Just turned on the anchor light - Valkyrie in the Keys!

Hi Brats,

Valkyrie is snugged down for the night in Bahia Honda SP Marina - a great little harbor that is protected and beautiful. It's just a hundred yards to the channel with access to either the Gulf or Atlantic. Marathon is a short run north and Key West is about 40 miles south.

We got here early afternoon and couldn't resist the turquoise water, even though we had a line of thunderstorms heading our way in a few hours. We left the marina and headed north under the bridge into the Gulf and let Valkyrie run across the gorgeous sea with white sand bottom for about 30 minutes before heading back to tie up and get situated. We're amazed that there are only three boats tied up here for the night.

We checked on some local knowledge at a nearby bait shop and the fishing forecast looks good with catches blackfin tuna, some dolphin, cobia, sails, spanish mackeral, sea trout and snapper! It's blowing now and thunderstorms are rumbling through, but it should clear up on Sunday and next week looks good with temps in the 70's-80's and lots of sun. We're both anxious to head out to depths of 150-200' to start trolling. If that fails, chumming on patch reefs or the cuts to the Gulf are options. Okay, after reading this paragragh and telling Rollie I'll post pictures, I'm really afraid that I've jinxed us! What the heck, at least we'll get some sun!

FYI: In "Not For Hire's" album, Mark has a really neat little, four color battery chart that shows percent of charge at different voltage readings. Before I left home, I printed a dozen charts, had them laminated and have been giving them out to C-Brats and other cruisers that I have met. They are a hit and I'm down to my last one. Check it out. It's very useful.

Regards,

Nick and Marcia
"Valkyrie"
 
Keys Update:

The weather has been great the last few days, with sun and temps in the mid-70's to lower 80's, except today with a cold front coming through and quite a bit of rain this morning. We spent the day in the Marathon area, doing laundry, getting some supplies and having lunch at Keys Fisheries; their specialty is a lobster Reuben! Very tasty and it was enough for two of us, with a bowl of stone crab soup for starters. Tonight it will be stone crab claws and steaks grilled on the Magma, a change from daily fish dinners.

Fishing has not been stellar and with the exception of a few king and Spanish mackeral, we've been catching and eating mangrove snappers, sheepshead and grunts. Nothing spectacular, but tasty. Tomorrow we plan on an early start and heading out to the Gulf Stream (now only 8 miles out) and spend the day trolling, using the Honda 8 kicker. Oh yeah, yesterday we found what we call "Puffer City", an area where we caught between 30-40 puffer fish in a few hours. The first few were amusing, but that got old after a while. The we moved to "Grunt City" where almost all we caught were big grunts (12 inches or so) every other cast for another hour. On her last shrimp, Marcia hooked into something big that took nearly 200 yards of 20 pound test before it broke the line!

We've met a few other C-Dory owners in the last week. We had just gotten in from fishing and tied up when I spotted a grey-trimmed 22 in the harbor here. They tied up and introduced themselves as Jim and Delma from Iowa, who have a home on Big Pine Key. They don't get on the site much, with Jim mentioning that he did check it out early last summer. While fishing yesterday we got a cell phone call from Mike and Courtney on Choir Practice, who had trailered down from MD in one long, non-stop trip to launch at Key Largo. They tied up here in Bahia Honda and we had dinner last night and got acquainted, having fresh fish for dinner. They headed down to Key West this morning to celebrate St. Pat's Day in style.

Looking forward to another nice sunset and hopefully better fishing (big, pelagic stuff!) tomorrow.

Regards,

Nick and Marcia
"Valkyrie"
 
Nick I'm glad Bahia worked out for you and Marcia ,As always great seeing you . I hope next time I'll be able to get free.

My brother and I were going to go through Lake O last week we did not make it to much wind on both coasts . Take care Jim
 
hey capt nick,
been reading your post. where should i send my 44 millimeter s&w? normally i few well placed rounds get's their attention! also, if i'm going to send you a care package should i include my 5000 btu air conditioner?
glad you are doing well and will stay tuned for more updates.
pat
 
Patrick,

Good to hear from you. If I were you I think that I would stick with a .44 CALIBER, rather than a 44 MILLIMETER! If I could mount one on Valkyrie, I'm afraid the recoil woild force her back in the water so fast that we would be taking water over the transom!

