THE MIGHTY APPLEDORE

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A highlight of any vacation trip to Key West, Florida should be a sunset sail on the schooner Appledore. Unlike the other sunset cruises you can choose from there, the Appledore is an authentic experience–quiet and elegant and uncrowded with lots of good feng shui ambiance. For $49 you will be under sail for 2 hours. The crew is young–two guys and a gal when we sailed–and very warm and knowledgeable. They serve adult beverages and toast the sunset with champagne while offering a gorgeous fruit & cheese platter to go with. The other ships and catarmarans crowding the harbor were blasting tacky old rock music and strobe lighting and were more like a floating frat party than a sunset cruise. It was really cool to hear the pirate schooner fire some cannons, however! The other wonderful thing was seeing a Greenpeace ship anchored in the Key West waters. I discovered that the Appledore summers in Camden, Maine –a neighboring town not far from our island–and was built in Maine in the 1970’s. We may have to go take a sunset cruise there this summer!