All in the evening we kept hearing this crackling sound. It was like a continuous electrical pop or bacon sizzling, but coming from outside the boat 🤔. It was quite curious.

Let me introduce you to the Pistol Shrimp.

This shrimp is distinctive for its disproportionately large claw. A joint allows the “hammer” to snap into the other part of the claw, this creates a cavitation bubble that reaches speeds of 56 mph in less than 1 millisecond, a bubble bullet.

When in colonies, the snapping shrimp can interfere with sonar and are considered one of the loudest animals under water.

So for two days we got to listen to a wild west shrimp shoot out below our boat.

From there we took a Lyft to the Ringling museum and estate. Spread out over 66 acres were several buildings full of circus history and memorabilia from The Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey circus. So fun!

In 1925, John Ringling built a pink, Renaissance-style palace with 21 galleries enclosing a courtyard, that upon his death in 1936, he bequeathed the museum to the people of Florida.

It was incredibly detailed and right on the waters edge.

Later that evening we went to dinner with Sojourn and Rival to this funky Mexican restaurant, El Melvin Cocina Mexicana.

After dinner we hung out on the dock by our boat for docktails.

Thursday morning we went back to ofKors bakery before leaving Sarasota. Coming down the ICW we actually came across the first bridge we didn’t fit under and had to request be opened. We came to Don Pedro Island to anchor for the night.

Friday we went to Cayo Costa and tucked in between the bundle of islands. There were dolphins swimming all around right by the boat. Sojourn arrived and anchored here as well. We made travel plans and reservations for Key West.

The wind kicked up in the evening and it was a pretty rocky night. Saturday we put a stern anchor out to lessen the amount of swing and keep the bow facing into the waves to reduce the rocking. It definitely helped. We took the dinghy exploring into this little cove where dozens of manatee were swimming around. We watched them for a while then went over to Sojourn and taught them the game Wizard.

Sunday we woke up early to head to Marco Island. Along the way we saw a group of dolphins riding under our bow which was really cool! Once we got to the entrance of the of the island channel there was crazy traffic with some pretty big boats creating even bigger wakes coming from both sides. At one point we were stuck between two opposing wakes forming a bowl around us. It was a less than ideal situation, but made it to the Rose Marina. We were going to fuel up before going to our slip but they were incredibly busy. It turns out they are the only marina in the area currently with fuel. The others have not fully recovered from hurricane Ivan.

After cleaning up the boat we went with Jack and Vickie to the Dolphin Tiki Bar. It was apparently “the” place to go on the island. We were told it was 1/1.5 hr wait. We grabbed a drink while we waited….closer to 2.5 hrs. Luckily the food was really good, or we were all just starving, either way, we enjoyed it.

Monday started off even earlier than planned. We were woken up by the fancy neighboring fishing boats alarm which announced “door alarm, door alarm”. In that almost snooty, robot voice. We went over to the fuel dock and filled up to make the 90+ mile journey to Key West. It was a nice clear day and the water was pretty calm.

We made good time and got to the city marina mid afternoon. While Don washed the boat, I took Skia for a walk to the park. There was an entire flock of chickens just milling about.

Skia was mildly interested but they were no squirrels so it was a passing curiosity.

Yesterday we ventured to check out the town. Our first stop was the Southern most point buoy, which was interesting to see just how close to Cuba we are.

Next up was Ernest Hemingway’s House. It is a gorgeous property, with a full walk around upper porch overlooking the lush gardens and pool.

The rooms were filled with memorabilia from his life, the typewriters he used to write his most famous stories, movie posters, photos of him with the actors cast to play his characters, and photos from his fishing and safari expeditions.

Today the house is occupied by many, many cats, who have quite the life of luxury. Even their own cat house that is a mini version of the main house, which they also have full run of.

As it turns out, there are chicken just wandering about all over town, and gives literal meaning to the chicken crossing the road 😄.

We also went to check out Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. It was integral in defending the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s most popular resident today are the iguanas.

Just around the corner from there was the USCG Ingham Maritime Museum.

It was perfectly preserved from it’s date of origin and has a long and interesting history from it’s time in action. Including some recovered items from a destroyed/captured WWII German ship.

The Gold Mother’s Cross was given to Germany women who gave birth to 8 or more German children and came with a letter signed by Adolph Hitler.

They also had a copy of the Christmas dinner menu from 1942, complete with cigars 😆.

After a long day of exploring we were ready for our own dinner! Luckily, there was a BBQ joint right in our marina.

The food was excellent and the view was even better, complete with manatee swimming right below the floating restaurant.

Today brings even more interesting sites to see!