Sailing with Dummies

Notice that I didn't say, Sailing FOR Dummies.

We started our move from Miami to Key West for the winter.  We arrived late Friday night, and decided to hang around Miami/CocoGrove on Saturday because thee forecast called for bad weather.  It wound up being pretty darn nice.

Anyhow, we proceed to go out that night and took after wine like it was in shortage or something.  Now, ironically, did I not just post, DON'T DRINK THE NIGHT BEFORE if you tend to seasick?

Obviously, I don't listen to my own advice.

So, Sunday morning looms and we take off, and the squalls hit turning Biscayne Bay and Hemi D into a huge tilt-a-whirl. However, with Dramamine and Seabands on, I'm still doing well. Husband is turning three shades of green. He goes down below, but feels guilty because I'm up above in full foulies looking like a drowned rat.

We get to the Biscayne Channel and things calm down enough for my husband to regain his equilibrium.  He starts looking at radar and runs up excited that it clear where we are going.  I give him a sly grin and say, it's clear where we've been. Sure enough there is blue sky behind us.

At this point, I start wondering if my spouse is going to render me unconsicious and I'll wake up and we are back in our slip at Dinner Key Marina.

Now on the Atlantic side of the Biscayne Bay channel there's this area called the breakers. Not always fun on a good day, at 30kt winds on your port bow and 3-4 ft waves, you are in for some adventure.  HemiD was NOT HAPPY.  Oh, and you get to do this for about 1.5 miles.  Yesterday, it was the longest 1.5 miles in my life.  I finally turned the helm over to my spouse after I got exhausted fighting the waves.

Fortunately, the rain stopped, I stayed up to help watch the day markers.

Soon, we got on our course and decided to motor down to Key Largo and fly full jib, we were still getting some pretty strong winds from the N to NE and NW and we didn't want to worry about our main jibing.

Then, as things calm down, I realize. Holy crap, I'm sicker than a dog. I went to lay down for awhile, the boat was pretty smooth for the wave action and wind.  That didn't help, so I decided to go back up top and give Tim his chance to rest and as I was putting my foulies back on, I made the mistake of looking up and seeing wave action off the stern of the boat. And I was done. 

So, I'm going to have to learn to live with this so I got up above, send Tim down to rest, and quickly ran to leave over the stern seat to hurl.  Which is the exact time my husband came up with my life vest, saw me leaned over the the stern rail and said "What the hell are you doing?  Looking for dolphins? That's not safe at all! You know better!"

<<sounds of heaving my guts out>>

"Oh."

Points to the spouse for my safety.  Hilarity afterwards.  Because after I got sick, I felt like new. And merrily put my life vest back on and sent Tim to rest.

So the new phrase if I have to bless the waters is:  'I'm going to look for dolphins'

After that the rest of the trips was uneventful.  HemiD did some surfing of 9kts at times, and we wound up making it to Key Largo two hours before we thought we would considering the events of the morning.

However, there was no alcohol (well, one glass of wine) last night, and we are off to Marathon as soon as the tide permits.  Supposed to be a beautiful day.

So, all in all, Tim and I have learned that we can handle a squall, we know that running with bad weather will be our best bet, and sometimes 'looking for dolphins' is the best way to abate your seasickness.

Bahia Honda State Park and Anchorage

So, here's the whole reason why we chose Bahia Honda anchorage.  But a big note:  it's not an anchorage for nasty weather, anything that will kick up the seas and tidal currents can ruin your day here.  Some folks do it, but usually throw out two anchors or try Bahamian mooring (bow/stern anchoring).

Google search the area and sailboat and you'll hear tons of horror stories.

However, if you do your research, it's a wonderful place to be.

The anchorage is located between the 'new' bridge and the old bridge, which was first the Flagler railroad and then the US1 highway.  They cut away the 'old' bridge so that sailboats can come in from the ocean side.

Sorry, there's no entry from the gulf side.  Unless you are a power boat.


However, do be aware of the current, it ranges anywhere's from .5 kt to over 2kt and I'm sure more with full moons and hairy weather.

Entry into the Bahia Honda anchorage.  The right hand span is kept up by the state park
so you have an awesome vantage point, the left span are slowly rotting away.
The road bed is on top and the old railroad underneath.

Post anchoring incident. Sunset thru the 'new' bridge.

HemiD at anchor (no really!) between the bridges.

From the restored span looking across the cut to the old span.

View from the bridge of Bahia Honda. Hemi D to the left, the beach off to the right.
Nice facilities, showers, concession stand and a small marina for shallow draft boats.

