A Comedy of Errors (Thursday, March 22)

I don’t even know how to begin to describe the day we’ve had.

We left Saddlebunch Harbor, and our Gemini friends, behind to head out into the Atlantic. It was still honking at 0630 so we waited three hours until deciding it wasn’t getting any better. With a full main and the little jib, we began the 25NM beat. The breeze had clocked a few degrees so that it was around East/SouthEast. It was forecasted that the wind would be 15-20 becoming 15. The forecast was wrong. Scott and I never saw 15 knots. However, we did see the East wind build all day, gusts to 25, and 4-7 foot chop.

Ten miles into our upwind workout, the GPS lost satellite and never regained consciousness. Scott was sight navigating and I continued to drive. Our short tack had us headed off into the ocean but going at high 8s (knots). Our long tack saw the range of 6-8 knots depending what the wave series were. Sometime during the sail, Scott looked back and noticed that we had lost our valve regulator on our Magma grill. The kicker was that it was so stuck in there Scott couldn’t get it out the previous night so we figured that it wouldn’t go anywhere. We figured wrong. We continued sailing having had the ocean burial of the regulator.

We stuck it out, pitching and pulling in the waves, until we noticed our sidestay turn buckles were beginning to spin off. We were not very pleased by this, as we decided when raising the mast that they would not spin. I went down below in search of ring dings and found it practically raining inside our boat. Well, our boat leaks, whatever; all boats leak. Fixing the rigging malfunction took some time as there were spurts where I felt zero gravity while cruising down the backside of waves. When we got it squared away, we decided this kind of sucks and dropped the main to reach in with the jib.

We had just passed Newfound Harbor and decided to doubleback and stay there for the night. Bahia Honda was not in the cards taking into account the beating we were getting. Cruising into the harbor with only the little jib was an excellent idea. The best we’ve had all day. Coming in at 7 knots, we quickly realized the harbor was not very protected. Contrary to what our cruising guide seems to think. We cruised over to the back of the harbor to set up shop. We had previously been told we could not enter the only marina in the harbor because we were too wide for the canal. Allegedly, the rule says you can’t go through the canal if you take up more than half of it. Anyway, we tucked up in the corner and attempted to set our anchors. Our anchors were not sticking worth crap. This obviously worried us because we needed to run into shore for groceries and a pharmacy. We finally got them stuck and reluctantly left the boat. We paddled the kayak up a canal to Sea Center. Sea Center was a dry marina but had a spot for us to put the kayak while we ran our errands.

By this time of day, Scott and I are really beginning to become ornery. I’m getting irritated that we can’t steer the kayak in a straight line and in return Scott stops rowing. We later realize it was because he, nor I, has eaten all day. Our 0800 Tuna fish sandwiches were well digested and our stomachs were empty. I’m sure both our families know how we get when we get hungry. The only upside to this story is that we both do 180s when we get food in our bellies.

On our way up the canal lined with private homes we admired the boats up on lifts and also the very nice seawall dock space. We joked about offering a homeowner rent for the wall space for a night, which would actually really help us sleep better. We were almost to the Sea Center when, low and behold, Scott says good afternoon to a couple walking around their balcony. He jokes with them asking if our boat is still anchored out in the harbor and we soon find out they are sailors as well! We tell them we are trying to get to a pharmacy and a grocery store (both desperately needed) and these wonderful people offer to drive us there. With my encouragement, Scott completely imposes and asks to rent their dock for the night. Fortunately, we ran into the right people. The lovely couple was renting the house for a month. They not only let us stay there for the night, but they drove us to the grocery store and back, and invited us in for a shower and a glass of wine! Our last real shower was in Key West, Monday morning…so it was time. We offered several times to buy them dinner but they wouldn’t have it. “Helping out fellow sailors” they said.  Our day went from being by far the worst and most stressful day of the trip to one of the very best days, all because of the kind generosity of these two people. I’ll tell you what, after their hospitality, it is definitely our turn to pay it forward!

