Hangin' in Key West

Friday morning now.

Yesterday we had another blow of sorts in the mooring field. It only hit 40 knots - which would have seemed like a big deal if we hadn't weathered tuesday night. In this case, it just kept us on the boat for an hour plus. When the wind calmed down and it was still raining a bit, I took the dingy into town to figure out how to get my phone situation resolved. The phone just quite working around 7:30 yesterday morning and would not 'boot up'.

My phone is integral to my being able to travel the way I do, so I came to the internet cafe and looked up Sony Ericsson repair for the phone and got a return authorisation number to send it back. This still left me without a phone, so I went to the local Cingular store and bought a new phone which I can return for full refund within 30 days. It does not have email capabilities, but I don't like the phone so I'm going back today to try to get another.

We're just hanging around. I made Mojitos at Bill and Michelles last night and we munched on a guac dip and some shrimp that Michelle whipped up.

Jan gets here tomorrow night and I can't wait to see her.

Trip Update

Bill and Michelle at Kelly's


Today is Wednesday and I'm sitting in the Plantation Coffee House on Key West. I've not had access to the internet in a 'full' manner for 6 days so I thought I should take some time to 'fill in the blanks' on the blog. I'm going to start with last night and then I'll fill you in starting last friday.

Last night was the most 'exciting' (in a terrifying way) time that I've had on a boat to date.

When we arrived in Key West yesterday afternoon, we picked up a mooring bouy in Garrison Bight around 3 pm I think. I tied off a single 3 strand line to the mooring and added some 'chaffe' protection to keep the line from getting chaffed where it would come in contact with the 'bobstay'. The bobstay is the chain support that goes from the bowsprit area of the boat - downward to the bow near the waterline. The forecast was for 10-15 knot winds and so we left it at that.

We went into town and met up with Bill and Michelle for some wings and margaritas at Kelly's Restaurant (my favorite happy hour in the whole world). Bill and Michelle were nice enough to offer us their bicycles to use while we're here, so we walked to their house and got the bikes, then rode back to the dingy dock and headed out to the boat. We were back on the boat by 10pm and watched an incredible lightening show off to the north. Probably by 11, we were in our berths asleep.

At 3am (I didn't know it was 3 am at the time), a couple of raindrops came through the hatch and woke me up, so I stood up in my berth and looked around outside and saw an incredibly dark cloud off to the north. I closed the hatch and about the time I was sitting back on the bed, the boat was hit with a gust front so strong that it heeled the boat over about 15 degrees. I got up quickly and tried to put my shorts on as I was tossed around a bit trying to keep my footing. Things were slamming around the boat (remember - it was a benign forecast). Doug and I met in the salon as both of us were heading up to the cockpit. I got into the cockpit to see the water frothy and all kinds of noise being made by everything on the boat.

I quickly started the engine and turned on the GPS. I did this as a preparation move and it actually was kind of instinctual - because I've run through lots of scenarios in my mind and I purposefully keep the engine key in the ignition for this reason. The GPS was turned on so that if we broke free, I would be able to steer us toward the deeper water (if we didn't get blown into other boats behind us first).

This gust front was incredibly powerful and of course I quickly started thinking about how much better a job I could have done tying off to the mooring. For starters, I didn't put a backup line from the boat to the mooring because I never expected this kind of condition. Lesson learned.

After about 20 minutes of absolutely howling winds, I went below and turned on some of the instruments and was able to watch the windspeed. The highest we saw was 57 knots (that's 65 miles per hour).

The readings stayed in the 50's for a while and then moved down into the 40's for over an hour. The boat was sailing back and forth at anchor at close to 40 degrees each way - off of the wind. I went forward several times in the strong wind to check the mooring line where it contacted the bobstay to see if it was chafing. Luckily it showed no signs of chaffing, but my chafe protection was not in the right place by about 2 inches. It was in the right place at 15 knot winds - with the line at a more steep angle, but in this amount of wind - the line was much more straight out toward the mooring.

Now, a note: The mooring is about a 18 inch diameter ball that float high in the water. During this time, the mooring ball was completely underwater because of the angle of the pull. It was intense!!