Engine Overheats

So, as we merrily truck along to Bahia Honda, Tim happens to notice that we have white smoke (steam) coming out our engine exhaust.

This is not good.

Yes, our engine hath overheated.  So, what's wrong? as we sit dead in the water (no problem, calm day), he starts diagnosing this and that, basically every part of the engine.

Can't figure out what's going on.

Me, not a dumb blond, but not an engine guru either, can only come up with one thing:  Is it the the strainer thingiemajobber?

Very mechanically minded husband just looks at me like I started reciting The Iliad in Latin or something, said, uh, yeah, probably is.

So, up comes a gooey, nasty, filled to the brim with sea grass and other noxious substances of the sea, strainer.  I get to clean it out. NICE.  And I get the a/c strainer also, might as well get them all while we ain't doing anything.

So, we sit there floating our boat letting the engine cool down.

And husband rant commences:  I hate these f-ing dummy lights on the panel. I want a TEMP GAUGE DAMMIT.  Not some stupid thing that lets me know AFTER THE FACT.

Good point.  And note to my fellow boaters, make sure your gauges actually provide you with information, not a binary code for YOU GOOD / YOU SCREWED.

So, finally we start the engine back up and continue our journey, unfortunately still heading into the wind, and so the iron genny needs to be utilized.

We repeat the cool down routine a couple more times, but the strainer is clean each time now, so the spouse starts researching online what could be going on.

(Folks, I just don't see what is going to happen if we ever leave the comforts of having a cell tower within 10 miles)

Finally, we get to Bahia Honda.  And we are about to put on a show.

Day One--Key West to Bahia Honda

After being able to wake up at a leisurely hour (for once) and take one last shower in my marvelous open air shower (sob), we headed out.

And the wind was right on our nose, good times.

So we don't have far to go, so not too worried.

And then this:

Thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening....

Great, we are going to get zorked for sure.  I, being the stinker I am, tell my husband to look for water spouts.  Which made his head pop off....and then run down below to get every gadget uploaded with radar.

However, I've noticed a very strange thing about Keys storms, they will start roaring from the gulf side, hit the islands with a good hefty wallop and then once over the ocean side, they just peter out and dissipate.

And that's what happened again.

So that nasty mess you see above, literally just evaporated once going over the island chain. We got a few rain drops, not even enough to give us a good fresh water rinse.

Mind you, that doesn't ALWAYS happen, but it did this time. And if it's associated with the 'H' word coming out of the east. Fugeddaboutit.

So luckily, we got a fabulous light show and no winds/rain.

But the fun was just about to begin......

Key West ho!

After a long, but pleasant downwind run from Channel 5, we made it to the Key West Bight around 5:30pm.

It was cool to be that boat cruising by Mallory square into the Bight and not the poor slob on land wishing they were.

The captain got himself psyched out a bit in approaching our slip.  Multi-million dollar boats tend to do that to him.  Also, without a working knot meter he's been kinda misjudging how fast he's going.

So, thus, we approach our assigned slip at the Galleon Marina at a fairly rapid speed. As in fairly rapid, I mean. HOLY SHIT!  Our dock master, who looked rather like Lewis Black was trying to remain calm while saying "Slow down there, Cap."  In the meantime, I am wondering how far I will be launched off the bow when we hit the dock.

However, 'Cap' really did a good job controlling the boat and we got her tied off.  I went to go check us in while Tim sprayed off the boat.  By the time I made it over to the dockmaster's office, Tim and already become legend.  We had a good laugh at my husband's expense and in his absence.  And they invited us to share their barbecue later--since somehow in the midst of 5 knot docking Erik and Tim managed to have a full conversation about the non-working Magma grill.  WTF?

By the time I got back Tim had rinsed of HemiD and himself and was ready for a drink.  I wanted to fulfill my personal goal of waltzing into the Schooner Wharf Bar crusty with salt and smelling like a sailor, so we just headed over.  Yeah, that's right, I SAILED here  you bitchesesess.

I kicked off the eve with a Dark and Stormy and from there on out the evening got progressively fuzzier.

Shrimping boat heading out for the night.

The USS Normandy in town.  This is a real f***youup ship with
armaments to blow you out of the sky, off of land,
out of the water or even underwater.

Mallory Square pre-Sunset Celebration

Hemi D in her slip safe and sound.

Dancing with Dolphins

We got our dolphin visit.  A pod of six came to play in our wake for about 15 minutes.  I will never tire of these guys.

We were averaging around 5 1/2-6kts at the time and they would just fall behind the boat and then race forward ahead of us, almost as if they tried to get to the bow first.  Then they would repeatedly criss-cross across the bow.  Very fun, and not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning.

