The Moorings Village :
FL Keys Coolest Resort
The Best Beach and Dinning Hands Down in the FL Keys!
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for Florida bay back country guides, off shore charter boats like the Kalex with Captain Alex Adler, boat rentals, and the 65-foot air-conditioned Miss Islamorada, the marina’s yellowtail partyboat that fishes the reefs daily (9:30am-4:30pm). Stanczyk discovered daytime swordfishing offshore in the last decade and his son Nick recently pulled in a specimen weighing a hefty 450 pounds. Stanczyk even offers reasonably priced motel rooms, “tackleshop” efficiencies, a penthouse, beach house and a houseboat for fishing diehards who insist on boarding one of the 44 boats at the crack of dawn.
Contact:
World Famous Bud N' Mary's Sportfishing Marina
Islamorada, Florida Keys
1-800-742-7945
Dry Tortugas
For spectacular fishing further west, it’s a short drive to Stock Island just off Key West. Here, Captain Yuri Vakselis (born in Belorussia!) takes up to six anglers on the “Lauren Jeanne,” his super comfortable 50’ by 22’ catamaran with air conditioned berths, main dining salon, kitchen, hot shower stall with marine toilet, and access to perhaps North America’s greatest tropical reef fishing for grouper and snapper. Captain Yuri explores the waters off the Marquesas and the Dry Tortugas, the site of Fort Jefferson, the largest all-masonry fortification in this hemisphere where Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg, was imprisoned and later pardoned after Lincoln's assassination. With Yuri I caught my first gorgeous genuine red snappers in 300 feet of water one eventful late afternoon off the Marquesas a few years ago.
Bonus Day Trip
The next day I drove north to Key Largo and fished all day for yellowtail with Captain Chan on the Gulfstream from Ocean Bay Marina (MM 99.5, ocean side). Using a technique called “sandballing” (a mix of oats, fish oil and sand) we drifted our baits in the slick off the stern and caught large yellowtail. Back at The Moorings we cooked the filets, drank some white wine, and watched the “purple” sunset. Hubert Baudoin claims he is trying to recreate what storms and development have erased, to re-imagine the Keys before the invasion of concrete, neon signs and other kinds of pollution. “Peace and quiet is becoming scarce,” he says, “and we are trying to preserve it.” And for a brief moment that seems very possible.
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