John Pennekamp/Key Largo Suggestions

[Billy]

Ahoy there fellow Com-Pac-o-nauts!
This upcoming weekend the wife and I will be headed down to the upper Keys. And before you all begin to tease me about going to the Keys during the hottest part of the year, I guess I should preface with, well she mentioned the trip and who am I to say no. I figure going is better than not going.

So we will be heading down Thursday evening and returning Sunday Evening/night. We will be staying at the John Pennekamp marina in Key Largo and plan on doing some scuba diving & snorkeling. We also have some friends that will be joining us for while we are down there. They will be staying at the campsite while we will be sleeping on the boat.
I wanted to know if any of you had any thoughts/suggestions on what I should do while down there. Anything I should bring (besides lots and lots of bug spray)? And any particular dive/snorkel spots I should see?

I plan on posting a trip report once I get back. If anything, this could be a reconnaissance trip for Crazy Carl and any others planning on the inaugural 2014 Florida Com-Pac Rendezvous.

[crazycarl]

I plan on posting a trip report once I get back. If anything, this could be a reconnaissance trip for Crazy Carl and any others planning on the inaugural 2014 Florida Com-Pac Rendezvous.

i've only been to pennekamp once.  i took our daughter there back in '05.  she was 15 and loved it.  i taught her to snorkel at age 5 and we spent our summers in northern wisconsin snorkeling and looking for "indian treasure".

as for the 2014 florida com-pac rendezvous, i'm planning my 1st vacation pick for it, so we'll need to hammer out the dates by the end of the year.

carl

[Billy]

Looks like Chantal has other plans. May have to go with a plan B......

[ssullivan]

its just a thunder storm.

[Bob23]

This is the first I've heard about the 2014 Florida Compac Rendezvous. Is this planned or in the works?
Bob23

[Billy]

Gosh Bob! Maybe you should spend less time working and more time goofing off on the inter-webs.....

http://cpyoa.geekworkshosting.com/forum/index.php?topic=6385.0

[InertBert]

Ahoy there fellow Com-Pac-o-nauts!
This upcoming weekend the wife and I will be headed down to the upper Keys. And before you all begin to tease me about going to the Keys during the hottest part of the year, I guess I should preface with, well she mentioned the trip and who am I to say no. I figure going is better than not going.

So we will be heading down Thursday evening and returning Sunday Evening/night. We will be staying at the John Pennekamp marina in Key Largo and plan on doing some scuba diving & snorkeling. We also have some friends that will be joining us for while we are down there. They will be staying at the campsite while we will be sleeping on the boat.
I wanted to know if any of you had any thoughts/suggestions on what I should do while down there. Anything I should bring (besides lots and lots of bug spray)? And any particular dive/snorkel spots I should see?

I plan on posting a trip report once I get back. If anything, this could be a reconnaissance trip for Crazy Carl and any others planning on the inaugural 2014 Florida Com-Pac Rendezvous.

I realize this reply might be too late, but I hope its of some help. 

There are a few really good reefs within 20 miles of the pennkamp park itself.  Dry rocks and molasses reef come to mind but make sure you get your charts in order.  The reefs are at the edge of the deep water so when you tie up to a bouy, there is sometimes big waves.  The Christ of the deep statue is at a reef near there, which is where you'll find all the tourist dive boats.  It looks a lot like the pictures, unless you really have a hankering for it, the adjacent reefs are probably less crowded.  

There is snorkling at the park itself, an old shipwreck and a few other bits.  Bugs aren't too bad at Pennekamp (although maybe I am just used to worse).  Buy fuel before you pass the racetrack station as it gets much more expensive once you're in the keys.  The marina has some rules about returning after sundown although they've never hassled me when I've done it, probably because they'd all gone home.  

It takes a little while to get out through the channel and the trade winds often blow from the south east which makes getting to the reefs an uphill battle.  If you watch your wind forcasts, you might pick a reef that is either east of the north channel or south of the south channel to be able to run on a reach instead of beating into the wind all the way out there, depending on the wind direction that day.  The upside is that coming home is always really easy.  Be a little weary of shallows around the channels as dredging spoils have left some impassibly shallow spots.  

[Bob23]

Billy:
   You're right..I should spend less time working...and more time sailing! I'm on the net too much as it is...just missed the thread about the  2014 Fla-di-da 'Vous! Looks like fun.
Bob23

[Billy]

Thanks Bert! This is what I was looking for!

And Bob, looks like the 'nauts (spell check changed that to "nuts") are leaning towards Cayo Costa. Don't you have some family near by?

Would love to have you be the buzz kill of the party!

[breeze]

I was drooling over the pictures of the John Pennekamp state park last night.
Would like to know more about this place, sounded like a great place for snorkeling, diving and day sails.
The web site was talking about camping, hot showers, docks with power or moorings.
They have  a ramp on site
Don't have a clue of the cost, could be a grate place to go next year.
David

[Billy]

Well...after three failed attempts we finally made it down to Key Largo. The 1st two attempts were canceled due to tropical storms and the latest due to work. So the wife and I decided to make our 4th attempt a priority for our 7th anniversary. With all the trailer talk about load ratings and such I thought it would be a good idea to repack my hubs with grease and replace my old tires with some new ones. And I got some new leaf springs just for good measure.  Before we left I grabbed my old (old old) spare out of the shed  just in case i might need it.....little did I know.

So now I have two brand new tires and two really old spares. We left Palm Harbor, FL Thursday night around 6pm and hoped to make it to Miami where I had a hotel reserved. Hoped being the key word here. After a quick stop at firehouse for dinner we were on our way.

