Long Key to Fanny Keys

Day 12:  March 11, 2013

Today was a great day.  We slept well last night. Had sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast, took showers, bought some ice, typed a posting and got underway by about 10:00.

Butch, the guy in the boat next to ours suggested that we sail northeast and then pass through the Channel Five into the Hawk Channel which skirts the Atlantic side of the keys.  He said it was a more interesting trip to Key West, however, I had preplanned courses that would take us to Key West on the Gulf side and back on the Atlantic side. So we broke out of our sea grass encampment and headed south west toward Vaca Key. 

Motoring in ShallowWater. Nice Hat, Huh?

We hadn’t hooked up to the shore power at Sea Bird Marina so we motored until about noon before setting our sails.  There was a brisk breeze out of the southeast, making our trip a really pleasant broad reach all the way to Vaca Key.  There were times when I saw 7.2mph on the chart plotter (GPS).  For our boat 7.2 is flying.  Speed in a sailboat is relative.  The water was moderately choppy so the tiller-pilot (autopilot) was not effective and I had to hand steer most of the way.  Back in the winter, my preplanning involved picking courses and setting waypoints that skirted shallow waters.  On the water, I can pick a waypoint to which I want to travel, select it in the GPS, and then follow the magnetic compass course to that point.  It is a real failsafe way to navigate these waters that are so very shallow.  I didn’t see any water today that was deeper than 11 feet.  Both our paper charts and our GPS charts are very good so navigation is fairly precise as we sail from waypoint to waypoint. 

So Long, Sea Bird Marina

Private Yacht Club Near Captain Pip's

Our destination today was only 22 miles and we arrived fairly early in the afternoon.  We had picked out a relatively small body of water on the north shore of Vaca Key and the town of Marathon.  This was a well protected area located between two small keys known as Fanny Keys.  This is a heavily populated area with a lot of small charter fishing boats and also a commercial fishing company that appeared to have about 5 boats.  We secured the boat, and crawled in Dink and headed for shore.  We approached a fellow in the docking area of a private club who was washing his boat and asked for directions to a place where we could dock our dinghy.  He indicated a restaurant/charter fishing organization called Captain Pips.  We motored around to Pips dock and made our inquiry and a guy cleaning fish pointed to a tiny corner of the dock and said, “if anyone asks, tell them you are eating at Porky’s Barbeque.”  We tied up and walked past Porky’s to across the extremely busy highway, US 1.  We were looking for the marina that had control of a mooring field in Boot Key Harbor which is a extremely well-protected harbor completely surround by Vaca Key.  The first marina we came to only had mooring slips so we bought ice cream sandwiches and headed out.  Out the front door, we encountered a cabby and asked for a ride to the West Marine store.  The temperature was near 80 and walking wasn’t appealing.  The guy said that he was waiting for instructions for another pickup but was being ignored by his home base.  I crawled in and waited and finally he said, “Come on, I’ll take you but this is my first day and I don’t know where West Marine is located.”  When he finally got the dispatchers attention, they gave him directions and we were off on about a 2 mile ride.  The fee for all taxi rides is $5.00. 

One of the two Fanny Keys

We were in need of several items at the marine store.  At some point yesterday, as we were sailing and healing way over, the front bow line that I had forgotten to attach disappeared into the abyss.  Also, several days ago, in a moment of pandemonium that periodically occurs on the boat, I knocked my prized no spill ceramic coffee mug off of the cabin top and it exploded into 37 pieces (I think that is the correct count).  Finally, last year, on Lake Superior, our built in depth sounder in our GPS did work.  I assumed that I had broken the wire that comes from the transducer mounted on the floor and travels to the base unit.  I contacted the manufacturer and he sent me a new end plug but warned that it was very difficult soldering to reassemble it.  I bought a micro soldering iron and attempted to do the repair.  I got it done all be it was not very pretty.  When we got here, we were rewarded with a nonfunctioning depth sounder.  Our backup one is not very accurate so I inquired of the associate in the electronics department about a replacement transducer and after a number of questions (you know, I was the dummy who didn’t know what I needed) he pulled one out of a cupboard.  I thought I remembered that the fee was to be around $300 but was pleasingly happily surprised to get a $95.00 bill. 



Heading Back from West Marine



We decided to walk back to Porky’s and the Dink and back on the boat, I laid down to rest and contemplate the extreme task of replacing the transducer.  It would require that we unpack two lockers, crawl into the cockpit locker (the opening into which is a few sizes smaller than my girth and threading the wire through and under about 15 feet of boat interior.  While laying there, I had a thought.  I would attempt one more test on the original transducer to be absolutely sure that it was bad.  This device is attached directly to the inside of the hull on an underwater portion of the boat.  The mount is epoxied to the fiberglass and then the transducer is twisted and locked into it.  I remembered that you tested it prior to the initial installation by making a dam of water and setting the transducer head into the water.  So I filled the mount with water, installed the transducer and Walla, the depth sounder worked.



Sunset From Fanny Keys



I took Dink back to Porky’s, walked back to West Marine and confronted the salesman with my story and his response was, “Well (dummy), if you would have told me your problem, I would have told you the solution.”  He said that the mount should be filled with mineral oil not water because the water will evaporate and leave an air gap through which no signal would pass. 



Back on the boat, we grilled our last bratwursts and drank a glass of wine in celebration to the successful repair of or depth sounder.  Bed came about our usual time of 9:00.  And, oh by the way, we did have our Spam and PBJ lunch since we now had ice and could open our cooler.