TWO FOR THE MARQUESAS: Trailer Sailing the Florida Keys

In Two for the Marquesas, the author and three north Florida friends head for Key West towing two 16-foot liveaboard sailboats behind their vehicles to see if they can sail through the maze of mangrove islands and find their way to the isolated Marquesas Keys, some 20 miles west of Key West. Since they are all new to saltwater sailing Burgess carefully details this adventure as they solve various problems encountered along the way. Then he gives you the basics you need to catch your own free lobster supper as they do quite often along the way.



After that Bob takes you along on other sailboating adventures. In Close Call, he and a buddy spend several days sailing seven miles off Key Largo’s Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park trying to get a certain underwater photograph for an editor. In the process they are almost drowned by daily downpours and almost hit by a maverick hurricane that has turned around and is beating a path to their anchored boat in the middle of the night. Fighting 30 knot winds and pounding rain at 3 A.M. in their small sailboat how do you escape a hurricane that is almost on top of you? Bob tells you how they did it.



Then, if that isn’t enough excitement, the author lets you join him aboard his Com-Pac 19 pocket cruiser, WindShandow anchored in Key Largo Sound after a day’s diving offshore. Suddenly, in the middle of the night a severe storm drags his anchor free and blows him across the Sound at the mercy of the storm with no place to go but to smash onto the rocky shoreline that awaits him. Only one hidden thing wakes him up from a deep sleep with a terrible roar and prevents his untimely end but you will never guess what it is.



Finally, the author gives you some insider’s secret tips about catching lobsters on the hoof and lets you join him and another buddy returning to the Keys for some serious lobster hunting using an underwater sled.



Bob (Robert F.) Burgess, author of the Handbook of Trailer Sailing, and a bunch of other treasure hunting and true adventure books, has sailed small sailboats since he was seven years old. He says that the best thing about a trailerable sailboat is that you can cruise to windward at 60 miles an hour, live aboard your boat wherever you park it, and voyage to any waterway you can reach by automobile. Once in the water it is your own private island afloat and it will go freely wherever you sail it. You get to savor balmy summer afternoons silently sailing warm tropical seas; toast golden sunsets at sundown, catch fish along the way and learn how to cook fresh lobsters slathered in melted garlic butter.... Well, someone’s gotta do it. Here is Bob’s tasty sample of that life style. Enjoy.