Shell Key, Florida Keys 24:55.438N 080:40.35W

Five Islands
John & Sue
Sat 4 Jun 2016 00:16
We have a bit of routine on most mornings. Up at 06.20am, listen to Chris Parker at 06.30am then anchor up at 07.30am after a cup of coffee. We headed out into the Hawk Channel again, heading east.

This is one of the longer spans of bridge in the Keys being 7 miles in length.

Approaching our first 'go under' fixed bridge spanning Channel 5, our passage to the back of the Keys and into the Intra Coastal Waterway (ICW). 

Here we go. We timed it so that we went through the channel at slack water.

Yep, should make it. This bridge indicated 66ft vertical height.

We motored through fairly shallow water !.5 to 3m deep - a little like Belize. We headed through Bowlegs Cut then on to Shell Key, a mangrove covered nature reserve island. There were 2 moorings available so we tied up and settled in for the evening. 

A fairly impressive storm built toward the mainland but didn’t venture our way, just provided an amazing backdrop for the afternoon Happy Hour.

The 2 white specs you can see are sail boats.

Specy sight.

Another colourful sunset.

There was one downfall with this place, the mozzies at dusk were horrendous.