November 21, 2003
Key Largo, FL

Miami Venetian Island's anchorage was a welcome to the underworld of liveaboards for us. There are several men who anchor their boats there all year round for many years now. They don't really sail anywhere and all of them obviously know each other very well and created this interesting group around a local Yankee dealer who is leasing some garage nearby from where he and his friends trying to make a living off naive transients like ourselves selling all kinds of stuff. The way it works is that everybody from the anchorage is trying to convince you that you really need this or that and giving you plenty of good advice mixed with horror stories and warnings. Some of it is indeed beneficial, some of it is to propel a very local Yankee dealer economy. You can acquire some hardware or charts that way if you know what you want and how much you want to pay for it, which is a principal of any purchasing regardless of who is offering the goods, but in this particular place the network of local liveaboards works together to milk your greens quite efficiently, since the second hand goods were offered at the prices of a brand new product straight from West Marine, making the offer smelling somewhat fishy. You can however bargain on some items if you are really desperate but don't expect to get any good deals there.

So much for Miami Beach for us. We are off to the florida keys where a friend of a friend agreed to keep our boat at his dock while we enjoy a couple of weeks on land with our friends from Toronto. Sail that day was great. We left Miami in the afternoon just in time to see an overwhelming law enforcement presence in the harbour. We were told there was some massive rioting downtown. Don't tell my mom...

We spent somewhat of a noisy night at the anchorage with winds blowing hard continuously and raised the hook first thing in the morning to proceed towards Angelfish Creek where we crossed over to the Ocean side to make our way to Rodriguez Key where Randy, describing himself in his email as an old man, was supposed to pick us up and pilot us at the high tide through a narrow and shallow channels to his dock. In our emails we described our boat and mentioned that we fly Canadian flag on our backstay. When we got there we thought we'll make it easier on him and decided to raise our massive Canadian flag I got from Laurie some time ago for my "I'm Canadian" celebrations of my permanent status in Canada. Laurie makes sure that I don't miss my birthdays as well. Thanks Laurie:) Anywho, after we took a dip in the water and made some food there was this energetic gentleman maybe in his forties sailing up towards us in a little sailing dinghy commenting on a subtlety of our flag. That's how we met Randy. That's how we also met Randy's couches, showers, laundry machines, big, soft beds and a very comfortable house. Funny how your senses change after spending almost three months in a very small space with no luxuries.

Randy and Nancy were the party. I have fallen in love with these people right away. They were in love with the things of God beyond any hope of recovery. Within just an hour of our arrival we were able to also meet their close friends who were gathering for their weekly cookout/prayer party. Food was excellent and the company even more so. Johannes and I were thrilled to share such a sweet fellowship with truly great people. We felt at home at once.

Saturday was a day of some cleaning up of our stuff and some chilling out at the house that we now had all to ourselves. In the evening we were able to spend some more time with our generous hosts. We are still blown away how accepted and loved we felt. These guys rocked our world. Can't wait to see them again.

(M)