Thrusday, 6/17: Day Minus Three. We get on the road at about 1PM. According to Mapquest it is 1500 miles, 24
hours driving to our Saturday destination at my brother Ric’s home at
By 1030 PM we at
After asking permission, we spend the night in a super WalMart parking lot in a strip mall, right next to a big RV with the generator and AC humming. Other than us two, there are no other overnight campers. No showers, but we figure we’ll have to get used to it on the cruise anyway.
Friday 6/18. Day minus Two. We
awake a little after 8:00 AM to find the parking lot, which was deserted the
night before, is now full of cars and we are virtually surrounded. We never heard them come in. Shortly we are on the road. The day is long and uneventlful and by 9 PM
we have decided to stop at
Saturday 6/19: Day
minus One. At least we start off with a hot shower. Around 3PM we pull into Ric’s. There’s one more part I need and I don’t want
to trust that it will be in stock at the West Marine in
Sunday 6/20 Day one. Launch day!
I call John DeFino and we arrange to meet at the hotel in nearby
Nobody has checked the best route, but it’s theoretcially a straight shot down US1. We slog down US1 for while; it’s Sunday, lots of traffic, lots of stoplights. I know the gas mileage is killing me; I believe I can see the needle move every time we leave a stoplight. We’re going nowhere fast and at this rate a four and a half hour trip could easily stretch to more than six hours. I suggest and everyone agrees it it would be better to head slightly out of our way to the west and pick up the FL turnpike.
We do this and the start to make some real progress. Way better except for the tolls. The first time through a toll booth I follow Olivia II, with a single axle trailer, and the toll taker mistakenly charges me the same three axle rate instead of four. Saved a dollar, hot damn! I continue this strategy hoping the savings will continue as well, but the other toll takers are sharper and that’s the last time it happens. Following Olivia II, I notice the trailer wheels have visible negative camber and at speed the trailer wanders side to side quite a lot. No wonder Kelly doesn’t like to drive it! I resolve to ask Jack how much stuff he has loaded on the boat, but never get around to it.
We have decided to stop for final provisioning at
We finally make it to the marina around 5:30PM. Several boats are already in the water or waiting to launch, a few have already left for the anchorage. We’re the last four. Stopping to talk, renewing old aqcuantainces, it’s damn hot and humid and requires breaks, it takes me well over an hour to get rigged, loaded and ready to launch. It’s approaching dusk, and still nobody appears unduly concerned. I mention it to somebody who shall remain nameless (because I forget who, not because I’m trying to protect the innocent) who I swear, assures me everything is fine as it will remain light until nearly 10PM. Four of us convoy over to park the trailers, stop at the grocery store for ice, and by the time we get back it’s after 8:30 and nearly dark.
Within 15 minutes it’s pitch black; so much for light until 10PM, and my
all day worrying becomes justified. There
are six boats still at the
I check my running and masthead lights but can get the masthead light to work. Damn! It worked fine the day before we started the trip! I decide I’ll have to wait until daylight to fix it. (It’s not until I’ve motored all the way to the anchorage in the dark, without it that I realize I’ve neglected to turn on the separate switch that controls it. Way to go, moron!)
Everybody seems to be just putzing in place, so I decide somebody has to take the intiative. I fire and warm up the motor, invite any others who wish to accompany, and start out. Nobody follows.
Big mistake, I’m really not prepared. Chip Giles had said it’s easy, just go out the channel and turn right. But the route through the channel isn’t programmed into the GPS. The large scale resolution on the GPS is inadequate, but when I zoom in for higher res, all the details such as depth soundings, hazards to nav and such disappear from the screen, and without ever having seen them “in person” the digital chart markers on the tiny 3 x 4 screen are confusing. I find out later that’s because the channel’s only about 20 yards wide. So I’m trying to steer while reading the paper chart by flashlight, keep an eye on the GPS and depth sounder. I never checked the general location of the channel markers before it got dark, and I have nothing but a small flashlight, so I can’t see the unlighted markers until I nearly run them down; even when I do, it’s difficult to determine their color, I can’t see the next marker and have no idea even in which direction I should be looking. Within a few hundred yards of leaving the marina, I’m outside the channel and dragging the rudders. The shallow water warning on the depth finder never did go off. Thanks to Roger Mac for folding centerboards and to Billy Glover for bungee rudder tie downs. I release the tiedowns, raise the motor up for shallow running, turn around and head back toward the lights of the marina. I have no idea where I am in relation to the channel, but manage to avoid running hard aground or smacking a channel marker. I get back to the marina, tie up, relate my problems, then convince Luke in Dream Chaser to lead us out since (I believe) he’s done this one before in daylight. Plus, he has a spotlight to illuminate the channel markers. Dream Chaser, Gostosa and Nextboat head out, Julie Ann, Tigger Too and Olivia II still aren’t ready and remain tied up at the marina.
