Day 29: March 28, 2013
Another great night for sleeping. It was quite cool but again, we dressed for it and were fine. We were rudely awakened at 6:15 by a Medevac helicopter landing in the ball field right behind our boat. I lay in bed wondering if his rotors were going to clip our mast. Of course, he was more than 100 yards behind the boat but, man, was he loud!
We got up, checked the weather and again, the early winds were 15 to 20 mph
with small boat cautionary notes sent out on the weather radio. They were saying that the winds would subside to 10 to 15 during the afternoon. To make it comfortably into Miami in 2 days, we needed to make about 25 miles. That’s 5 hours averaging 5 mph. If we took off at noon and average 5 mph, we would have 2 ½ hours to find an anchorage and get hunkered down for the night. So, I still held out hopes to be moving.
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| Unwelcomed guests |
We did the pork chop and eggs and strawberry muffin breakfast to get our eyes open. We settled down to do the daily blob and read. I walked to the dock master’s office to get ice and was quite aware of the wind chill. It was into the 40’s. These places are not used to these kinds of temps.
At around 10:00, I checked the winds and decided that they had moderated a bit so I settled up with the marina, and with the help of a young teen in the next boat, we got out of the slip with no injuries or damage. The wind was blowing across the bow and I needed someone to hold it from blowing sideways while gaining headway and steerage.
We were headed basically east northeast and the wind was coming from the
northeast so the waves were basically right off of our nose. However, the waves were not terribly rough and our ride for the next 6 hours was fairly smooth. It was quite cool which necessitated the wearing of a hooded sweatshirt and a down vest. As the day progressed, I shed the layers down to jeans and a short sleeve shirt. It was a bright sunny day!
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| Shallow Clear waters and a dolphins fin |
This area generally known as Florida Bay is studded with small keys many of them being interconnected. The Intracoastal Waterway takes a serpentine path through the maze of islands and, most of the time, the water is quite shallow outside of the channel. Actually, the channel is frequently no more than 5 feet deep so it requires almost constant attention to the helm to stay out of trouble. But, I must admit, I enjoy navigating through these kinds of waters. It makes the trip more interesting than just setting the tiller pilot on a point 20 miles down the waterway and allowing the boat to get you there with a minimal number of corrections.
A milestone was crossed when we passed under the US Highway 1 bridge that
takes the throngs of traffic off or onto Key Largo, the historic gateway to the Florida Keys. It was a somewhat busy passage with an active restaurant/bar on one side and a large hotel or condo on the other. There was a lot of boat activity with folks coming and going. Interestingly, the bridge crosses a river/creek through which the Intracoastal Waterway passes. The creek meanders about for about a mile before entering Barnes Sound, the first body of water outside of Florida Bay. There are a couple more of the “sounds” or big lakes before we enter Biscayne Bay, the upper end of which is Miami.
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| Restaurant at Highway 1 Bridge |
The wind was still on our nose as we traveled northeast and we began looking for a place to drop anchor for the night where there was protection from the predicted northeast winds that were to be blowing at 15mph. The next two sounds after Barnes Sound showed us no land masses behind which we could hide but we did see what appeared to be a very promising site on the northeast end of Barnes Sound. It was about 2 ½ miles off of the Waterway course but was the best we could find. As we approached, we realized that we had located a perfect spot to spend the night. There happened to be another boat but the wide open area provided complete privacy. We dropped anchor at around 4:15, about 200 yards
from our new neighbor.
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| Key Largo mangroves from Barnes Sound Anchorage |
Immediately upon our arrival, a lone pelican came to welcome us and enquire as
to the possibility of a handout. He/she was absolutely not afraid of us swimming to within 5 feet of us as we leaned over to take pictures. We enjoyed his visit until he decided to fly up and join us on the boat at which point loud clapping of hands signaled that he was no longer welcome.
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| Lone begging pelican |
We fired up the grill and put on another of our marinated NY strip steaks and mated it with some pasta Alfredo. We enjoyed cheese and crackers and Reisling as we waited for the meal to develop. We sat on the deck and bathed in the setting sun.
Immediately after dinner, we crawled in Damn Dink for an excursion around the mangrove near where we were anchored. The water was glassy calm up near the key and we putted (well hummed) near the shore in shallow waters. We were amazed that we saw only one bird, a cormorant, in the 30 minutes that we rode around. The water is crystal clear and we could clearly see the bottom but so no
fish or other sea creatures.
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| Panache at sunset off of Key Largo |
Back at the boat I took some shots with my sextant and with one sighting it hit the latitude exactly and the longitude about a mile off. This is the best shot I have taken. I later took some star sightings and did not do as well. I blame it on the fact that two of the shots did not have a clear horizon since they were taken over the island and had to interpolate.
We listened to “Killing Lincoln” for about an hour before going to bed. There was no wind and no waves. A calm beginning to the night.
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