Enjoy the pictures.

 

Thar be Cookie Pirates aboard

We once again get up at the butt crack of dawn to continue our journey to Key West.  We should hit the bight by 5-6pm if all goes well.

Once we get stowed and underway I call first dibs on a nap.

Now--before we went on this trip, I explained to my darling spouse that I was having issues with trusting him when its his watch.  This insulted husband immensely.  However, I stuck to my guns and reminded him that every time I went to catch some shut eye (especially since I cannot sleep on the hook) I would wake up and find him down below dinking with the iPad or making a sandwich or some other nonsense.
So, I beat him down to submission and he said he'd try to be a good boy.

Thus comes the Legend of Captain CompyComp the Cookie Pirate.

No sooner than I fall asleep, Tim gets the munchies.  Realizing that if he gets caught down below will just give me more reason to read him the riot act, he proceeds to stealth cookie acquisition mode.

Except, I had stowed said cookies and he couldn't find them.  So, stealthily he perused the cabin for all my food storage spaces pleading to the gods that I will not wake up.  And I'm asleep in the salon also, not our berth so he's really up for a challenge.

He managed to find his cookies and headed back up top.

When I awoke, he was very proud of himself and of course, being my husband, couldn't keep the secret of cookie piracy to himself and promptly told me.

And yep, I yelled at him again.  While laughing.

No one shall come between me and my cookies!

Skinny water sailing for dummies

Okay, now it's time for the next adventure of the day.

Spouse is review the charts and says, right before this channel marker you can cut through, we have plenty of depth.

Ha. HaHaHa. HardyHarHar.

So, trusting his chart reading skills--quoth the raven, nevermore--I proceed to do what he says.  Then decide that the grounding of the boat will be while he's at the helm. Not I.

He takes over.  Keeps going, I'm starting to see in startling clarity and HD reception some coral head and bottom.

Then, here we go, OH SHIT, hard left, hard left.  That was 4 feet of water, NOT 6.

For once, I realized it would be wise that only one of us on board should be shitting mickies, so I kept relatively calm and started watching for potential grounding opportunities.

Okay, I was privately smirking to myself.  At least I kept us in 15-20 feet of water with my stupid ass stunt. (of which I am STILL blaming RayAutopilot)

So we get out of a potential grounding situation and my darling spouse meekly proceeds to head through the proper channel to the Florida Bay side.

We found our anchorage and nailed it.  And for once, the whole hand signal think worked, and didn't involve use of the middle finger hand signal.

And it was wondrous, the boat was SO STILL.

So, it's time to grill some steaks, have a drink and crash. (it was a 13 hour sailing day--I TOLD you I put forth an ambitious plan)

But, Sir Captain forgets that his duties entail maybe cleaning out the Magma once a decade (or in our case within the last 3 years). It's so clogged it won't start. Then the crack lighter will not work.  Then, just because we hadn't had enough excitement in the last 2 hours, Spouse breaks out the butane torch from his tool box to light the grill.  Oh Lordy, just let me swim to shore now.

Grill never lights.  So grilled steak rapidly becomes Sauteed Filet Mignon d'HemiD.  And I NAILED IT.

Also roasted my ass off down below. BUT I NAILED IT.  Despite the Captain's attempts to coach my cooking technique, which was rewarded with some proper hand gestures of the middle finger, they turned out really well.

Of course, as soon as it's time for bed, the wind kicks up and starts howling. We never moved, but I just can't seem to get the sleeping under anchor down.

It also didn't help that some night fisherman decided that our anchor line was a great place to fish off of and not amusing Tim a'tall.

However, it was all worth it.

Nothing beats a beautiful sunset.

Best anchor image yet on the GPS, still couldn't sleep.

So, today's trip covered 75nm, only 60nm more to the Key West Bight.

A (somewhat) organized plan to sail to Key West

Bright and early we got ready to shove off for Key West.  I set a ambitious sail plan for us.
Which we made.

Stuff like re-reviewing charts and all that?
Not so much.

We hit the road, a little later than planned, but no big deal.  We got through Biscayne Channel with a dolphin sighting to bless our voyage.

Then out in Hawk Channel we deployed the sails and got headed off.

Tim went to bed.  I started sightseeing.

And Ray the Autopilot started heading for the Bahamas. Shit you not.

Okay, my fault was not to review again the paper chart to make sure I was heading for the correct day marker.

And as person on watch, I might have taken note that our illustrious autopilot was going on a joyride.

But. But. BUT.

