Over the next few days we hunkered down on our anchorage waiting for the weather to lift, doing some general maintenance on the boat and 'suffered' through frequent visits to what was becoming our favourite 'watering hole', Dante's poolside bar at Conch Harbor Marina....it featured not only gourmet dining and drinks...but an enormous pool and waterfall in this tropical paradise.

The weather did not improve over the next week and we continued what was now turning into a 'Key West' holiday. The 85 degree sunny days were accompanied by refreshing breeze on shore. It was not much of a hardship but ended our goal of sailing the boat to Chesapeake Bay. We spent the mornings working on the boat including removing the torn jyb sail which involved a trip up the mast in a boson's chair. The afternoons and evenings sightseeing and relaxing. We also enjoyed the 'Happy Hour' at the bar in Kelly's Caribbean restaurant at the corner of Caroline and Whitehead streets...Awesome Margaritas and delicious wings.It is in a traditional historic building which was the original home of Pan Am Airlines.

Finally the winds subsided to 15-20 knots and the small craft warnings were lifted. We decided to sail back to Ft Myers, remove the mast and have the boat trucked to Chesapeake as we had no additional time in the coming months to make another attempt to sail her out of Florida to avoid another hurricane season.

We had a great holiday with wonderful tans and really enjoyed our sailing adventure in spite of all the changed plans.