Following close behind, within a few hundred yards of
leaving the marina, we again show three feet on the depth finder and dragging
rudders. Luke is singlehanding. He can find the channel markers with his
spotlight, but now we learn he’s color blind and can’t tell which side to pass
them unless somebody else tells him the color.
Once outside the channel we can’t seem to find our way back into
it. This would be comical if it weren’t
so potentially damaging. We slow to a
crawl but keep going and after several hundred yards of dragging rudders, eventually get into
deeper water. By now (I assume) Luke is spooked by the
unexpected trouble with shallow water.
Whatever the reason, he heads well offshore into deep water, taking us
on a super safe, super wide, super slow speed loop around the southeast tip of
Monday 6/21: Day Two. Through the night, the wind kicks up pretty strongly. We can see lightning and hear thunder off to the north, but thankfully it never makes it down to us. But the anchorage is crowded, we anchored in the dark, I haven’t had a chance to dive on the anchor, and I’m concerned. So I get little sleep, constantly getting up to check things out. It appears most of the boats around us are moorings. This isn’t good, they pivot around a point while our Mac swings a wide arc. The anchor alarm on the GPS is pretty worthless. If I set it at 50 feet it constantly sounds even though there’s no problem, yet if I set it at 100 feet we will be into several other boats before it sounded. I set it at 75 feet and it still gives a false alarm occasionally. I bring it below into the cabin, but it loses the satellites; but if I leave it up in the cockpit I may not hear it, even when I do hear it’s a pain to keep climbing out of the berth to go to the cockpit and silence the false alarm. I finally arrange a couple of cushions and sleep on the cockpit seat.
I finally drop off but at 4AM I’m awakened from a sound sleep by someone yelling in heavily hispanic accented English, “Good morning, good morning, good morning!” followed by salsa music blasting from the VHF on channel 71. I put up with it for a few minutes, but it doesn’t seem to be ending and I’m too tired to putz with the radio so I turn it off.
After what seems like only a few minutes more sleep, I give
up, get up and see a beautiful sunrise over
Chip Giles (& Kelly, Wind Hair) does a good job on the skippers’ meeting. Short and to the point as to what we’re doing and how, and reiterates a few of the more important safety aspects. Today the transit will be fairly informal, organization wise as we learn more about how we work together as a group. Tomorrow, we’ll tighten up a little as we have quite a bit farther to travel. Most of us return to our boats and have some time to get things straightened out a little while a few are still ashore accomplishing final “emergency” runs for parts and provisions. Not sure what time, but shortly Wild Hair simply up anchor and leave. This must be the signal. We’re ready to go. I’m not sure everyone is ready but I’m thinking we may need a head start; I know if we sail a run most of the other boats have spinnakers. We don’t and we’ll be left behind. So we up anchor and follow as number two boat; several others are close behind. Apparently everyone is ready; in a short time all 13 boats are strung out pretty much in a line nearly a mile long. Cool sight. We motor south for a bit, turn west and with a nice southeasterly wind throw up the rags. This is great! I’m hoping to sail as much as possible, not just because it’s more fun. If I don’t, my pig of a two stroke motor will run me out of gas. We expect to buck headwinds for most of the return trip and running out at that point might not be good.
The line formation disappears pretty quickly; it’s every boat for themselves. Sailing a beam reach, the 26X isn’t quite as much of a dog, even loaded down as ours is. Eventually we catch and pass Wild Hair, a 25 . It appears with main and full genny we can stay ahead of them, at least on this point of sail. Then they fall out of line and whip out the secret weapon, the new gennaker. Soon they catch and pass us, but each time they get a little ahead, the wind shifts just enough abeam that they lose the wind in the gennaker. It luffs loudly, they lose headway, and before they can get it to fill again, we catch up. We pass them again. They almost catch up, but then lose the wind in the gennaker again and fall back. This happens perhaps six or eight times. I know if the wind shifts even a little more astern we’re doomed; they’ll pass and stay ahead; but it never happens.