We were sailing beautifully, the sunrise was gorgeous. The water was beautiful.

And got really beautiful.

And I thinks to myself, this is the beautiful water and blues you see when around a coral reef.

..........Coral......Reef......d'oh.

Shit.  Question: Okay, how can I finesse my way out of this mess before Tim wakes up.
Answer: I won't.

Tim comes up top and I do my best batting of the eyes and "uh, honey, I wuv you, but oops"  He assesses the situation, however, since he's not what we call a quick waker upper, he gets rather alarmed with my slalom sailing through 3-4 MLLW coral rocks.

Some guys, no sense of humor at all.

So, it wasn't really THAT BAD. (He had his moment later in the day, but that's another story)  He found a break and I literally did a hard right and barreled to our proper course and water depth.  Then I was sent to bed without any supper.  Okay, it was still 8 a.m. in the morning.

However, it wasn't like was doing NOTHING!  See?

Going through Biscayne Chanel and the flats before Biscayne Key

Old Glory off the stern catching the rising sun

As usual, the camera can't really catch the true beauty of the color.
But this is when I started to realize that something may be amiss.

The rest of the day went fabulously well, until just before Channel Five Bridge......

Keep reading

Restaurant Review--Bimini Boatyard, Ft. Lauderdale

Just a stone's throw away from our usual favorite haunt the Southport Raw Bar.  (fly KC to FLL, stop at the West Marine just by the airport, go eat.  THEN you are ready to start vacation)

However, I had heard about a nice joint called the Bimini Boat Yard, literally just around the corner (or down the canal) from the Raw Bar.

In a word. Yum.

First of all, any joint that will offer me Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc as a happy hour drink wins a special place in heaven with me.  Tim had a couple (40?) Bahama mamas that were kick ass.

Then the food came.  They specialize in fresh made Bimini Bread. OMG! You get a cavity just looking at it.  It was so good. Our fabulous waiter said that we should make french toast out of the left overs. We didn't get a chance (there was a big boat mouse called Tim on board), but I just probably would have died.

I had a seared Ahi Tuna salad that was incredible. Avocados, mango, champagne vinaigrette. Yes.  Tim had Mahi Mahi wood fired grilled. Also, quite awesome.

So, we may have a new favorite place. Didn't hurt that we had a view of some really nice sailboats and fresh breezes and sun.

The cure for the common seasonal allergy

Get ourself out on a boat, put said boat about 3 nm offshore and sail for 130 miles.

The midwest spring allergy season has not only kicked my ass, but several people I know.  It doesn't help that the farmers are taking advantage of the dry spring to set half the state on fire either.

So, when the going gets tough, the tough get their asses on a sailboat.  I'll gladly trade my Zyrtec, Nasocort and Pulmocort for some Dramamine and seasickness bands. Bring it the f*ck on.

So, the plan, and actually planned out this time.  Heading down to Key West to not only get some long haul sailing practice in, but help celebrate the annual Conch Republic Independence Day, er, Week.
We managed to snag a slip at the Historic Bight (Galleon Marina-review will be forthcoming) for the weekend and then leave her over at Stock Island again (different marina-review to come also).  Considering a hotel was going to cost for two nights what our slippage is, no brainer.

So, as a reward for suffering through the coldest mutha-f*cking winter the Keys has seen, Mother Nature and Father Neptune have blessed us with warm weather, sunny skies and awesome winds.

Then this shit pops up on my Weather Underground page:
Invest?  INVEST?  What the hell is INVEST?

However, I do love the computer model.  It could hit Cuba....or Bahamas....or Bermuda..... or British Isles.  What the hell. It's a crap shoot.

Of course, The Weather Channel is just pissing themselves with joy over a semi-formed low pressure system in the Atlantic.  Between that and the wicked storms traversing the country, it's a weatherman's  wet dream.

So, cheerio. See you on the flip side.  Or for reader's entertainment, possible drunk post.

Shoot the moon-let's make Dinner Key today

So we got up about 5am, got prepped and some food in us and had the anchor up before sunrise.  Still pretty darn chilly, but promises to be a bright sunshiny day.  Finally.  The temp called for up 60s which was going to be positively balmy for us.

So, up comes the sun. Then, this comment from the spouse:  "I've never seen the sunrise before.

SCRRRRRTTCCCCH goes the record player.

What? Never?

Nope.

What about in college and all nighters, etc.

Nope. Never pulled an all nighter, fell asleep before sunrise.  (coughing sounds from me--loser)

Wow. WOW.  Well glad I could share it with you honey."

See, I dig the morning, I can get up early.  Seeing a sunrise is magical.

