2/24/22 Channel Key, You just can’t make this stuff up!

Thursday, February 24,2022

Another beautiful start to the day

The winds stayed steady out of the East, around 15 kts, allowing us a very nice sail down the ICW. A review of the charts showed us a small key named Channel Key that would provide sufficient protection from the East for the overnight hours. (Captain likes restful nights). We sailed and motor sailed on a port tack. We arrived at our anchorage mid afternoon.  As we were arriving and setting the anchor, I noticed an interesting looking sailboat, coming off a channel from the middle of Florida Bay. I peered through the binoculars and mentioned it to Ed. From a distance it looked like a larger ketch with lateen rigging. 

But it was a MUCH smaller boat, no engine, very basic

We got busy settling in and the next thing we knew this boat was coming in towards the island. It was much smaller than we thought, and on board was eleven people, most were sitting on the floor in the boat. 

As they got close to shore, upsetting a flock of cormorants,  all of a sudden everyone on board stood up!! The boat tipped port to starboard until everyone got into place and the boat settled.  “No folks, that’s not a good thing to do on a boat like that!” We continued to watch this group of people on the boat stand shoulder to shoulder. We couldn’t tell what they were doing. We used binoculars and the telephoto camera to “spy”. We didn’t see any sign of camaraderie or prayer. Channel Key is a pretty small island and there are tons of birds that flock in and out of the trees, a sanctuary. Were they going to study the birds? Take water samples? Is it a special school? Class? Religion? 

It became dusk and we continued to watch. The folks then started scooching  out of the boat into waist-deep water and single file walk over to the island. They weren’t carrying much gear, didn’t see any sleeping bags. Now, this is mostly a mangrove island. It’s a very silty bottom to stand in much less walk. And other than a couple of 20 ft spits of sand, it’s all mangrove roots. Last week I tried to get out of my kayak and step onto an island and went up to my knees in heavy silt, like quick sand! So I know this wasn’t an easy or fun thing to do. 

We stopped watching, had dinner, watch the sunset and made plans for the following day. 

We looked back over to see the last of the group getting back into the boat and before long there were tents and tarps on the boat. I’m guessing all eleven people are sleeping or attempting to sleep there all night? 

And they were just like that in the morning.  Shortly after sunrise, they started folding up the coverings. I did see through the binoculars two 5 gallon buckets in the boat, I presume that was the sanitation station. There were 9 males and 2 females. We were ready to weigh anchor and it was time for us to move on. Too bad, we’ll never know what that was all about and who and where these folks came from.  It’s like they came from out of nowhere. Long Key is the closest land, at least 12 miles to the NE.