During the blow, I crawled out on the bowsprit with a T shirt and some zip ties and zip-tied the t-shirt around the bobstay where the mooring line was contacting it. This made me feel alot better about our situation. The boat was 'hobbying' up and down a lot in the 3 foot seas (this is a protected anchorage) and this job of being out on the very front of the boat during the storm was very interesting. I made note to myself while doing it of how 'unafraid' I was. I attribute this to my understanding of knowing when things 'just have to be done'. I thought it out and made sure that I was not in a position of going overboard and just got the job done while focusing on it. It was actually kinda cool - but not in a "I wanna do it again" kinda way.

When we arrived at the mooring during the day, it was very hot an humid and so I had installed the foreward 'boat cover'. It's basically a heavy duty awning that custom made for the boat to keep the deck in the shade and thus keep the inside of the boat cooler. That awning was getting "worked" VERY HARD. I could not believe that it did not get torn off the boat - but it goes to show what a good design can do. The problem with it is that it's a very large item (sq. footage wise) and it was acting a bit like a sail. It didn't matter - in these winds it would have been suicidal to try to remove it.

After 2 hours of this type of winds (with the 2nd hour in the 30's) the wind finally died down to the 20's and we went to the bow and systematically took the awning down.

Once the winds stayed in the 20's, Doug went below and went back to bed. I stayed in the cockpit for another hour or so and when I went to bed (somewhere around 6am), everything started to seem 'normal'.

Here's another side note: After enduring an hour of 50-65 mph winds, we commented several times about how 'calm' 35mph winds seemed. It was really amazing. Of course they weren't calm, but relatively it was peaceful.

Here's a note to those of you who don't spend much time thinking about wind - The force of the wind is not linear. The force goes up by the square of the velocity. In other words - the force of a 50 mph wind is not 2 X the force of a 25 mph wind. It's 4 times the force of 25 mph winds.

Well, I've made this story long - not by choice, but by the fact it took a long time to tell it. I fell asleep before sunrise and woke up around 9am. We dingyed into town and came to the internet cafe.

Now - here's a recap since last thursday night:

On friday, I motorsailed south from Lake Worth - out in the ocean to Port Everglades (the inlet at Ft. lauderdale). I anchored in Lake Sylvia which is a 'cul de sac' on a canal that's surrounded with multi-multi million dollar homes. It's quite pretty there (in a lavish civilization kinda way). Doug and Karen and the kids drove down from Vero to drop Doug off for his week on the boat as crew. We had ribs at my favorite restaurant in Ft.Lauderdale -- the Bahia Cabana - which has the best ribs in the whole world.

On Saturday, Doug and I sailed down the coastline to Government Cut (the main inlet at Miami). We anchored in marine stadium - where I've spend the night in the past. This anchorage has a wonderful view of the Miami skyline (photos below in the blog). We had dinner at the Rusty Pelican - which is just to the SW of the anchorage.

Sunday had us heading under the Rickenbacker Causeway into Biscayne Bay and then out into the ocean - just south of the Key Biscayne lighthouse. We sailed between the houses in 'stiltsville' - which is basically a number of houses that are sitting out in the water - a few miles from any land - all built on pilings. Again, photos of this below.

We anchored Sunday night in 8 feet of crystal clear water on the SW side of Rodriquez Key - just off the south end of Key Largo. We had dinner on the boat that night due to the long dingy ride to a restaurant and the shallows between us and the shore.

Monday, we had a great 7 knot sail to Newfound Harbor (in Big Pine Key). We had a large pod of dolphin playing in the bow wake during part of the trip. Photos below. It was an awesome day of sailing. When we arrived in Newfound Harbor, some friends of Doug's came and picked us up in their flats boat an we went to ParrotDise waterfront restaurant for some awesome food.

On Tuesday, we motorsailed to Key West. The rest has been covered.

I'm looking forward to seeing Jan. I know she's very lonely at home without Snowy. We'll head north in the boat on Monday and I'm sure we'll have a great time.

More later.

At anchor in Key West

At anchor in Key West

Sunrise in Newfound Harbor - Big Pine Ke

Sunrise in Newfound Harbor - Big Pine Key - Tuesday morning