Say Hi to Linda for me.

Nick
"Valkyrie"
 
dude, i carry a big stick! like any good marine, never leave home without heat, even when you travel to maryland! glad you straighten me out on that deal. i'd still be in the slammer. sounds like you guys are having the time of your life. linda and i are looking forward to taking meaningful time off
from work, as you guys are doing now.
later
pat
ps: must have had a good workout tonight, feel half dead now.
fit and trim, healthy, wealthy and wise!
 
Hi Nick been following your adventure and the GF and I may head that way if we can get all the stars to align (seems impossible lately). Did you leave your tow rig at John Pennechamp? Do you know if Bahia Honda has and area for storing tow rigs?
Thanks,
marvin
 
Marvin,

We have our truck and trailer here at Bahia Honda SP. They have plenty of space and the vehicle is visible from the boat and is in easy walking distance. The only deal is that with both state parks you can only leave a vehicle there if you pay for a dock (both) or a mooring (Pennecamp). Dockage at BH is $2@ft and at Pennecamp docakge is $26 for a small boat and a mooring is about $20. Access to both bay and ocean is great here at BH, the basin is very nice and protected and at most there have only been three other boats overnighting when we've been here. It's dark, quiet(except for traffic noise from A1A), and very private. It's a great place. Hope this helps.

Regards,

Nick
"Valkyrie"
 
Hi Brats,

Just a final update here. Marcia and and I had a great time in the Keys and the day that I picked her up at the airport in Miami the weather turned great - temps in the 70's and 80's with rain on only one day. As noted previously, the big, nasty sexy predatory fish that we hoped for didn't cooperate. Water temps for them to start hitting should be in the mid-to-upper-70's, but were only in the upper 60's due to the cold weather for most of the winter. Bottom line: it really didn't matter; we still caught reef fish and had a great time on the beautiful turquoise water.

The final two nights before Marcia flew home we spent at Coconut Bay Resort in Key Largo, the small motel were we spent our honeymoon and visit every year. However, it didn't seem right leaving Valkyrie in the parking lot after a great vacation aboard her. The next morning, after a night in a king-size bed with AC and cable tv, we both admitted that we wished that we had spent another night on Valkyrie instead, but neither of us wanted to make the suggestion, thinking that the other wanted to go to Coconut Bay. Lesson learned.

I took Marcia to Miami this past Monday and headed north with Valkyrie in tow on Tuesday. I spent a few days visiting a retired CG buddy in Jacksonville and we splashed Valkyrie for a run down the ICW to St. Augustine for lunch at the Conch House, right on the water. I'm in SC now at my in-laws helping reinforce their seawall with Sakrete - 24 bags today! I'll finish up tomorrow.

Also, tomorrow I'll unload food that can freeeze and re-winterize the boat for Ohio temps. I'll head for home on Monday and take Valkyrie up to our marina on Lake Erie for launching in early May.

I had an interesting encounter just south of Savannah on Route 95 the other day. The traffic was stop-and-go and a gold Lexus SUV pulled up beside me and the passenger was yelling something to me. I turned down the radio to hear him say, "Hey! I see you on the C-Brats all the time!" I asked if he had a C-Dory and he replied that he didn't, but would one day!

We had such a good time in the Keys that we plan on a full month there next winter and will store Valkyrie at Mobile East for the winter. I've added a few more pics to our Keys sub-album(p7)and some more neat running shots of Valkyrie from the bridge and sunset shots to our main album, page 8.

Best wishes,

Nick and Marcia
"Valkyrie"
 
(Album, Page 8: ) Great "publicity" shots of Valkyrie !

I suspect you had someone on the bridge near Bahia Honda, but if you want to tell folks you hired a helicopter for an hour or so to get the shots, I won't
tell anyone. It'll just be our little secret, eh(?), and no one will notice!

Best,
Casey
 
Back
Top