Now how can you sleep through this?

And some sailing commences

And he's unconcious.....

Actually, I kid, I need to take the first shift on our boat usually to get the sea legs going and the mal de mar tapped down.  But that sun came up, and slowly I watched him ooze down onto the cushions and fall asleep like a big yellow cat in the sun.  I later took my turn, but down below tucked in the lee of the salon and was out like a light.  Funny how 6 kts under sail is a lot more conducive to sleep than a rolly anchorage.

Yeah, it's look where you are going, not where you've been!
Actually looking for our dolphin friends.
One layer of foul weather gear off.

So, the day progressively got nicer and nicer, we zoomed past Key Largo and the seas turned into this magically calm oasis.

Also the wind mellowed out, but Tim wanted to commit to getting Miami, so we motorsailed off and on.  And then the cold and the stress of the anchorage melted away as a pod of dolphins proceeded to surround our boat.  I've yet to get one of them sumbitches to stay still and let me take their picture. Bastards.  But still, Tim and I were like little kids ooooh, look, neat. Ooooo.

Before I knew it, we could see the Miami skyline.  I was ready for a nice hot shower and a well deserved  sundowner (or two, or three...)

Now, getting from the Channel to the Dinner Key channel is a exercise is follow the buoys and watch the shallows.  Oh, and to make it more fun, add anchored fishing boats, and a little place called Stiltsville.  But that's not enough, make sure your color blind and somewhat ADD husband is helming.

The scenario is something like this.

K:"Okay Compy Comp--keep your bearing, it's shallow off to port. About 1/2 mile off you should see the red channel marker, that's where we'll turn."

T:"uhhh. I don't see any channel markers"

K:"that's okay, we still got a ways, but it'll be off to port"

T:"YOU CAN SEE IT? HOW?"

K:"Lasik surgery and fully operating rods and cones in my eyes, dear"

T:"I can't see shit"

K:"Well, how's about we get our sails down, that will help"

(scurrying about as we furl the sails)

K: "Okay, we are about 1/4 mile off, can you see it yet?"

T: "show me on the chart again where it's supposed to be, I don't think it's there"

K: "it's there dammit, #2 16ft tall, has a light"

T: "now how the hell do you know how tall it is?"

K: "read the chart"

T: "I probably should learn what all that crap means, huh.  Are those fishing boats anchored there?"

K:  "No shit sherlock.  Focus. Do you see the channel markers yet. Both the red and green. Don't cut it tight, it shallows rapidly"

T: "Nope."

K: "F*ckit. I'm driving."

I do feel sorry for him, putting the two colors that he can't see on a blue or green background must just play havoc for his brain.  So, he did take back over the helm so I could take pictures of Stiltsville and we played follow the leader with the other boats.  Once again a dolphin popped up to welcome us to Miami.

And I thought Tim would run aground at least once. But we made it through the Biscayne channel.

Miami Skyline

Biscayne channel through Stiltsville

We crossed over the bay to play the 'which channel markers are ours' game next.  I really think there should be a big "Welcome to Dinner Key Marina" over ours. But I don't think the USCG and NOAA would agree with me.  We managed to figure it out, getting a little nervous with the heavy traffic we aren't used to.  However, getting into our slip was a breeze, nice wide spaces between the piers.

Sunset from out slip--cheers folks

Day Two of the Great Keys Artic Sail

Condition improved today. Temp reached the mid-60s and was actually going to warm up during the night.

However we knew we would have to be motoring into the wind, so we took our time leaving the marina.

So we set out and, lo and behold, we got to set sail for awhile.  But soon our course veered Northeast and we were back to motor sailing.

So the decision, do we go inside the Channel 5 bridge for anchoring, or do we attempt a Hawk channel anchoring.  We decided to forego Channel 5 since it was actually windward anchorage and from driving down we still had memories of the Bay side waters kicked up into a frothy mess were still keen in our mind.
It looked NASTY.  However, the winds were supposed to die down.

NOTE: In the great weather forecast provider contest:  Weather.com is permanently in last place.  It seems they update the weather AFTER it happens.  Weather Underground is good, especially if you want the actual compass direction of the wind.  NOAA is pretty good about updating their marine forecast. Weather XM is currently in the dog house, we are thinking of dropping the service, but not until we figure if its an user error.  Tim can download GRIB files on his iPad charts which is nice, but even that hasn't been updated like it should.

Back to the story...during our runs down below to warm up I reviewed anchorages online, bad bad bad reviews about the Indian Key anchorage. But we did our pros and cons and the big pro was that we'd gain about 2 hours by staying in Hawk Channel.  So off we head to Indian Key.

