Since our last update we have sailed over 180 nautical miles to arrive in the southern most point of the US. We are currently enjoying the turquoise waters of Key West and the other colorful sights – the people.
We did leave St. Petersburg on Thursday, July 14. Since we got such an early start on departure, leaving at 3pm, we anchored for the night just outside Tampa Bay at a little island called Egmont Key (state park). It was so great to finally be on our way! The anchorage ended up being a miserable night because the winds clocked around and we rocked and rolled on the swells all night. We then traveled to Venice, FL, spending a night there, then on to Boca Grande, at the entrance to Charlotte Harbor, where we had a beautiful night anchoring. We left early the next morning knowing that we had a long day to our next stop which was Marco Island. The winds were on our nose most of the way which slowed us down causing us to arrive after dark. Lesson learned – never arrive at your anchorage after dark. It’s very hard to see. What was on the charts as a great place to anchor had recently become a shoal (very shallow) due to storms. We continued to follow the channel marker signs – me on the bow with a flashlight calling back marker numbers to Rod. The large dredge barges that were anchored nearby should have given us some indication that something was amiss, but we trusted our chart so we continued. Until we ran aground. Oops. Luckily it was a sandy bottom and the tide was ripping in, so we were able to back off with the help of the tidal current. We did find a spot to drop anchor but weren’t comfortable with the conditions. So we turned Lucky Peek back to sea at 10:00pm and set our course for Key West – 80 miles south. Our first big crossing and we were going to experience the first part of it by the light of an almost full moon. After the previous two days of having the wind on our nose we were looking forward to the winds shifting around and blowing from the East allowing us to sail south quickly on a beam reach. We made a few phone calls to friends and family to file a “sail plan” so they would know when to expect to hear from us, then we established our watch schedule. I had a lot of adrenaline going so I took the first watch while Rod rested in the cockpit. Around 1:30am he got up for his watch and we agreed that we needed to reduce sail and slow the boat down from the 7+ knots that it had been averaging in the 15-20 knot winds. The winds on our beam were nice, but the seas on the beam made for a rockin’ sail – not the most comfortable to say the least. At 4am, seeing thunderstorms ahead of us, we decided to really slow the boat down by “heaving to”, which means we configured the sails to practically stop the boat. That resulted in a much more comfortable motion and allowed us a break from the previous 24 hours of sailing. Rod and I continued to take turns at the helm through the night and were relieved to see the light of day around 6am when we put the boat back on a full-speed course. A pod of about 40 dolphins welcomed us that morning by racing around the boat and playing in our bow wake as we approached our destination. So magical and cool and one of the sights that made the overnight passage worth it. . We reached the entrance channel to Key West at 3pm, but it took another two hours of motoring straight into the wind to travel the remaining 7 miles to the island. As the depth shallowed the water turned to an amazing, post-card shade of turquoise, providing the perfect backround for the tan shelled turtle that surfaced to greet us. We arrived safe and exhilarated, but sea-weary and exhausted.
Key West has been a fun place to spend a couple of days. The nightly sunset celebration on the waterfront is full of cruise ship tourists and local kooks doing their sidewalk shows for a living. Seeing the cash that gets deposited in their buckets it seems that they’re making a pretty good income by being crazy. Rod and I are brainstorming ideas for our sidewalk show so we can add to our cruising kitty. Too bad we didn’t bring our karaoke machine and Sonny and Cher outfits.
While in Key West we visited some of the typical tourist locations including the Earnest Hemmingway house, which is where he lived many years with his high-maintenance wife number 2 (or 3?) Pauline, and did much of his writing. There are still about 50 famous six-toed cats living on the property that are direct descendants of his cats. We also had an obligatory photo-opp at the Southernmost point of the US, which indicated that we were only 90 miles from Cuba! Our rental bicycles made it much easier to get around and we blended in with the other 2,000 cycling tourists.
On the weather front, we have had clear skies and hot temps. We are listening to reports of Tropical Storm Franklin which is forming off the coast of the Bahamas. From our boat we have a clear view of a beach littered with boats from the last hurricane. Very creepy. Go North, Franklin. Please go North.