Bert & Kathy Ward (Mariah Skye, 26D) charge forward, pass us both, and simply run away, not quite like we’re standing still, but as if we’re dragging something and they’re not. Damn those classic 26s! A couple of the other classics, Sumbuddie II, Tigger Too, Shooting Sun (Wade Clodfelter, with Kayla and Zack) all 26S, are gaining a little, but not nearly as fast as Mariah Skye. We Xs have to be content that we can carry more stuff and go faster under power, ‘cause we’ll never beat them sailing. Julie Ann (also an X) and our Nextboat seem fairly evenly matched. They pass us for awhile, then we catch and pass them back. I keep trying, but never do figure out what we’re doing right when we pass them, and what we’re doing wrong when they pass us. Or vice versa. I don’t recall any evidence that the two Ms, My-La-La-Mar and Mac Odyssey, were any faster than the Xs. I believe a lot of the performance differences in all the boats had more to do with how heavily they were loaded than with real differences in boat speed. I invite opposing viewpoints.
After a few hours of great fun the sailing performance becomes a moot point as the wind drops and our speed with it, to under two knots. This is no good as we’re counting on an early arrival at Maquesas Key, so we can turn in early and get up early for the longer leg of the trip tomorrow. We fire up and motor the rest of the way.
Commodore Chip has elected not to try to enter the small harbor at Marquesas Key; the entrance is tricky, but the exit tomorrow will be trickier, with 13 boats trying to get off quickly before good light; it’s something we don’t need. We bypass the entrance, trickle into the anchorage on the western edge of Marquesas Key and anchor in about 10-12 feet of water, in the lee of the island with winds dead offshore. We set our a Bulwagga anchor hard and by the book, as we always do, and I pull on the snorkel gear, dive on it and find it well buried. We have a second anchor, the original Danforth that came with the new boat, but we haven’t used it since we got the Bulwagga. We’re set.
I decide this is a good time to try for the first time getting the new 4HP, four stroke Nissan motor onto the inflatable dinghy from its new bracket on the stern stanchion. I’m concerned as the motor at 57 pounds is much heavier, awkward and harder to manage than I had anticipated. While standing in the dinghy, tied alongside the Mac, holding the stanchion with one hand and lifting the motor off the bracket and onto my shoulder with the other, I find the motor is simply too high and too heavy. It’s well over my head, and even standing on tiptoes, instead of lifting the motor off the bracket, the soft floor of the dinghy just sinks deeper into the water. I can’t lift the the motor more than an inch off the bracket, and I’m afraid if I manage to get it off, I could easily lose my balance and drop it on the dinghy or in the water.
After much thought, we start over. We use the boom hanging from the topping lift as a jib crane, the mainsheet as block and tackle, and we can lift the motor off the cockpit seat, swing it over the side, then lower it onto the dinghy motor bracket. In the moderate swells it bangs the side of the Mac a couple times on the way down, but a few strategically hung cushions can fix that.
Through four more iterations over the rest of the trip, we develop the technique. It remains awkward and at this point is definitiely a two person evolution; one in the Mac to lift, swing the boom over the side and lower, one in the dinghy guiding the motor into place. It also puts quite a strain on the flimsy topping lift. I’ll have to upgrade the lift, and slinging the motor from the carrying handle puts it at an awkward angle; we’ll definitely need a lifting sling or lifting eye for the motor. I’m not looking forward to trying this singlehanded. I fear serious damage to the Mac, the dinghy, myself, or dropping the motor in the water. It might be possibe in a dead calm.
The sandy beach on the key is very inviting looking and only a couple hundred yards away, so we decide to ride the dinghy in for a walk. About 75 yards from shore, we’re in about 15” water so we pull the motor up to shallow run configuration; at about 50 yards it’s only a foot deep so we shut off and raise the motor and start rowing. About 25 yards from shore we’re still in 8” of water but in heavy grass and can row no further, so I jump out to pull us in the rest of the way. And promptly sink into quicksand like mud past my knees. We’re going no further. It’s all I can do to extract myself from the mud and get back into the dinghy without losing my water shoes. We also find we’ve stirred up a horde of biting flies, so we quickly row and motor back to the Mac. No walk on the beach today.
