4th of July & Elsa in Key West

Our initial plan was to leisurely travel down the keys, stopping along the way when we wanted. Tropical Storm Elsa, then turned Hurricane Elsa, and demoted again to Tropical Storm Elsa (and later a hurricane then tropical storm again!) had other plans.

In June, we decided to have Ben's mom and, later, my parents join us on our journey. We'd drop off Ben's mom and pick up my parents in Key West on July 3. We started looking for marinas to make the airport ground transportation easier, but all of the cheaper marinas were booked and the others were super expensive and not worth it. We nixed the idea and decided we'd make do in an anchorage. Enter Elsa: a cheaper marina opened up some availability because of cancelations due to the storm. We wound up staying there for 8 nights because of the storm and because my parents rescheduled to come join us after Elsa turned away and slammed the door. (You sang that part, didn't you?)

While we were in Key West, we rented a golf cart for 6, went to the beach, and did some sightseeing. We ate some delicious food and had a great time being tourists. What else were we to do with 8 days in a place we thought we'd spend a day or 2?

We rented this golf cart to get us around Key West.

4th of July was Sunday and Elsa was expected to begin overnight, into Monday. We kept wondering if we'd be able to watch fireworks or if the winds would be starting to pick up and cancel the show. Thankfully, Elsa slowed down a bit and the show was still on, so we had to decide how to get to the fireworks, without a golf cart. Walk 1.5 miles to the south side of the island with 3 little people complaining the whole way both directions and in the heat OR take the tender out and around the island a few miles, despite not having adequate lighting. We went back and forth and both settled on walking, but the idea that we'd never watched fireworks from a boat and there would be a lot less complaining wouldn't leave our heads. A few headlamps creatively strapped to the front of the tender and the back of Ben's head became our tender lights, we put on life vests, I grabbed bug spray and our waterbottles, and we were quickly on our way.

Bear, Moose, & Roo enjoying a sunset cruise on the tender on the 4th of July, on our way to the fireworks.

It didn't take long into our tender ride for me to second guess this idea. The waves were rather large for a tender (2-3 ft.) and this was our first real ride on it. We had taken it for a quick spin in Ft. Lauderdale's Lake Sylvia, but it was just a few of us at a time. On the 4th, it was all 5 of us, at dusk, heading to (and eventually in) the open ocean in an 11 ft. tender. Several times I said, "This is my least favorite 4th of July celebration ever," which says a lot. For those of you who don't know, 4th of July is my favorite holiday. Yes, I like it better than Christmas and Thanksgiving. Something about what it represents, the patriotism, how we got there then (and here today), fireworks and the loud booms and sounds that accompany them (I enjoy this more than the visual show itself!), summertime, friends and family, and no expectations of gifts, all mixed in with memories of my grandparents and prior celebrations.

When we decided we had circled around the island far enough to see the show (probably about 4 miles from our marina), Ben threw out the tender's anchor and we bobbed in the water. Looking out toward the ocean, it looked like Christmas! The green, white, and red boat lights lit up the southern horizon. I couldn't believe how many boats were out there for the show.

All of the lights are the boats lined up and ready to watch the show.

One of the many displays we got to see from our tender.

Key West put on a decent show and then we had to go back the 4 miles to the marina. In the dark. With underpowered headlamps. Ben pulled up the anchor as soon as the finale was over, despite a few more fireworks being lit after so we could start back before the larger boats. After a few minutes of riding back on our own, a zillion boats that were much bigger than us started zooming by, leaving us in their spray and bouncing all over their wakes. About halfway through, when a lot more boats caught up to us, Ben laughed and said, "I feel like a frog crossing a highway!" I didn't realize that I was holding Roo so tight she told me she couldn't breathe! At least she wasn't going to fall out!

Monday, we thought, would be a day spent inside, hunkered down, and away from the storm. We prepared for that on Saturday and Sunday, so we didn't have much to do. Ben had tied the lines so that Cartermaran sat in the middle of our slip and made it nearly impossible for anyone to get onto the dock from the boat. Knowing that the winds could pick up at any point, we just hung out inside the boat.

That night, we put the kids to bed early(ish) so we could all fall asleep before the commotion started and hopefully get some sleep. Laying with the kids after tucking them in made me eerily feel like the mom in Titanic who is shown reading a story and tucking her kids in, as the ship is sinking. Creepy.

I slept mostly through the night, waking up a few times and falling back to sleep quickly, until I woke up around 5:45. I laid in bed and felt the boat blow to one side, then get tugged back by the line and repeat, over and over again. I peeked outside expecting not to see anyone and was surprised to see several cars on US-1. Soon after I got up, everyone else started to wake up too. All of us were surprised by the wind and rain- we all were underwhelmed, as what we were experiencing was less than a typical Colorado thunderstorm. Despite that, we couldn't go anywhere, so we watched Luca, ate some Twizzlers, played a few games, and enjoyed some time together as a family while ensuring our family and friends that we were safe and it truly wasn't bad.

This is our view from the port side of Cartermaran- during Tropical Storm Elsa.

When the rain stopped and the winds were dying down, we decided to go for a walk. The temperature was in the low 80s with minimal sun, so a 1.3 mile walk would be tolerable. It helped that our end destination had cupcakes. We brought the cupcakes to Veterans Memorial Garden and ate them at a gazebo there, followed by the kids running off steam in the grass. Our return route brought us zigzagging through the town and back to the marina.

Key West Cakes makes cupcakes as delicious as they look here- back left: Key Lime, back right: Cookies & Cream, front: Coconut Cream

Throughout the day, during the storm, we saw people wearing raincoats and walking or riding their bikes down US-1, the path we took on our walk after the storm. Clearly this wasn't as alarming for the people experiencing the hurricane-turned-tropical-storm as it was for those hearing about it from afar.