I finally had an opportunity to pull together some footage of a couple of out dives at Looe Key. Our friend, Melvin (the Goliath Grouper), makes a couple of appearances with his entourage. We were so lucky to have him swim beneath our boat for a while to let us see him and take some …
Blue Turtle Trawler
Looking for Blue Turtle Trawler content? In 2021, we sold our trawler and purchased a 44′ sailboat. All of the trawler content is still available on this blog. All posts prior to June 2021 are below (and following pages).
This is some video that was taken on our way from Fort Myers Beach to the Dry Tortugas from June 27-29, 2014 on 40′ DeFever Passagemaker, Blue Turtle.
Since last week was spent on the dock at Marathon Marina, we decided we want to anchor out and dive for the weekend. Randy did some searching for anchorages and found one at Bahia Honda which is close enough to Looe Key for us dive. So, Friday afternoon we left the dock and headed toward …
The past week here in Marathon was spent on the dock, working (for Randy), catching up on the blog (me) and running errands—getting air tanks refilled, grocery, dive shop outlet for new mask for me and fins for Corey, ordering a new part for the generator, etc. The marina we are staying at, Marathon Marina, …
On Saturday morning, July 5th, we left Key West and headed for Looe Key. Looe Key is a National Marine Sanctuary located 5 nautical miles off of Big Pine Key. The last time I was here was back in the 1990’s with my parents. At the time I was only snorkeling while they dove the …
After our awesome adventure in the Dry Tortugas, we were ready to head into civilization. Well, not really, but it was time to head on to Key West where we would stay in a marina for a couple days over the 4th of July holiday. We left early again knowing it would take us about …
After the storm and winds came through the previous evening, we were hoping for the winds to calm down some. We wanted to take the boat over to Loggerhead Key and check out the lighthouse and windjammer wreck. One thing we didn’t realize about the Dry Tortugas is that the other little islands are just …
After our towing in, Randy continued through the night to get our engine started. We were lucky he was able to get the generator started. After a sleepless night for Randy, he awoke early and began again to get the engine starting batteries charged up enough to start the engine and finish bleeding the lines. …
Since we had another full day at sea on our way to the Dry Tortugas, I decided I would fit in another workout. It was slightly bumpier than the day before, but that only added extra resistance and balance. I also added in some mountain climbers because I wanted to get in some cardio. Only …
On our third day, we awoke early at our Jewfish Basin anchorage with our boat listing to port. We’ve had our boat list before, but since Randy replaced our cracked water tank, it solved the problem. In the past, our listing issues had to do with missing a water tank or taking on fuel. Randy …
I recently attempted my first workout aboard Blue Turtle while cruising. We were headed to the Dry Tortugas and had planned to take 3 full days to get there (we cruise very slow at 6 knots, hence the “turtle” in the boat name). I wanted to be able to stick to my exercise schedule and …
After a restful night at our Isle of Capri anchor age, it was time to head further south toward the Florida Keys. Since we cut our 1st day trip short because of the storm, we had 80 miles to cruise to get to Jewfish Basin in the Keys. We typically cruise around 6 knots, sometimes …