January 04 – 10, 2026 | Florida Keys

BIG NEWS: WE HIT 300 NAUTICAL MILES!

We say goodbye to Boca Grande – our favorite Florida Key to date and head back in to Key West as our first stop eastward to Marathon, Florida (in Boot Key).

An unexpected evening in Key West reunited with our buddy boat prompted us to stay one more night, allowing us to actually get off the boat and explore Key West on land.

Then we jump east to Big Pine Key to spend the night at anchor. It was a beautiful, calm night and we were the only ones in the anchorage. The next morning we make our final leg of the trip to Marathon in the roughest waters we have sailed in. The predictions all showed rain but 2-3 ft seas, and we were definitely seeing 4-5 ft seas easily. Josh was cool as a cucumber navigating the rough waters, singing sea shanties. It took a lot more will power for me to be chill – especially after the US Coast Guard circled us via helicopter.

But we made it safely to Safe Harbor Marina in Marathon. Our new home for the next few weeks.

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Excerpt from email sent home to family & friends v. 01.12.2026

Subject: SV NOBAD Weather fam&friends | Ahoy from Boot Key (Marathon City)

Hiya Nobad Fambam! 

I forgot to mention in last week’s email that we had a very special Sunday as a family. We tuned in to home church zoom as Boca Grande Key did not have a church on it (being uninhabited and all) and it was fast Sunday. It was one of the best fast and testimony meetings Josh and I have listened to. People said things that both of us clearly needed to hear. Our homebase ward is so good. Then Raegan asked if we could have our own testimony meeting on the boat, which was a brilliant idea. So after the meeting was over and we closed the zoom, we did our own intimate fast and testimony meeting on the boat. Everyone bore their testimonies. It was beautiful and a memory we will always treasure. 

We spent one last glorious day at Boca Grande Key, hit up the beach again. There was a family visiting the beach too, so the kids finally had some new friends for a couple hours. 

We woke up Monday morning and prepped the boat to set sail motor back to Key West. Our original plan was to spend one night in Key West, one night in Big Pine Key area, and then one night anchored outside Boot Key and then go into our slip that is in Boot Key Harbor. However, as they say, sailing plans are written in sand at low tide. 

As we were prepping the boat to leave, our buddy boat was sailing past Boca Grande (having come back from their adventures out further west). We said hello over the radio. They were headed to Big Pine Key for the night and then would return to Key West…basically doing the ole switcheroo with us. Well, we set sail for Key West, dodging the stupid number of crab traps along the way. It was a wonderful sunny day and smooth sail. We made it into the main Key West channel and radioed into one of the fuel docks to check openings. You gotta radio in first or you may show up and there isn’t room for you. They confirmed they were open so we continued onward thru the channel. Just outside the main channel entrance into Key West one of our props started acting up. Josh lightning fast threw the boat into neutral and before we could even dread the thought of losing a prop again, we look back and see a crab trap tangled up in our prop and rutter. We went from anger at there being a crab pot in the channel to panic mode as we were sitting ducks in a busy channel. Josh jumped into action throwing off his shirt and grabbing his fancy knife (thanks Dad Jackson!) and dived into the water to cut it off. I immediately called Jeremy (buddy boat) and told him what was going on and asked if I needed to alert anyone since we were in the channel. He reassured me Josh should be able to cut if off quick and no need to alert anyone. He was right, Josh was back out of the water, our boat free of the rope and buoys, within 30 seconds and we were good to go. Getting tangled in a trap is sort of a rite of passage, so we can check that off our “sailor rite of passage list”. While I was on the phone with our buddy boat, they informed us they had a change of plans and would be joining us in Key West for the night. Woo! 

And I’ll have yall know, Josh and I made it to the fuel dock without a hitch! We got a bunch of trash off our boat as well as re-fuel and filled up our water tanks. We were stoked! We hadn’t done the fuel dock by ourselves before. So another rite of passage, complete. 

We ended up anchoring with our buddy boat in almost the exact place we did before. Just North of Wisteria Island and West of Man of War Harbor. Our buddy boat had a slight hitch anchoring, as their first anchor spot had them snagging a mast from the ocean floor with their anchor. Again, never a dull moment. With the holiday over, the jetski traffic was way less and we spent a blissful evening at anchor as a family. AND….We celebrated hitting the 300 nautical miles marker! So crazy. We decided to stay another day in Key West – we had time and the weather still looked good for getting to our reserved slip in Boot Key in time. So we loaded up the fam bam and finally went into Key West to explore and stretch our legs. We walked the famous Duval Street, ate Key Lime pie, and walked the historic seaport and harbor walk. 