The couple is from Connecticut and own an Island Packet 370 (hull #2) that they cruise. From the sound of it, they’ve cruised some pretty cool places and their next is a two week cruise around Nantucket, Hyannis, and Martha’s Vineyard (some of my favorite East coast cities).

 

After the longest day of the trip, we were both drained mentally and physically. Not only was the boat put to the test (and man are we happy that she held up), but we put ourselves to the test getting the crap kicked out of us by the ocean. We are heading for Bahia Honda tomorrow morning, with lighter breeze being forecasted in the afternoon.

Getting a good night’s rest,

Lauren & Scott

The Day Our Ice Melted (Wednesday, March 21)

We woke up a few times in the night to rain. The morning yielded scattered showers as well. We decided we weren’t going to go anywhere because it was still too windy. After we put our sleeping quarters away and opened up the “galley” (by opening up the galley, I merely mean we made the cooler accessible), we noted that our ice was melting fast. We decided that we absolutely needed to leave for civilization tomorrow. That means we needed to get to Bahia Honda and bypass Newfound Harbor. Bahia Honda is about 25NM from Saddlebunch Harbor.

We took inventory on what we could eat (specifically the contents of the cooler) and Scott made us grilled cheese. Heaven forbid that our cheese supply goes bad before consumption. After breakfast we noticed that the chicken bones that I had set out the previous night were bare. We basically dropped everything to set up our fishing gear. 

Scott tried first with just a lure and they were interested but not totally buying it. Scott recommended putting on hot dog to really get them going. What the heck, the ice is melting anyway! They loved the hot dog but kept stealing it off the lure and hook. We switched to a smaller hook (which turned out to be the key) and put hot dog chunks on it. Scott passed off the rod to me and within seconds I had a fish on! It really was the hook though; I’m not trying to take credit for catching the first fish (although I’m sure my dad would argue otherwise since fishing is in my blood).  We caught three more little fish (Ceasar Grunts, I think) and released one. We used the other two for crab trap bait.

Scott took the honor of chopping it up and putting it in the crab trap. I couldn’t stomach hitting it over the head with a winch handle to knock it out. Scott periodically checked his crab trap to make sure the bait was still in there. One time he brought it up for a check and a large shadow came up with it. He had attracted a nurse shark that was sticking her nose in the cage and latching on. She wanted that fish head! She came almost to the surface before seeing us and speeding off back to the bottom. Eventually something took the crab trap bait without setting it off and we used another grunt. The day ended with no crab caught. 

In the evening Scott called me up from below to see the craziest thing. Schools of fish were leaping

through the air near the mangroves. We’re talking hundreds of fish, all in synch. We assume they must be running from something bigger than themselves, underneath the surface.

We’re planning to make it to Bahia Honda tomorrow before we starve!

Checking out of Saddlebunch Harbor,

Lauren & Scott

Sitting Ducks (Tuesday, March 20)

 

The wind howled all night long. We woke up early this morning to check on our wind situation and found the ocean angry. The overcast skies made it look pretty treacherous out so we decided to stay in Saddlebunch another day. We figure it’s either here or another anchorage, only the location is the difference. After a relaxing morning inside the boat, we decided to start the day and have hot dogs for brunch. We noticed our harbor neighbor, the Gemini, was also still with us. This little fact made us feel better about our decision to forego the upwind beat.

Later in the day when we saw that the couple was out on deck, Scott decided to say hello. We launched the kayak and paddled over. After a half an hour of sweet talking, Scott got us ANOTHER boat tour. Their boat was a 2002 and was a pretty good looking boat cosmetically. After the tour, we thanked them and headed back to our own boat.

This afternoon I also came to the realization that I am quite afraid of the ocean. I’m not sure if it was my childhood naivety that allowed me to go swimming carefree, or that I was daring. But here, I am having such trouble getting the nerve up to jump in the water. The water is pretty clear when the sun is shining so I think the snorkeling would be good, but I can’t seem to want to jump in. I suppose it doesn’t help that before I get set to go in Scott tells me he’ll stay on the boat to watch for sharks. The fact that he always makes me jump in first makes me feel a little less dumb knowing he must be afraid too.

