Our day of sailing, kayaking, and snorkeling in Key West (with a dolphin bonus).

[markwojo]

I really wanted to share our experience last Monday while in Key West as it truely was exceptional and in looking through the threads about this port, I had not seen anything on the operator we ended up with. We booked a sailing trip on Java Cat with Captain Carla after not being able to book a trip that had been mentioned on CC and doing a google search for kayak and Key West (googling Java Cat and Key West should get you right to her cite). We met Carla at her boat at 8:00 am. She asked us what we were interested in for beverages and snacks and walked over into the market (immediately behind which the catamarman is docked) to buy the goodies for the day. By 8:30 we were cruising out of the harbor. We sailed for 45 minutes to a mangrove island that we set anchor a little ways away from. We then got loaded into sea kayaks and paddled over and all about for probably an hour (A large group of kayakers came around the same island and I would quess where part of a cruise sponsered excursion). When we returned to the boat, while we had been away, Capt Carla had cut up a fresh pineapple and pulled out a bottle of wine both of which hit the spot after having worked a bit with the kayaking.

 

We then sailed a little ways away from the island and set anchor in an area with some coral to snorkel. I was the only one brave (or foolish) enough to jump in and snorkel as it was a pretty chilly day. I lasted for about 20-25 minutes before shivering while still in the water was my cue that it was probably time to call it a day for the snorkeling. Not anything particularly great about the snorkeling as the quantity and variety of fish was pretty limited (when compared to our stop the next day in Cozumel). The coral formations were cool and looked like giant vases at the bottom of the ocean and the highlight was swimming up over a small stingray and following him around for about five minutes. When I finished up and got back on the boat, she had cut up some fresh bread and set out avacado dip and a chicken jerky dip to accompany the fresh pineapple from earlier all of which was delicious.

 

The rest of our time was to be spent slowly sailing back in until we ran across a pod of dolphins (I had spotted a pair on the way out, but my wife had missed seeing them which dissapointed her). We circled around in that area for a while taking in the scene of 8 or 9 dolphins buzzing around a sand bar area apparently chasing some of their own early afternoon snacks. At ths point we had already been out longer than I expected and Capt Carla was ready to keep sailing for a while longer with us. We decided it was time to head back as we wanted to hit just a little bit of shopping before the ship would leave as we were only in port until 3.

 

Despite it being a brisk and awefully windy day (lots of white caps), we had a great time. For $90 each, we had the boat with only the captain to ourselves for the entire morning which relative to some of the excursions offered by the cruiseline seemed like quite a bargain for basically a private tour (she can only take 5 or 6 passangers max I believe).