We visited Indian Key once before, it's actually a State Park, Tim explored it, and when we get the dinghy we'll definitely probably visit it and Ligumvitae.  The first time the mooring balls had been zapped by hurricanes, but this time the mooring balls were back. There's three that we saw, all occupied.

So we proceed to set the hook, then get yelled by some dipshit that seemed to think he needed the entire anchorage to himself.  We moved, just because I didn't want to deal with the gesturing and freaking out.
He was set in over 10:1 scope.  We set in about 7-8:1 scope and we got dug in good.

Now that it's over with, I'm not going to say BIG MISTAKE. But....BIG MISTAKE.

Our anchor held beautifully, even with a big wind shift and higher winds than forecasted.  Special K...not so much.  Amazingly I never got seasick like some folks reported. (But that could have been the pharmaceutical cocktail I had going of sinus meds).

But Indian Key is a rock and roll anchorage. Period.  I think it's a combo of little protection, shallow water and a bridge nearby that doesn't provide protection.  Our normal transom slap was more like BAM BAM BAM. Scared the hell out of me more than once.  Our neighbors (not the dipshit) drug.

I managed to make what I called the Indian Key Rock and Roll Paprika Chicken and Rice Stew.

Amazingly--we got some sleep.

Indian Key and one of the moorings
(Don't let the apparently calm looking water fool you)

Marina Review--Marathon Marina

Marathon Marina is the very first marina on the ocean side when you pull into Boot Key Harbor.  It recently changed ownership and they are dumping a lot of money into the marina and attached boatyard.  The facilities are fantastic.  They are cleaning the place up nicely.

The link above will take you to their site that hasn't been quite updated yet. The restaurant is now Lazy Days South and is run by an experienced restaurant couple that has the original Lazy Days in Islamorada.  They also have an absolutely kick ass Happy Hour.  We proceeded to eat ourselves stupid there.  I figgered I burned off enough calories trying to stay warm.

The marina has also cleaned up and painted and they are adding Tiki Huts throughout the property for social gatherings.  They've also purchased a new 75T travel lift, and they have WiFi although we weren't able to get on it.

(Side Note:  We purchased a pay as you go Wifi USB connection from Radio Shack and it's totally worth it. Especially if you need to get on the internet for weather checks, info, or if you happened to be married to a small business owner.....)

They have a nice fuel dock that offers discounts if you stay at the marina and the fuel dock also has pump out.  They are working on fixing the slips so that each slip with have pump out connection also, the slip behind us was working, but ours wasn't.  They just bring the hose to you.

All in all, we were quite impressed and it will be on our list of marinas. Very easy to access from Oceanside. There's a West Marine and convenience stores within walking distance.  Very well maintained boatyard.  Employees are absolutely fantastic--including the fuel dock lady that kept Compy Comp from running aground in the approaching channel.

You can also walk to the Seven Mile Bridge, and the visitor's center has a little tourist train that will take you out to Pigeon Key where the railroad workers for the Flagler railroad used to camp/live.

Ahhhh--Salve for the frozen sailor's soul.
The other side says 1/2 off beer, house wine, well drinks.
$2 off everything else.  

Even HemiD was glad to be tucked away for a bit.

The brand new travel lift.

Fuel Dock and Pump Out

Nice Clean Boat Yard

One of the new Tiki hut social areas

Beginning of the Seven Mile Bridge
New Bridge is on the left, the old bridge (built on the remains of the railroad)
is now open for pedestrian/bike traffic to Pigeon Key

Resident Mooch

Christmas in the Keys

The Florida Keys Arctic Sail-Part One

1. Do not sail the day Key West records its all time record low low and low high. You will freeze your ass off.  (for you trivia buffs: it was 54 H and 48 L--December 28, 2010)
   
2. Motoring into 20 kt winds without a dodger.  See above. Add soggy also.
   
3. Deciding to call Marathon Marina: Priceless.

We headed out from Stock Island on Tuesday. We needed to get the boat out of the slip and up to her actual home in Dinner Key Marina.  We left right at the crack of dawn--because why shouldn't fully appreciate the absolute cold?

I was in full foulie get up.  I had convinced the Spouse that he might want something other than jeans so we had got him a set of foulies.  

BTW--we are both getting heavier foulies in the future. And thermal underwear.

So after two hours of slogging north, boat and humans covered with about 1/4 in of salt spray I said #@$( this, I'm calling a marina in Marathon.  I was not going to do this for 3 more hours and then freeze on the hook.

