Heading South and West

Glassy, clear waters and blue skies in the Dry Tortugas.
Where does the sky begin and the sea end?

It is probably obvious to you by now that we are challenged by being able to post regularly.  Again, we find another month has slipped by since our last posting.  There are a number of challenges to be sure – not the least of which is the lack of high speed internet while we are at anchor.  On a mooring ball at a marina, a long wet dinghy ride to access internet on shore can be enough to call off the expedition.  Even in a slip in a marina with high speed internet does not guarantee connectivity.  Last night while attempting to post this blog, the electricity to the whole island went out.  No electricity to the marina router means no internet.  One thing you may consider- let us know when you have read a posting – you can simply say “hi”. Knowing someone is out there and reads these posts gives us motivation to keep writing.  

We are now tied up in a slip at El Milagro Marina, Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, Mexico.  It is a great place to be for now – good internet, good neighbors, good places to explore.  More to tell on that in the next posting.  

For now let’s go back to fill you in where we left off previously in Fort Lauderdale. From there we take the next leg of our journey to Miami, Marathon, Key West, Marquesas Cays, and to the Dry Tortugas.

Fort Lauderdale

We spent more time in Fort Lauderdale than we intended - 10 days. We stayed on a mooring ball at the Las Olas City Marina, extending our stay every 3 days - just because we could.  While we were waiting for parts, we were fortunate to have one of our old cruising buddies, Terry, an Australian we met in Beaufort several years ago, just a short dinghy ride away.  His wife, Coral, was also in town for the first couple days, which meant they would show us how to party with drinks, dinners, and dancing along the waterfront. 

Tracy and Terry coming back from the grocery store with provisions in Fort Lauderdale. 
The dinghy ride to Terry’s boat was a lovely ride through the canals.  

As it goes with a boat, there were a few projects we had to tackle before we headed south.  On the trip down, we noticed water accumulating in the engine bilge. We suspected that the dripless shaft seals were dripping. We attempted to clean them, but the problem persisted.  With guidance from searching the internet, we decided to adjust the seals about a quarter inch.  As cruisers always do, Terry offered to help, which required both Bud and Terry to access a shaft collar on the engine shaft at the same time.  It looked like the boys were playing a game of Twister in the engine compartment! 

We reciprocated the favor by helping Terry re-sew his bimini.  We dug out the Sailrite sewing machine, and after two days, the bimini was prepared to withstand another hurricane.  

Bud and Terry look like they are playing a game of "Twister". They are really trying to work together to
adjust the collar on the dripless shaft seal in the engine compartment under our bed.

Terry showed he is a quick study as Tracy supervised his re-stitching of his canvas bimini 

using our Sailrite sewing machine in our cockpit.

Finally, after quick “until we see you again” farewells, we left Ft. Lauderdale for a short jump (about 25 nautical miles, nm) to Miami.

Miami

Although nearly all of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) can accommodate sailboats with masts up to 64’ – 65’, the section from Fort Lauderdale to Miami has a 56’ fixed bridge , which forced us to go on the “outside”, along the coast.  We quickly found the crystal clear, cobalt blue waters of the Gulf Stream – the first appearance on this trip south.  The weather was wonderful, with bright sun, calm seas and little wind. We motored against the current at 3.5 knots heading due south.  We tried going closer to shore to find a counter current to the Gulf Stream, but only gained about a knot in speed.  Despite the slow pace, with this short jump, we were anchored in No Name Harbor, a well sheltered anchorage, by 4 pm. We shared a small pitcher of Sangria at the restaurant in the park and went to bed early.

Marathon

We sailed south and west to Marathon, anchoring overnight about midway in Rodrigues Key.  We took advantage of the inviting clear, warm water to begin cleaning the hull. About a half hour after getting back on the boat, we watched a squall come through with >40 knots of wind for about an hour and a half with white-out conditions.  We watched four sailboats scramble into the anchorage to drop anchor just as the squall approached.  It was scary to wonder if the other boats would hold.  The next day we again motored the last 40 nm to Marathon and picked up a mooring ball at the Marathon City Marina in Boot Key Harbor.