Today, Scott and I have finished our books. It’s also been discovered that we didn’t pack a deck of cards. The good news for me is that I’ll read anything, so I’ll read his books next. The bad news for Scott is that he probably won’t be reading my books next after he sees the chick romance novels I brought along. Guess we’ll have to resort to keeping each other company and actually conversing for the rest of the time (that is until we go to shore and buy more books).

We had chicken drumsticks on the grill for dinner. After dinner I bunched the bones together to drag behind the boat to see what we attract. We’re chumming up sharks in case our quality bookless time doesn’t go well. We plan to leave tomorrow, windy or not, just to see how it goes. We figure if it really is too bad we can sneak right back into this harbor and anchor again.

Hoping for not such a windy night,

Lauren & Scott

Sucker Punch (Monday, March 19)

We left Key West around 0800 and set sail for Newfound Harbor! As soon as we got past the cruise ships and rounded the island it hit us: 20+ knots on the nose. Luckily Scott had a double reef in the main and we planned to sail with the little jib to get the most point out of the boat. Waves were pretty large in the shipping channel. Scott and I would definitely argue that we crashed into some 6-7 foot standing waves. They receded in size a bit once we got further into Hawk Channel, but still pretty variable and around 4-5 feet. We were expecting something resembling ocean waves, not hugely oversized Lake St. Clair chop.

My bibs saw the sun for the first time this trip. I was getting soaked and the sun wasn't warming me up fast enough. Scott lasted all day in just his swim trunks (and a lifejacket; I called for lifeys when we reefed the main). It would have been a sail of a lifetime if we were headed in any other direction than the one we were going in. The sun was shining and the water was an amazing blue. I keep hoping to capture on camera the colors that we see, but I think the polarization of our sunglasses create the most vivid colors for our memories alone.

We had a lot of ocean company, while still in the shipping channel, we had two big fishing boats blow by us. We also saw a big coast guard boat. Later in the day we were passed by two big Beneteaus (Bene-slows), both chugging, plowing, and motoring through the waves. They didn't look anymore comfortable than us.


The majority of the morning we discussed turning around and heading back to Key West. My mom and grandparents were headed down for the day,but unfortunately it was after we had planned to leave. We decided we didn't want to give up the headway that we had already made. After zig-zagging upwind for 35NM, we made it up the keys to Saddlebunch Harbor. Saddlebunch is only 15NM from Key West. This stop is about halfway from Key West to our initially planned Newfound Harbor destination. The beat had us zigzagging nearly 20 extra NM. Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, our VMG was less than optimal. Lesson learned: a double reef in the main means tacking angles are an extra 20 degrees apart.

We tucked into a corner and anchored. Later in the afternoon we took the kayak for an exploration trip so we could check out the shallow spots around us. The water is pretty clear here and the depths are all over the place. We are currently right on the edge of very shallow water and about 80 ft from the mangroves. Excellent protection from the angry winds on the Hawk Channel.

We've discovered that the tidal currents are very quick when they change. The boat tugs on the port anchor and then within seconds tugs on the starboard anchor. The current is so strong that the water just boils around the hulls. We find it really interested watch how the boat is affected by both the wind and varying currents at it lays at anchor.  It is surprisingly unpredictable. It really seems to change by the minute. After we anchored, I saw a huge fish come up to the surface and decided I wouldn't be going swimming here. Later in the evening we were joined in the harbor by a Gemini105Mc that had ducked into the anchorage to get away from the feisty weather.

We are hoping to get an early start tomorrow morning. We plan to sail up the the keys another 15NM and arrive in Newfound Harbor, but we'll see which way the wind blows us.

Waiting for the breeze to calm,
Lauren & Scott