Cloudless Day

And I'm not talking about the weather.

Last day and I planned to upload the pictures I took so that I could put together a gallery.  Evidently...not so much.

So the beloved cloud that I always use to get pictures uploaded decided that it wasn't going to play nice because goshdarnit, Sprint 3G was just not fast enough for it.

So 5 am in the morning, I'm desperately trying to upload pictures one at a time.

Finally gave up.

Lesson to self--always have the thumb drive with you.  The computer and the old camera stay on the boat so I wasn't going to lug them back and forth.

Oh well, picture gallery will be forthcoming around December 25th.  I was able to get a few uploaded.

Very few.

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.

Friends don't let friends work on electronics drunk

Except for this particular buddy system, the voice of reason passed out.  Yes, that would be me.  Maybe not reason, but at least a voice.

We arrived in Key Largo on time despite rumors of security protests at airports.  We hadn't picked up the rental car yet, so we ambled on over to the marina bar Coconuts.  There's been, um, some changes, um yeah.  We met the new manager, wow. He's a treat. Pathological liar comes to mind, desparate, psychotic need to be accepted.  Half the bar staff quit within three weeks of his arriving, just to put things in perspective.

However, bartender Archie was there and totally entertaining us with great stories.  Long story short....we got a little messed up. Tim proceeded to nightcap 15 gallons of beer with a very strong bloody mary.

We got back to the boat, grateful to see water on board, started to chug that.

Then that's the last thing I remember.

Here's what happened after I face first into the back berth.

One of the last stages of installing the radar is to put on the connecter ends after running the wires down the mast. Now let's me-a 'splain something to ya.  There's 42,000 wires, all the size of a strand of hair and they have to be crammed, IN ORDER, into the connector and crimped.  Now let me repeat, IN ORDER.  Let me also explain to you that they are COLOR coded. Now let me also tell you that even stone cold sober bright light and magnifying glass Sparky cannot tell colors apart.

Really the wires are not that much bigger than the drawing.

Okay, you got the background now.  So, Special K, face planted in back berth. Compy Comp deciding that, yeah, I can wire this bitch up. I'm doing it.

Well, yeah, he did, but...not so much.  And if you might be confused why not? Read above, thin wires, color coded, smashed into a small connector. How would a drunk guy screw that up?

Anyway, the next morning, after a quick hangover cure breakfast at The Galley restaurant, we did get the radar together and working, of course, since neither of us are a retired radar operator from WWII, we don't know what the hell we are looking at.

Now accepting applications for radar operator....