We saw the remnants of Hurricane Irma and the slow recovery, now many months later.  We heard stories told by the marina staff about the conditions in the mooring field during the hurricane. Before the storm there were about 220 boats in the harbor.  After the storm there were about 56 remaining.  Apparently it was only one boat in the east end of the harbor that came loose from its mooring ball, and then pulled another boat off its ball, and so on, and so on.  Many cruisers lost everything.

We stayed a few days in Marathon provisioning and preparing for the next leg, including doing our first load of laundry in our washing machine. We had pondered this for some time and knew that this would be the last opportunity to order an Engel refrigerator.  We had realized our refrigerator space was quite limiting and this refrigerator/freezer could fit under the cockpit table where we had installed a 12 volt outlet. 

Looks like those bad neighbors just moved in. We dry the first loads of laundry using our washing machine
while moored in Boot Key Harbor. We thought the sun shade did a good job of hiding this from view.

Our visit to Marathon could not be complete without breakfast at the Stuffed Pig, across the highway from the marina.  They serve a killer Bloody Mary with bacon (of course at the Stuffed Pig) for breakfast.  We considered indulging ourselves, but chose to save the money for other adventures.

Key West

It was another short sail down to Key West, about 40 nm.  About an hour before entering the inlet, we heard a weather alert on the VHF.  Within 15 minutes the wind picked up from 10 knots to 20-25 knots.  We still had our jib up.  As we were trying to round into the wind, the port sheet came loose and wrapped into a big knot around the starboard sheet.  We were able to furl the jib, but not without Bud getting a nasty burn from one of the sheets.  We nursed that burn for several days and it has healed nicely.  From listening to the VHF, we were lucky.  Several sailboat charters got caught with their sails up, and had to limp back to shore with damaged sails.

We picked up a mooring ball at the Key West City Marina for a couple days.  The dinghy ride to the dinghy dock was about a 20 minute trip.  With the winds up from the south east at 15 knots, it was a long, wet dinghy ride.  We played the tourist while in Key West, finding an excellent funky little breakfast stand, the Cuban Coffee Queen.  We sat on a little bench in the shade eating Cuban breakfast sandwiches and drinking café con leche while listening to the roosters crowing in the neighborhood.  We met up for dinner at the Thai Island Restaurant with a long-time friend, Ron Walter, and his son Shawn, who own property on Sugarloaf Key. Although Ron’s house weathered the storm fairly well, just needing a new roof and paint, many of his neighbors did not. The sad stories continued. By the way, the thai food was excellent.

The bread man delivering bread to the Cuban Coffee Queen in Key West.  

This was a wonderful find - fantastic breakfast sandwiches and café con leche.

Dry Tortugas

The Dry Tortugas are about 60 nm due west from Key West.  About 20 nm from Key West on the way to the Dry Tortugas are the Marquesas Keys, and from talking to other cruisers, should not be missed.  So we split the trip in two, and anchored at the Marquesas Keys overnight.  The wind was up and the anchorage was a bit choppy which dissuaded us from exploring far in the dinghy. One other task we completed was to finally put the speed transducer back in the thru-hull to allow us to assess the current impacting our boat speed by comparing it with the speed over ground given by the GPS.  The sunset and the night sky made the stop definitely worthwhile.

We watched the sun melting into the horizon at Marquesas Keys at the end of the day.

The next day we made the final 40 nm to the Dry Tortugas, anchoring off of Fort Jefferson.  Bush Key is a bird sanctuary for the noddy and least terns, and we were visited regularly by the noddy terns.  We left the boat for a tour of the fort for a couple hours to come back to Leilani covered with easily 100 noddy terns and their poop!  One of the other boats in the anchorage hung red lines in their rigging which seemed to keep the birds off their boat.  This trick didn’t seem to help on our boat!

