Card Sound to Little Card Sound (Day 67)

Monday, December 2nd (Day 67)

Winds were low at our anchorage last night as we watched several episodes of "The 100" first season and relaxed after Laura made fish tacos for dinner.  (No Wi-Fi here but I had downloaded the whole first season to my iPad off NetFlix when we were in Stuart.)  We've anchored here several times before and it is one of the more remote anchorages.  The ICW channel is about 2 miles away so we barely feel the wakes from even the biggest powerboats going by.

It was a warm night again but should be the last one for a while.  Temps in the bedroom were in the high 70s but we slept well with just a sheet and a 12v fan blowing fresh air on us.

Here is an overview of our anchoring strategy -

Today a front is coming through which will clock the winds from south to west then north tonight.  This anchorage is excellent for south or west winds as the shore is only about 1/2 mile away in those directions.  But, we are very open to the north so will be moving sometime later this afternoon.  This is a screenshot from my iPad using AquaMaps to show where we are.

The yellow island in the lower part of the picture is northern Key Largo.  The little icon of a sailboat with the red circle is Second Wind (I added the red circle so you could find us).  Since north is up in the picture, you can see we have land east, south and west of us.  But, north is quite open.  Later tonight or early tomorrow morning the winds will clock to the north so it will probably get quite bumpy here.  Instead, this afternoon, we are going to move about 3 miles and attempt to anchor where I've put the red "X" on the chart.  Notice how that spot is protected from the west and north but open to the south.  We will move there later today when the winds clock west.  

I say "attempt to anchor" because you never know where these is enough sand and grass over the coral for the anchor to hold.  If I don't feel comfortable anchoring at the "X", we will continue south and pass under the Card Sound Bridge to anchor near the red "2".  We've anchored there several times in the past and sat out storms with 30-40 mph winds so I know the bottom is good to hold the boat on anchor.  Only problem is you can see how it is open to the west for a couple miles.  But, this evening the winds are supposed to be NW then clock N by early morning so it shouldn't be too bad for a backup plan.

Which ever anchorage we choose, we'll be there until Thursday.  The winds Thursday are predicted to come from the north then northeast which should make for nice sailing down to Marathon on Friday.

This morning was a little cloudy with winds around 10 knots from the south.  Now, around noon, the temp is 84 (Weather underground says "feels like 92") and the winds have picked up to near 20.  It's comfortable in the boat as we have all the hatches open and a nice breeze coming through.  I can see dark clouds off to the west and there is a squall line west of us on the local radar.  We will probably get a storm in the next hour or so.  The temps are going to drop quickly after the front when the winds clock to NW than N.  Low last night was 74.  Temps  tonight are going to low 50s.  Quite a difference for us!

A little while ago I took a panorama with my phone to show the area around our anchorage.  I'm quite surprised (and pleased) that no other boats have come and anchored near us.  Nobody for at least 2 miles in any direction.  Click on the panorama below and you should be able to scroll to look around.  Very pretty here with Mangroves to the east, south and west.

It's getting pretty dark out now.  Time to batten down the hatches!

I was about 2 minutes late with the "batten down the hatches."  I went up into the cockpit to put the covers on our forward hatches and it started pouring.  As our hatches leak a little in the rain without the covers, I put them on anyway.  5 minutes later I was done with the covers and looked like a drowned rat.  Geez!

Rain and winds in the 30s lasted about 10 minutes.  A short while later the Sun came back out but the winds stayed in the mid-20s.  They also clocked around to the NW which started sending 1-2 foot seas into what was our nice, calm anchorage.  By 2pm, we decided to move since the boat was bouncing around pretty good.  I got the boat ready to go and we were soon off the anchor.

Our normal anchor process is I am up on the bow running the anchor windlass while Laura is in the forward cabin making sure the chain lays correctly when it comes in.  Sometimes, the anchor comes up really mucky and I call to Laura for her to come up on deck while I run to the helm.  It all worked good today and I was able to stop the boat from getting blown too far backwards between the anchor coming up and my engaging the engine.  Only problem was our anchorage must have been a little protected from the current wind angle because as soon as I started motoring west, the waves got a lot bigger.  Laura was bouncing up and down about 2 feet with every wave while trying to clean the anchor and bring it up to the roller for storage.  She was a real trooper and spent much more time cleaning things up than I would have.  After all, we're going to anchor again in about an hour...

It was a slow ride motoring against the 25-30 mph winds but, about an hour later, we were in calmer water and decided to try anchoring.  Our first attempt was on coral and the anchor just bounced around for a while.  I moved about 1/4 mile north and tried again.  Success!  It held us fine even with 25 mph winds trying to blow us backwards and the engine in reverse at 1,200 RPM.

Here is the updated chart plotter zoomed in a little.  Notice the purple line which was our track from the anchorage in the lower right to our new anchorage in the upper left leading to the little icon of the sailboat that shows where we currently are.

We'll be here today, tomorrow and Wednesday assuming the wind forecast doesn't change.  Time to head up into the cockpit to read a bit while making sure we aren't dragging the anchor...