The spouse was kinda cranky that Mother Nature wasn't seeing things his way. But after we arrived at the marina and got tied off on a lovely side tie. Took VERY HOT shower, changed into clothing that didn't crunch with salt spray his spirits improved greatly.  They got even better when we found out about the Happy Hour going on.

So Mr. WeDon'tNeedNoStinkingDodger has become Mr. WhereDoWeGetADodger.  There were actually quite a few Hunters that the marina so we walked around and discussed what we wanted in a dodger. We got a few tips from folks also.

There's a word I'm thinking of....oh yeah, its BRRRRRRRRRR!

Day Two--Key West Trip

We get up about 5:30am, and start preparing to leave. Nautical twilight dawn starts about an hour before actual sunrise so that we could start motoring out towards the bridge. I am down below when I feel a sudden veering to port by my intrepid helmsman.  So I sweetly pop my head out of the cabin and say WTF?  Evidently, my sightseeing skipper was looking everywhere except at the chartplotter and we about grounded on a shoal. It would have been fun considering we were revved up to 7kts.

It's gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day....

We get back through the Channel Five bridge (its amazing how 10 feet of clearance above the mast can look like 10 inches when going under a bridge).

We once again set the sails 50/50 since the winds were still hanging out around 20kts. We set off. I go down briefly to take a nap, once again marvelling that my newfound sea legs are letting me do that. And then get back up topside so that Tim can finalize where we will stay (not a lot of answers forthcoming on Thanksgiving day).  Soon he pops up all excited.  I think we'll make it to Key West today! So I start throwing in waypoints and calculating distances, we are once again averaging and awesome 7.5kts
We agree, and the fun begins, let's go.

As forecasted the frontal boundary finally dissipated, and the sea settled down to it's normal 1-2 ft chop. Best of all the sun finally comes out and we have beautiful blue green water, clear sky and tunes on the radio. Life cannot get any better than this.

Look at all that dandy equipment, and the 7.3 kts on the speed!

By afternoon, the winds died down to a respectable 10-12 kts so while Tim was taking a nap, I let all the sails out. Another small victory for me. The HemiD is still keeping her speed around 7 kts, and mother nature is being agreeable by giving us a wind shift from ESE to SE, which is very beneficial since we are at the point where the Keys veer towards the West.

It was a treat to see by sea all the landmarks that I have come to know over the years.  The 7 mile bridge is impressive, of course only going 7 kts, we had her company for a while.

Ghost ship passes the 7 mile bridge..

We didn't get a visit from any dolphin, but there were plenty of fish jumping from the water. And we saw a few Man O'Wars. For awhile a frigate bird played around the boat, I think he was playing with the lift coming off our sails.

We wound up having the perfect sail by the afternoon, it gave us time to play with all our new instruments more, especially the radar which we know jackshit about.  The AIS screwed with my head a couple of times while Tim had been napping. He said he was awake for awhile being entertained by my conversations with the instruments and singing.  Of course, the entire time we have to play the lobster pot slalom, which wasn't too bad, but the season has just started. I rolled quite a few off of the hull but didn't actually snag one.

We arrived at Stock Island at a little after 4pm, it was nice to not have to worry about depth and tides to enter this marina.

We pull into our slip and had a raucous welcome crew of our new boat neighbors for the month. With much drunken enthusiasm they help us get the boat tied off. (of which I discretely redid the next morning....)  They invited us to dinner, but I promised (and bought) stuff to make a Thanksgiving dinner and I was going to make it by golly.  I sent Tim off to get the rental car and some wine for me. Evidently, he wanted to make up for the Hamstermobile, because he came back with a Mustang convertible.

So we wound up with yummy mustard herb glazed turkey breast, macadamia nut stuffing (which Tim gave two thumbs up on), coconut sweet potatoes and cinnamon/ginger glazed carrots.  Not to shabby from a galley kitchen.

We ate and then the wall hit us hard and we crashed by 8pm.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a day.

Day One-Headed to Key West

Now, I have this motion sickness thing, it's pretty bad, like I can't even watch a movie with a lot of motion in it or I will throw up. So we get out into Hawk Channel and the wind is blowing 20kts (23 mph). I look at Tim and said, you and I are going to reef, it's not up for discussion.

So we get on course, reefed with 1/2 main and 1/2 jib and we were flying.  I was doing pretty good, but the further south we got the more the seas kicked up. Pretty soon we had about 4 foot seas and this is inside the reef.  We are on a beam reach, so we are getting the waves broadside.  The boat and Ray (the Raymarine autopilot) handled the conditions beautifully.  I had my drugs and seasickness bands on and despite a brief episode of queasiness, I did damn good also. Good thing, because Compy Comp decided that he was more comfortable down below.  Huh. Interesting.  However, he was working on finding us a marina down in Key West.