The next morning we prepped the boat to head out, said goodbye to our buddy boat, and took off for Big Pine Key. It was another smooth sail to the Niles Channel Anchorage. This was quite a high stress anchorage to get too, which we knew based on all the reviews, due to its super narrow channel (it’s a very shallow area). But we chose it because we anticipated it not being crowded, it’s protected and was a good midway-ish point to our final destination. After a couple close calls in uncomfortably shallows spots and again, the crab traps, we made into the anchorage and anchored with no issue. It was a gorgeous sunset night. I will give the Keys some credit – their sunsets are insane. And it was a calm evening. Josh taught the kiddos how to play old maid and BS (although they call it “bull hockey”) and they’ve been having a blast playing cards with their dad. 

In the morning, we took it slow. To avoid the stress of the day before we were waiting as long as we could to get to high tide so navigating would be a tad less stressful. Although the later we waited, the more the oncoming storm would be building. Based on our weather apps, the swell and waves were not bad and it was just wind/rain. As soon as Josh was comfortable with the tide depth, we went through our pre-launch checklist and set sail. The exit of Niles Channel went way smoother and faster than the night before, thank heavens. But as soon as we were out of the channel and out in the open ocean, we headed straight for the building squall. We went from 1-2 ft waves, choppy but not uncomfortable, to 3-4 ft waves, some 5 ft. It was windy and raining but the app was totally wrong on waves and swell. Even checking it in real time it was reporting much less than what we were experiencing. Everyone except Josh got seasick as we plowed up and down thru the waves. Although I will say, we were not the only ones out there. Josh was loving it and he blasted sea shanty music the whole way to Boot Key.  Luckily, his calm helped me, because the kids were not having any of this storm (nor was I, to be honest). We even had the coast guard circle us by helicopter as they were trying to locate a vessel that was hailing them over the radio. It was fascinating to hear them discussing over the VHF. It does sound like they did find the vessel that was in trouble thank heavens…and it was not us. After 3 hours of rough seas, they finally started to calm. Although, then the shackle of our main halyard popped off and part of it landed right by Josh and I at the helm. So I grabbed it before it bounced into the ocean, but the pin was missing entirely. 

After some newbie difficulty getting our boat to the dock at the marina (the current was way stronger than we thought), we finally got tied off and settled for the next few days. Safe Harbor Marathon Marina is awesome. I did an insane amount of laundry and was able to organize our water/anchor lockers out on the front deck. And good news – I miraculously found the missing pin from our halyard shackle. Josh dove right into working on the projects we planned and fixed the bilge pump in Raegan’s room that stopped working a few days ago. It’s so wild to be docked at a marina, instead of at anchor, and part of the reason we chose to do this for a few days is so that Josh and I didn’t have to worry about the anchor or the weather or tide or current, etc. and we could just focus on projects we were having trouble working on at anchor. We are at the very end of the dock called the T-head, so every day we walk by very fancy boats and we wonder what all these people do for a living. They are all very kind and almost every boat has a dog, we’ve made a few friends. But once again, no kids. There’s an awesome pool here the kids are taking full advantage of. Josh has been riding his bike all over Marathon city getting parts and supplies as he plans to replace our water maker and get our battery bank fully installed. 

More good news! Today we also went to church in person! There’s a branch here in Marathon. So we snagged an uber and went to church in person for the first time since we left Port Canaveral. It was so nice. And this branch is way cool. Half of the membership are repeat visitors and even the speakers today were visitors. The newly called RS President said “I just love our little twig and that’s why we kept coming back to this ward every time we visited and ultimately chose to stay here for a while.” Everyone was so kind and we talked to many people. They host a linger longer after every Sunday so we also participated in this. We will probably bring a dish next week as well, if we are around. A member of the branch presidency gave us a ride back to our boat. He is an experienced sailor and offered to help Josh with the projects we have. He was incredibly kind and gave us lots of reassurance and advice. 

We have ended up extending our time at the marina thru most of this coming week. There are some gnarly thunderstorms anticipated for this week and we couldn’t find an anchorage that was protected enough to move the boat to. Our big ole boat is too tall to move over to the gulf side to protect us from the southern winds and we have strong winds coming from the S and SW with lightning. I went and spoke with the dockmaster today, and an answer to prayer, they had a boat reschedule so we could extend to ride out these storms. Paying for peace of mind this week in addition to boat stuff – and to give us a lil more breathing room on projects. We have a pretty solid plan to attack things this week and grateful as always to Heavenly Father for continuing to protect us on this boat. 

I finished posting all our 10-day challenge videos to youtube! Only a couple more boat yard videos before we start sharing the real good, scary, crazy, amazing stuff out on the water. We love you all and are so grateful for you. Please know that. 

Ride the t, 

Capt. Josh, 1st mate Sam, and our salty crew