About 15 minutes later as soon as I got up to speed, I noticed the boot on the bimini was flapping a little more than I would have liked. So I pulled over and as soon as the trailer got off the road I noticed a bubble the size of a baseball in the sidewall of the trailer tire. I couldn't believe it. Only 15 miles on this tire and it was already kaput! I had a spare mounted on the tounge of my trailer that had been there for 5 years or so that I planned to use. Well.....5 years of rust and I could barely get the nuts off. And the tire was flat! so was my 4th spare. So I disconnected the truck from the trailer and sent the wife to get some air. 45 minutes later we were on the road again. I had to make a quick stop in St. Pete to pick up a hand held GPS from a buddy and when I stopped I heard a hissing sound coming from my old dry rotted spare. Turns out it was the valve stem. It was only rated for 45PSI not the 92 that the tire was supposed to hold. After changing a tire for the 2nd time in as many hours we were on our way again....this time with NO SPARE. We kept thinking.....does God want us to go on this trip??? We were now limping along on a very old dry rotted tire at 55 mph. There was no way were were going to make it to Miami this late and no way I would attempt to cross Alligator Alley (85 miles no service) without a spare...Especially at 2AM. So we limped into Naples. 1st thing Friday morning I called a tire shop and was told he could have the tires there by 1PM or I could pay $35 extra and have a curier deliver them now. What would you have done? I paid the $35.
10am we were again on our way, With 2 brand new tires, a new spare, and the old dry rot. Not 10 miles into Alligator Alley I noticed the original new tire was low. I stopped and sure enough, the sidewall split open and it was leaking. At this point I was getting pretty good at changing the tires on the trailer. So far 3 times this trip! And that does not include putting the two new tires only a week before. Alas, 3 flat tires later we finally made it into Key Largo around 1:30 pm Friday afternoon.


You know you are in the Keys when you see the ocean blue concrete divider......




We made a quick stop at the welcome center to get the low down on where and where not to catch lobsters and a quick photo op.....


....and we arrived at John Pennekamp State Park FINALLY!


We checked in at the Marina and rigged the boat.


Let me say they have a pretty good deal for those who want to keep there boat there for a few days, whether sleeping aboard or not. Something like $27/day which includes entry into the park (usually $3.50/person), boat ramp, separate trailer parking, water, and power.

We launched the boat and headed out the long channel into the Atlantic Ocean!




The wind, out of the SSE, was great all weekend.


Since it was a bit late in the day we only made it out to Mosquito Banks and had a quick snorkel/swim.


The visibility was poor here and there were Jellyfish EVERYWHERE! We felt like we were in Finding Nemo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maWVkCSSsq4

After a great beam reach back we pulled into our slip. One of the bad things about Pennekamp's transient docks is there are no finger docks so we had to back into our slip. A stern entry is not the best way to get on and off a boat with a stern mounted rudder and engine but we made it work. Had to make sure the spring line was just right so we could get on and off but didn't want the engine to go under the dock and have the tide come up later.


We freshened up and had a wonderful dinner ashore at Snook's.

Lobster bites for an appetizer (which would turn out to be the only lobsters we would see that weekend   ) I had a seafood pasta and she had a seafood salad. After the past two stressful days, we were back at the boat and asleep by 10pm.

I awoke early the next morning and saw the sunrise from our slip...

I never do really sleep good on the boat...I am always worrying about every little noise. Brewed my coffee cooked some bacon.


and Headed out towards White Banks or Molasses Reef....or wherever the wind would take us....


Another great sail and we found a small rocky shoal with some coral that was marked on the chart but didn't have a name (I'm thinking it was Sea Gardens) but the snorkeling was great! Good visability, shallow (5'-10' deep), and lots of sea life.....except Lobsters....




We did see a Nurse Shark

And he swam off as soon as we tried to get close...but if you look at the above picture you can see him. He was about 7' long. We saw some barracudas too, which was a 1st for us as well.

After lunch on the hook we headed out to Molasses Reef and the water was AMAZING!

But I tried to act like I wasn't impressed.

This was one of my favorite places but it was fairly deep and scuba would have been better here. Still, lots of fish and the reef was in the best shape of all the places we saw. I am guessing because it gets pretty rough and most snorkelers avoid it...




The trip back was a very relaxing broad reach and the end to a good day!


The next day there was a small craft advisory so we changed the plans to head North to Dry Rocks and went for White Banks which is a little closer and supposed to be a bit calmer. After reefing the sails we headed out again close hauled. When we got there it was R. O. U. G. H.!!!!




Probably about 6' seas and easily 20 knots. So after snorkeling for a half hour or so we swam back to the boat and began our trip back. Once we got back close to shore the seas subsided and it was a nice broad reach back to the channel.


We rounded the corner into the channel and switched to a dead run, wing on wing... Still reefed.


Once we were in the channel we rinsed off with my new shower which was awesome for rinsing the salt water off....
.

We returned to the dock at about 1, pulled the boat and loaded her up for the 8 hour drive back to Tampa. All in all it was a great way to celebrate 7 years with my wife. And even though it was a disaster getting down there, it was totally worth it. We are already planning our next trip back.



And here is a short video I took with the camera that shows the wind & water...

[nies]

Great read and pictures, thanks .............................nies

[Koinonia]

great pics, always good to see adventures turn out good!

[reedtg3]

Thanks for sharing.  I will put Pennekamp on our list of places to explore.
Tom, CP 17 SC 377 "Cattail"

[crazycarl]

Great story and incredible pictures!

I've always found the trips with the most trouble are the ones you remember and talk talk about the most.

Glad to hear it ended well.

I'm envious of anyone who can get to the keys in 8 hours!

What brand of camera did you use for the underwater shots?

Happy anniversary!


carl