Throughout the day, seas were getting choppier, but the winds were steady, I let out (yeah, you read that right) I let out a little bit more of the jib.  We wanted to make sure to get through the Channel 5 bridge with plenty of daylight.

The first night stop is tucked in bayside by the Channel 5 bridge.  We've anchored here before, but due to the howling winds that were just supposed to pick up during the night as a frontal boundary passed through, we got further tucked up.  (I tried to get a chart shot in here, but all this crap about legal use, blah, blah, blah.)  I don't have the coordinates because the GPS'sssss are on the boat, but basically head northeast after passing thru Channel 5 and get tucked up past the #2 Red flashing light west of Matecumbe Harbor and before Matecumbe Bight.  Great for the strong SSE winds we were getting, there were 3-4 of us tucked up there that night.

Another lesson learned: Make sure your damn windlass works.  We have an electric windlass, and it got jammed; you can loosen it up with the winch handle to unjam it, so I drove the boat around in circles while Tim tended to that.  However, he didn't lock it back down so I loosen up the anchor and it's free wheeling, which would be good for anchoring right? Not when you are not ready so I'm holding on to it for all it's worth until we ready to actually drop it.

We NAILED the anchoring, got dug in at a good sandy spot.  So it's pretty much sunset at this time, we take our bearings, Tim sets the GPS for anchor drag (stupid GPS anchor drag alarms-i hate them).  We were really at a great anchorage, even though the wind was howling, the water was pretty still. But swinging back and forth on that anchor is kinda alarming. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep this night.

Ye Olde Conch Republic flag is a-blowing

We interrupt this program.....

....for a quick change in itinerary.  So the plan was to take the boat up to her marina at Dinner Key.  However, the last time HemiD was in Key Largo, we always regretted not sailing her down to Key West.  So, we look at weather. We look at each other. Tim starts doing some planning/thinking/planning.  I start doing some navigation/weather planning.  Yeah, we can do it, if we leave today, we'll get there by Saturday. We'll find a marina to keep her in until we can get back down next month to actually get her back up to Miami.

So, here comes the frenzied, get the boat ready to leave, I run to drop off the Hamstermobile.  It's Thanksgiving, so everything is closed, I know we have more than enough food on board. (except sweets, my husband suddenly wanted sweets!) And hit the road, so to speak.

Fathoms, Feet, F****, there's no depth here

The marina in Key Largo is on the Port Largo canal.  The Port Largo canal in turns opens up to what is still part of the John Pennekamp State Park, this means, no dredging the entrance.  So while in the canal you have MLLW of 18 ft, it rapidly (as in 5 seconds) goes to MLLW of 4.5-5 feet (depending on who you ask).  It can be very unnerving. Now, if your keel offset has been reset to zero (meaning it's reading from it's location at the bottom of the hull and not offset from the bottom of the keel), you are really going
to have a sphincter moment.  Thankfully after looking at the charts and tidal situation and doing some quick math. Chart + Tide - Approximate keel length (should) = what the depth guage is reading. It was. And we must have been correct because we never ran aground.

So we took her for a quick spin in Hawk Channel and the old girl was happy to be back at sea.

On a side people suck rant here, it is common courtesy because of the narrow entance and shallow depth to announce your departure/arrive through the jetty with a Securite call. You should also announce your outbound/inbound at the canal corner affectionally called crash corner.  We were leaving and three huge fishing boats come in, did not annouce. RUDE!

Rental Car Bingo

I go over to pick up the rental car today.  Very nice people, I have always liked Enterprise.  However, these smaller offices are manned by one person usually.  So I'm waiting in a line for this guy to fill out all the paperwork involved when you pay with a post office money order (they still do those?)

Anyway, finally got through that (West Marine just opened and I know hubby was going to chomp at the bit in a hurry) so we proceed with my reserved car, quickly get through that, and then the argument starts about waiving insurance. Evidently, the manager thought that you can't drive 5 miles in the Keys without having a horrible wreck. Well, yes, yes you can.

So what did I get in rental car bingo?  A KIA Soul. The HAMSTER CAR!  Yes, bright red. Cue up the commercial music now. So I get into the HamsterMobile and what was on the radio. XM/Sirius Playboy channel.  Can life get any better at this point? So I roll on out in the HamsterMobile, it treated us well, and gave us endless amount of entertainment.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to get pictures taken with my Hamstermobile.