We woke up to a cloudy and soon-to-be rainy day. We had about 58 miles to go to our next stop, The Anchorage Resort and Marina in Key Largo.

This was not “pleasure boating.”

We made our way out of Snake Creek and into the Gulf. The waves were predicted to be ideal, but we did not realize that the rest of the weather was about to get nasty. Ugh. The storm kind of snuck up on us and the rain came down and the wind blew. It was cold and wet and unpleasant. It was almost comforting to have a sailboat traveling near us so that we knew we weren’t completely alone bobbing in the Caribbean Sea. No, there were a few idiots out on the water that day.

The ride seemed endless, but it did end, and the skies cleared for a comfortable trip at the end of the day. We turned in at the Angelfish Creek cut, which was quite shallow at some points, and were relieved to find calm water. We made our way to the fuel dock at Gilbert’s Resort, but we had to wait for a while because there was a “diver” in the water. It turns out the boat ahead of us at the pump had dropped his gas cap into the water. Interestingly, gas caps don’t float. He dove in a few times to try to find it, but he was unable. That really stinks!

Eventually, it was our turn at the pump. Hoo boy! This was the most fuel we’ve needed at one time on our trip. We hadn’t fueled up since Fort Myers Beach and had gone a lot of miles and used our generator a bit. We took on 249.2 gallons in our tank that holds 290 gallons. We needed so much fuel that the price gauge ran out of numbers!

Our marina was right across the river from the fuel dock, so it was a quick hop to The Anchorage Resort. We had some help getting into our slip and were happy to settle in. We had big plans for the week.

The Anchorage is an old resort with rooms that overlook the water or Hwy 1. There’s a pool, some neat outdoor seating areas, laundry facilities, a restaurant next door…and nothing else. Because it’s a special exit off of Hwy 1, there’s nowhere to walk to anything else. To get anywhere you need a rental car, an Uber ($$$ here), or a dinghy.

We didn’t do a whole lot of exploring of Key Largo because this week was about taking care of business. We rented a car so that I could drive to Fort Myers (just over 3 hours) to have a follow up with the wrist surgeon after breaking my wrist in January. Thankfully, everything looks good and I’m on my way to a full recovery. On the way back, I drove through the Everglades. I wish we had time to do some of the activities available there.

We also used the week to prepare for the Bahamas. I know there are stores in the Bahamas, but I would rather spend our time in the Bahamas doing Bahamas things and not grocery shopping. So we provisioned and also picked up some boat parts that would be a challenge to get or expensive to get there.

A diver came to clean and inspect the bottom of the boat. These are things you just don’t have to think about as much up north. Apparently, salt water allows all kinds of things to attach to and grow on the bottom of the boat. Our boat’s undercarriage was a subaqueous botanical garden until the diver went in and power-washed that crud off. Funny story, we had another diver lined up until he realized where we were. He said there were too many crocodiles in that area, so he bowed out. The new guy didn’t care.

We also did ALL our laundry. I took it to a laundromat to make it faster. The washers were $3.50 each and $5.25 and $6.50 for the fancy machines. This was unpleasant. The laundromat was clean and there was an attendant on duty, which was nice. There were two washers and dryers at the marina, and they were much cheaper. It just would have taken forever to do all those loads two at a time.

There was a good-sized West Marine store there, where we went three times. You know you’re a boater when you can name the employees at a West Marine because you are there so much.

Florida City was about a half-hour drive away and a large Walmart, some hardware stores, and other provisioning options.

This week was all about TCB: taking care of business.