The overcast hides the sunset. We notice even before full dark the anchorage is silent; it’s been a long two days, everyone is dead tired and has already turned in for an early start tomorrow. We do the same, but shortly the wind picks up a little, the tidal current is moving at nearly 90 degrees from the wind, and the quartering swells thus generated cause the boat to pitch and roll fairly heavily, making it hard to sleep.
Tuesday 6/22. Day Three. About 1AM, I awake to cold wind gusts through the foredeck hatch and I feel the boat pivoting on the anchor rode. There’s lightning and thunder a ways off; a storm is coming through. As the wind quickly kicks up to 20 knots or more, I stick my head out. There is momentary disorientation in the dark and nobody is where they’re supposed to be. I realize the wind has shifted from dead offshore to dead onshore, it seems in a matter of a few minutes, and I can see several anchor lights on boats adrift, sailing toward shore only a few hundred yards away at alarming speed. I quickly check the Bulwagga; it appears to have reset in the new direction and is holding fine.
I turn on the radio (which has been turned off earlier to avoid the chance of early morning salsa music) and broadcast to everyone listening that boats are adrift in the anchorage, but it’s acting as if the battery’s dead. I grab the handheld air horn and let loose a few blasts to wake everybody up. Over three years I’ve had it, this is the first time I’ve used it and man, it seems loud enough to wake the dead.
I have no idea whether I’ve accomplished anything. The storm is through within minutes. The thunder and lightning remain to the north, we only get some high winds, no rain. All the anchor lights are now stationary. Within a few minutes, over the radio we learn Gostosa and Dream Chaser, who had rafted at anchor the night before, are hard aground on the beach but otherwise apparently undamaged. Within a short time all others but Olivia II are accounted for either personally or by observation. Sumbuddie II doesn’t answer but are reported present by a nearby boat. It appears they may never have awakened. Apparently Olivia II had lost power the night before and were without lights and radio. I know only that they had been close by us at anchor the night before, but were no longer there. I am debating over the radio with Chip G as to whether we should broadcast a Mayday or at least a Pan Pan concerning the missing boat, when somebody (Mariah Skye?) reports that Olivia II is hard aground on the beach but appears otherwise safe as well.
We decide as long as they’re undamaged and relatively safe on the beach, there’s no merit in trying to get them off in the dark. We resolve to wait for light and suspect we will not be getting as early a start as we had hoped.
Once again we turn in, but again it’s hard to sleep and I keep getting up to check things out, eventually once again moving into the cockpit to sleep.
At first light, we can see the boats on the beach. It’s suggested that they first try kedging off: taking their anchor out away from the beach, dropping it, setting it, then winching their way up to it. After some time (forty minutes or so?) Olivia II is off. Dream Chaser mentions the possibility of a tow, but that is problematic as the water is quite shallow for a long ways offshore, the dinghys have all been stowed and it’s difficult to see how you could get close enough to pass a line. A short while later, Dream Chaser is off as well, but in another 30 minutes or so Gostosa seems to be no closer to getting off and I become concerned. Dream Chaser stands just offshore from Gostosa, perhaps lending moral support, but Luke is singlehanding and can’t really lend a physical hand without again hazarding his own boat. I decide to have Janice drop me as close as possible, and I will try to swim in to help. I’m in the process of upping the anchor when Gostosa reports he is off.
In the meantime Steve and Betty Laufer (My-La-La-Mar) report
that Betty is feeling quite ill and in view of the long leg planned for the day
and lack of facilities at the other end, they have elected to drop out and make
the quicker and shorter run back to
I recall very little about the transit to the Tortugas and Garden Key, other than that most of the time was spent motoring. As the updated charts had warned, the narrow straight between Bush and Garden Keys was gone, totally filled in, and the approach from the east required that we completely circle around the eastern, northern and then western sides of the two Keys, before finally entering the harbor through the channel to the south.
About 3PM we pull into the anchorage and drop the hook. There are a number of power and sailboats of various sizes already there, from some pretty disreputable looking fishing boats to multi million dollar power yachts and one monster single masted sailboat at least 60 feet long with a mast which has to be over 90 feet tall. I think our group about doubles the number of boats present. We anchor well to the east of the dinghy beach, perhaps a little too close upwind of a nice red ketch-rigged 40 footer. But I’m tired, and it’s not easy to find a spot with no grass or coral (prohibited to anchor on these). I can see the anchor in the clear water, it’s well buried, so I decide not to try to move farther away. I have a brief chat with one of the occupants of the ketch, as he’s stringing CDs on lines on the forward parts of the boat to try to discourage the birds from landing on his stanchions and lifelines. They flash nicely in the wind but he’s pretty sure they aren’t going to work. Obviously I can’t see what anchor they have down, but I note hanging from the pulpit is a Danforth, which I swear is not larger then the 13 pounder I have on my own pulpit. I suppose it could have been an optical illusion because of the bigger boat, but there’s no doubt it looks grossly undersized for a boat of this size.
