pretty early. We left Fort Myers at 9am and by the time the boat was put in the water it was 8pm. Needless to say it was a LONG day. The next day we woke up early and went out on the boat. At this point all of the hassle and headache of bringing the boat was completely worth it. The water was beautiful and you could see all the way to the bottom. We had a delicious lunch and decided to move on in our adventure. Islamorada is a great little fishing town but we figured we would head a little bit more south and be closer to Key West. So we go back to our hotel and Bob didn't realize we were leaving and there was no way we were going to be able to get the boat out. All of the guests vehicles were blocking the ramp. So after lots of hemming and hawing and worst case scenarios we decide to drive to public boat ramp and take the boat out that way. It didn't quite take 2 hours getting the boat out but it was not an easy experience. The ramp was made out of sand and of course our tires just continued to spin. After lots of attempts of squealing tires and stares from bystanders we finally were able to muster the boat out of the water. And this is where we said, "it could have been worse". At least we were able to get the boat out of the water.
We didn't exactly know what Key we wanted to stop at and none of them really caught our eye so we decided to go the distance. Once we were 20 miles out I started calling hotels in Key West and every place I was met with the same response, "we are full." After calling 20+ hotels which included motel 6, travelodge and the Bates hotel I finally asked if they knew of anyplace that had vacancy. I was told, "the whole island is sold out." Of course this is right as we pull into Key West. We started to panic and immediately started calling places north which were sold out as well. This was the first time our "fly by the seat of your pants" failed us. In any adventure this is always room for glitches but this was an epic fail. Womp womp womp.
We finally found a gem 30 miles north for 200 dollars a night. At this point I don't think it even mattered how much it cost because Andrew was throwing out terms like we can take shifts sleeping in the car. Did I mention this also happened to be the day of my birthday? So 8pm we rolled up to our hotel and was immediately greeted by a very enthusiastic man who was instructing us where to park. We told him we were probably going to leave for dinner and wanted to detach the trailer. He was like why would you want to do that we have the best food in town? So we obliged and parked our car and asked where we check in and he says upstairs. So I follow this guy upstairs looking for the check in and follow him through a restaurant. I was thinking to myself it was awfully strange to have the front deck accessible through the restaurant. He was like what are you doing? I said, "checking in." He said, "the hostess stand is right over there." I said, "I am checking into our hotel." "This isn't a hotel......this is a restaurant." Oh my goodness so we hightailed it out of there and continued another 1/4 of mile where we arrived at our real hotel.
Let me back up......as we were driving to Key West the first time we drove by this little restaurants and putt putt that looked neat. Little did I know that "Boondocks" would be the place where we would spend my 30th birthday. Yup....it was happening.....we played a game of putt putt and had some kicking bar food. I saw on facebook that an old friend from Naples was in the same key we were so we met him at the second bar in the whole town. It was your classic dive bar. I kept saying I wanted to do something memorable for turning 30. Skinny dip, rob a bank, dance on the bar......you know something crazy. I settled for doing a lemon drop. Bahahahhahaha.
The next morning we woke up and decided to not even bother boating before we went to Key West. Our plan was to check into our hotel and then boat later in the afternoon. We went to hook the trailer up to the boat and Andrew saw the hitch pin was missing. We looked at each other and said, "it could have been worse." That could have been really bad. The trailer could have came unattached from the car and who knows what would have happened. We searched the parking lot for this missing pin and came up empty handed. We asked the locals where we could find a hardware store and since it was Sunday the closes one was closed and the next closest one was 45 minutes away. So we abandoned ship. We asked how much it would cost to leave the boat and we did exactly that. It was completely freeing and at that point we never looked back. Best decision we made all weekend!
Part two to be continued........
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