Last week, we had Laura's grandson Issac on the boat for a vacation from cold Seattle to the warm Florida Keys. I think he had a great time (you're never sure with 14 year-olds) but I'm sure he made many good memories.
Even before he departed on the 21st, I started looking for good weather to sail to the Bahamas for the next 2-3 months. It seemed like the next weekend would see calming and clocking winds that might make for a good passage. This was the first break in the higher-than-normal tradewinds for the past month. We started making plans for leaving on Friday or Saturday.
On the way back from dropping Issac at the Ft. Lauderdale airport, we stopped at Walmart in Homestead for a big paper / baking / canned goods grocery. We've learned in the past that items like toothpaste, shampoo, toilet paper, etc., are very expensive in the Bahamas. There are no manufacturing or farming in the Bahamas - everything is brought in by boats from the U.S.. So, figure 20-50% higher prices on just about everything.
We filled up a grocery cart to overflowing and spent $410 at the check-out. After filling up the trunk we drove the remaining 90 miles to Marathon and unpacked everything. Oh, we stopped at the Whale Harbor Seafood Buffet for dinner. It was one of the best buffet's I ever had. There was all-you-can-eat snow crab and raw oysters.
Wednesday morning I ran the main engine for 1/2 hour then drained the oil. Also changed the oil filter, refilled the oil and changed all three fuel filters (main Racor, on-engine filter and 70 micron pre-filter). Afterwards I ran the engine for about 10 minutes to make sure it was Ok.
After checking Chris Parker (Caribbean weather guru), Windfinder.com and PredictWind.com we decided to leave Saturday morning for the two day trip to Key Biscayne then jump to the Bahamas on Monday-Tuesday.
On Thursday, Laura went to Winn Dixie, K-Mart and Publix for everything left on her list except for fresh stuff. We finished up on Friday with another $240 at Publix. Our fridge, freezers and pantry are full to the brim. Typical full stock-up at around $800. But, we have food on the boat for almost 2 months not counting fresh veggies that we'll find along the way.
Friday afternoon we made plans with the marina to move the boat to the fuel dock, fill up our tank then leave the boat there overnight for a quick getaway Saturday morning. At 4pm we were ready to leave our slip but when I turned the key to start our engine it just turned over and didn't start. This never happens!
I figured there might be an air bubble from the fuel filter changes so bled the fuel lines to the injectors. The engine started up 10 minutes later and we backed out of the slip to the fuel dock after running down the channel a bit to run some fuel through the engine. Here we were backing out of our slip (taken by our neighbor Jeff).
No problems as we tied up and filled our fuel tank with 50 gallons of diesel - our usage from Ft. Pierce in November. We had happy-hour with our marina friends at the Tiki hut and I played Uke and Guitar for a bit with Sal playing along with his harmonica. It was lots of fun for our last night at Burdines.
After a quiet dinner on the boat we both showered up then I filled our water tank and (2) 6 1/2 gallon drinking water jugs. I stowed the boat hose and cleaned up the decks. We had a nice night on the fuel dock.
Up early I was at the fuel dock office when they opened at 7am because I forgot to fill up an empty 5 gallon gas jug (dinghy and Honda generator). We were off the dock at 7:05am with all our friends waving good-bye. Here was the colorful sunrise as we motored past the Boot Key anchorage.
We motored out of the harbor then south to the Hawk Channel. It was a quiet day on the water with the wind helping our speed through most of the day. We even got to sail with the engine off for about 1/2 hour before the wind died and our speed dropped in to the 4's. It was a beautiful day on the Hawk Channel.
During the afternoon we saw our first dolphins of the trip and they played around at the bow for a short time with Laura up there talking to them. At 3pm we anchored on the south side of Rodriquez Key off Key Largo. We needed protection from the north winds that were supposed to build tonight.
The wind died after we anchored and we just drifted around. A while later, Laura looked down in the water and saw our anchor right next to us. This was a first! In the middle of the picture you can see our anchor set in the bottom with the chain leading to the lower left.
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