There is a truly unbelieveable number of birds on the protected nesting area, Bush Key just a few hundred yards to the north and east of the anchorage, apparently (according to the handout) some 250,000 sooty terns (sooties), 2,500 brownies and a few brown pelicans. Some fairly large number, thousands anyway, seemed to be in constant, noisy, squawking flight over the island. Then, every once in awhile on some cue unseen or unheard by us, there is a great commotion, three or four times as many noisily rise up, fly around squawking for a few minutes, then settle back down. Reminds us of Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds”. Mostly, they stay on the island, but soon a small number, seeming to know they are protected (sea birds are usually fairly bold anyway) land on the bow pulpit and crap all over the forward part of the boat, particularly the black cover of the furled genny. Janice make a couple of really scary (at least to birds, she hops) aluminum foil sculptures which she attaches to the pulpit. For awhile it seems they are working, but soon the birds are back. I never see a bird actually land on one of the sculptures, but were land right next to the sculptures and continue their dirty work on the sail cover.
Wild Hair calls to ask if we want to join them for a quick trip to the Fort to look around a bit. We say yes and soon they arrive to dinghy us in. On the way across the moat into the Fort there’s another couple coming in as well. As they are carrying a cooler, Chip G remarks that they appear to be in violation of the sign prohibiting bringing in food or drink. It turns out they are Chuck and Eloise, both permanent residents of the Fort. Chuck is a National Park Ranger, maintenance Supervisor, and Eloise a former park employee herself, recently retired. They are sailors too, coming back from their day off, sailing to Loggerhead Key. We tell them of our group; of course they had seen all the Macs anchored in the harbor. Chuck kindly offers a special tour for our group the next day, where we can get a look at the inner workings of the Fort that most tourists don’t get to see.
We wander the fort for awhile then back to the boats. It’s interesting that the Safety Police have had little to do with the place. There are no handrails on the spiral staircases, and the only thing that keeps you from falling over the edge, either on the interior or into the moat 40 feet below, are small signs that warn of loose bricks. I like this. A bunch of safety railings would definitely look out of place.
As soon as the sun goes down the wind seems to pick up to 10 knots or so, with gusts higher. It turns out this is common, at least the whole time we were there. it occurs each night t the four days we’re there. Coming through the forward hatch it cools the boat off in a hurry even though the temperature never drops below 80 at night. We turn in and for the first time in three days I get a decent night’s sleep.
Wednesday 6/23. Day four. The first thing we notice when we get up is the Red Ketch has moved several hundred yards to the southwest. Guess he didn’t like how close we were, but funny, he must have gotten up really early, and I never heard a thing. I check him out with the binos and immediately notice the tiny Danforth is no longer on the pulpit, but there’s a good sized plow type, maybe a Bruce or CQR, on the bow roller which wasn’t there yesterday. Hm….is he riding on that Danforth? We must investigate further.
We dinghy in for the 10AM briefing with Chuck. Sumbuddie 2 arrives a little late, and reveal they snorkeled in, but unfortunately came in on the wrong side of the “Do Not Pass This Point” sings on the bird sanctuary. Apparently one of the rangers was waiting for them, castigated them severely and threatened them with big fines, but let them off with a warning. Jerry thinks he might have to change the name of his boat, just in case, to escape the long arm of the law.
Chuck takes us all through the fort. We get to see the inner workings, the generator shop the reverse osmosis watermaker, the rainwater collection cistern, the maintenance area, the fire department. Chuck even lets the whole group tour his and Eloise’s quarters. It’s the first air conditioned space we’ve encountered for three days; some linger awhile to savor it. It’s small but functional, very homey. Chuck apoligizes for its state even though it’s pretty much immaculate. Their “front porch” has a nice little glider with an unobstructed view of the lighthouse at Loggerhead Key about five miles distant. Fantastic!