Another beautiful morning in The Keys with temps in the mid-60s heading to near 80. It was sunny with just a few wispy clouds on the horizon as we pulled up our anchor after 3 days here. We motored back to the ICW channel, through the narrow channel and back into Card Sound. As winds were out of the N-NE and we were heading NE, we didn't put up any sails but motored to Angelfish Creek.
Low tide on the ocean side of Angelfish was around 9:30am so we timed our trip through the creek for close to 1/2 tide and rising. We have run aground before, right at the eastern end of the channel, at low tide with our 5.5 foot draft so I knew we needed some tidal help to be safe.
It was all good as we had 1.5 feet of tide by time we got to the shallow part. Our depth sounder was down to 6.5 feet at the worst section. Figuring the tide was up 1.5 feet, it would have only been 5 feet at low tide. Not enough for us!
We were hoping to sail the last 20 miles from Angelfish Creek to Rodriquez Key anchorage but it was not to be. Since we were going dead downwind, the apparent wind stayed at 2-4 knots all day. It takes at least 5-6 knots of apparent wind to keep the sails full so we never put them out. But, it was a lovely day - warm and sunny - as we motored down the Hawk Channel at 6 knots.
We anchored on the south side of Rodriquez since the winds were supposed to be N to NE all night but in the single digits. It was only 3pm so I brought my guitar up into the cockpit with a small glass of tequila to watch the sunset. Laura and I decided to try taking a music video with her Nikon camera on a tripod. It took us a while to get all the settings right including the microphone. The camera had a "zoom microphone" setting which was cool but would only pickup the guitar or my voice but not both. Once we figured out how to turn that off, it worked pretty good.
Here are two music videos I uploaded to my YouTube channel. Check them out when you get a chance. They sound much better if you can play them through a bluetooth speaker or stereo. I like the wind on the water in the background that makes it look like we are sailing.
The first song is by Jimmy and the Parrots called Sail Away.
The second song is Today by John Denver. We thought we'd try something different and just show the beautiful sunset on this one. Feel free to share if you feel they are share-worthy and I'd appreciate any feedback - good or how to make them better.
We made a little picnic-type dinner with BBQ chicken, potato salad and baked beans. It was a quiet evening and very comfortable anchorage.
Friday, December 6th (Day 71 - End of Trip!)
I was awake quite a bit in the night and not sure why. The boat wasn't moving around much but maybe it was just a little warm in the boat from the engine running all day. I slept to about 9am then decided it was time to get underway.
While performing my morning engine room checks, I noticed our pump for the shower sump was off its mounts and just hanging. I changed into "engine room" shorts and old shirt and climbed down to fix it. After spending about 10 minutes on it I decided to leave it for Marathon. It didn't want to go back where I had originally mounted it. Oh well, there wasn't enough room for it to go anywhere so I let it be and we got underway.
Another sunny, warm day with the only problem of not enough wind again to sail. During the afternoon the winds did pick up to 5-6 knots off the beam so we rolled out the main and jib for a little extra speed. Since I had slept in this morning, we needed a little help to cover the 45 miles to Marathon before 5pm when the marina closed.
Laura spent a little time playing the the GoPro underwater and was able to get a cool movie of the bottom going by while we were underway. In the video, it looks like the water is only a couple feet deep when actually it was 15-20 feet. Here's the video she took....
We arrived at the entrance to Boot Key Harbor around 4:30pm and I called the marina on my cell phone to let them know we were coming in. We were assigned a different slip at the marina this year because we didn't let them know we were coming until just a few weeks ago. No more easy-in, easy-out from slip #1. Now we were directed to slip #10 between a huge sportfishing boat and big sailboat. No wind and no currents so getting into the slip was fairly uneventful.
It is nice to be back at Burdines where we ran sailing charters for 5 winters. Most of the other boaters we are friends with have not arrived yet so we won't see them until we get back from our Christmas drive back to NY around New Year's. We enjoyed talking to other people and getting off the boat to walk around after 8 days at anchor.
We are all tied up safe-and-sound after 2 1/2 months on the boat from the Hudson River. It was a very nice trip with much better weather than we are used to this time of year. I'm pretty sure this was our longest trip for the east coast which is good. I've been trying to take it more slow and easy after 8 years of zooming up and down the coast for our charter schedule. We both like the slow trip much better.
Trip Stats
Departed Catskill Marina Friday, September 27th.
Arrived Burdines Waterfront Marina, Marathon, Friday, December 6th
Total trip time - 71 days (10 weeks and a day)
Total miles - 1,636 nautical (1,882 statute / car miles)
Nights
at anchor - 31
at moorings - 18
at marinas - 9
at free docks - 10
Expenses -
Fuel -$867
Dockage - $1,930 (marinas and moorings)
Repairs - $1,580 (new generator was $1,000)
Groceries - $1,461 (includes stocking up before leaving)
Eating out - $371
This will be my last blog entry for a while - probably until we leave here around the end of January. Hope you enjoyed it!
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