A view from the top of Fort Jefferson looking west. The fort was built to protect commercial ships heading
to the Mississippi River, but was never completed and never fired a cannon.

Our view at anchor at the Dry Tortugas - the lighthouse on Loggerhead Key at sunset.  

The original lighthouse was built next to the fort on Garden Key, but the light was not tall enough or bright enough to prevent shipwrecks.  Once the Fresnel lens was developed, a taller, brighter lighthouse was built on Loggerhead Key.

We were immersed in nature and we loved it.  We finally felt like all the work and travel had been in preparation for this. Each morning the noddy terns would arrive on our boat and hang out on any horizontal surface they could find.  Sometimes all the good spots were taken, and we watched as noddy terns attempted to land on sloping rigging, only to find it sliding down the rigging until it gave up and flew away. Noddy terns have webbed feet which are not well-suited to perching. But, the birds ignored our attempts to explain the biology.

Noddy terns lined up for the day on Leilani.

A noddy tern objecting to the interloper.

Two of the many noddy terns that visited our boat daily.

A noddy tern managing a tricky maneuver to wrap his webbed feet around 

a life line and do a balancing act to stay put.

We watched frigate birds soar through the anchorage, attempting to steal fish from a terns’ fresh catch.  There was a feeding frenzy every afternoon with birds from above and fish predators from below going into huge bait fish boils. Nurse sharks and barracuda came in later. 

Looking down at baitfish from the bow of Leilani at anchor in the Dry Tortugas. 

This barracuda showed lurking interest in Tracy as she cleaned the hull. 

He spent most of the day under our boat.

The water was crystal clear and when we got hot, we would go for a swim under the boat.  We were relaxed, and we had found solitude.

A different kind of cruiser who found adventure and solitude in the Dry Tortugas with his sailing/peddling kayak. 
He paddled or sailed over 200 miles. He had enough provisions and water to last about three weeks.

 Researchers from Florida International University studying the seagrass beds in the Dry Tortugas anchorage.

Added to the entertainment was learning the routine of the passenger ferries and floatplanes – arrivals and departures.  Three or four floatplanes would arrive each day, drop off passengers for a couple hours, and fly the hour flight back to Key West.  The challenge for them was they were required to land and take off within 1 mile of the fort.  With tight quarters and adverse winds, one afternoon one floatplane pilot we assumed was new to this landing, gave us some tense minutes as we watched several aborted attempts to take off.  The wind had shifted which forced the pilot to attempt to take off in the middle of the anchorage, dodging us and the other boats in the attempt. We all cheered after the he made a successful take off on the fourth attempt.  

Two floatplanes waiting on their passengers along Bush Key in the Dry Tortugas.

For most of our stay at the Dry Tortugas, the wind was out of the south east, making landing and taking off fairly straightforward.  In taking off, the floatplanes had to turn into the wind to gain enough lift to fly.

This floatplane made this fourth attempt to take off into northwest winds. 

He had to fly through our anchorage. We were only a couple hundered feet away

   

As all good things must come to an end, we started planning for our next passage to Isla Mujeres – nonstop, about 292 nm.  We projected it would take us 3 nights – about 60 hours or more with the route taking us across the Gulf Stream north of Cuba, but not in Cuban waters, and across the Yucatan Strait.  Tracy cleaned most of the hull with a resting barracuda hanging out under the boat.  Four days after arriving in the Dry Tortugas, we headed south west, at a heading of about 226^o. 

Tracy cleaning the hull before heading to Isla Mujeres from the Dry Tortugas. 

She knew there was a barracuda lying motionless between the hulls as he watched her work. 

Come back for more of the story of Leilani, Bud and Tracy as they make their leap from the USA across the Yucatan Channel on their longest continuous passage yet.