3-28-16 We left the anchorage heading back to Key West for a day or two and were forced to motor sail the whole way due to very little wind. We made our way to Garrison Bite and grabbed a mooring ball after repeatedly call the harbor master without any reply. We finally got them on the phone and were directed on how to navigate the dinghy to their location to pay our daily fee. It was quite a trek from our mooring to the harbor master, total time one way was about 20 minutes. I know understand why people complain about the mooring field being so far from the dinghy dock. We got checked in and took badly needed showers since the past several days the heat index has been in the high 90’s. After showers Karen and I walked over to Duval street and a few drinks. They tasted great and went down well, we could've stayed and drank away the night but common sense prevailed and we made our way back to Mango and dinner.
 |
Karen wanted me to take this picture of 2 young girls
playing beer pong in Dante's pool. I made her take it
because I didn't want to be that CREEPY old man taking
pictures of young girls. |
 |
| Karen sitting back watching the world go by. |
Morning came and Karen began cleaning Mango’s inside and I decided to clean the bottom. It’s a decent workout scraping a few barnacles and scrubbing the bottom. The little fish in the area just love the slime and barnacles that drop off Mango’s bottom. Mango’s bottom is now clean and set for tomorrows sail to points north of Key West. After things were clean we made our voyage into the dinghy dock for showers and then to Captain Tony’s for a drink, conversation and listen to the musician of the day. Once again the drinks tasted great in the 88 degree heat and could have easily been a drunk day for me but cooler heads prevailed and we had lunch instead, good move. We strolled our way back to Mango and took naps only to be awaken by a knock on Mango’s hull from another cruiser we met in Boot Key Harbor. After putting on clothes and chatting for a few Karen told me to look north. The entire north sky was filled with black clouds, Karen went to check the radar while I pulled up the dinghy. Shortly after the dinghy was secure on the davits the wind started blowing with top speed we saw of 34 knots. Seas quickly white capped and I sat on deck watching everyone bounce atop the building waves. The wind did not slow for 2 hours and slowly died overnight. The only good news is that the temperature went from 88 to 73 degrees and the humidity was now decent.
 |
| Wind starting to move in. |
 |
| Our neighbor did a bit of moving also. |
 |
| A lot movement happening but we welcomed the cooler, less humid weather. |
 |
| White caps in the mooring field. |
 |
| Seaplane landing near us unloading passengers. |
A sun filled morning greeted and there was still a north swell from last night. We raised the mainsail before leaving the mooring ball as the winds were forecasted to be from the east at 15 which ideal for our plans to head north. We sailed out of Key West noting that the wind was mostly from the North but I had hopes that there was some land effect causing the North breeze. As we cleared the Northwest Passage the winds were still mostly North and 18 to 25 knots with 4 foot waves out of the North. Karen, Mango and I put on our game face and pounded our way northwest at a decent rate. My only fear was that if the wind did not veer more easterly we would end up out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Karen and I talked of turning and going back to Key West but felt confident that the wind would change, we also were greeting several times by dolphins which Karen considers to be good luck. We plugged along all day with winds that appeared to veer at times only to return to a NNE direction. It wasn’t until 2 in the morning that the wind veered to the East and we set course for Fort Myers Beach. After a long night sailing we arrived at Fort Myers Beach mooring field at 9 AM. Tired and salty we let the harbor master know were would be in later to pay, we cleaned up and took naps until sometime afternoon.
 |
We did get to do a bit os sailing this day. Karen caught me
in one of my favorite spots watching water rush under the
the bow. |
Needless to say the day just flew by and we enjoyed the beach a bit before having some shrimp during “Happy Hour” with S/V Chapter 4 and S/V Special K2 who sailed in later in the day, the boating world is really a small world.
The next morning we woke up and started to make our way to Fort Myers where we will prep Mango for her summer storage at the Glades which is just off the Okeechobee Waterway. Making our way to Fort Myers was like driving down the Dan Ryan expressway in Chicago. It was crazy boats flying
everywhere, boats crashing, boats sinking, pure craziness but we made it.
 |
| Sun going down over the Gulf of Mexico |
 |
| Karen during the next morning. We were both very tired. |
 |
| Last of the sun. Then a night full of nothing but stars. |
Upon arriving in Fort Myers Yacht Basin we were greeted by Ross and Barb from M/V Attitude Adjuster and then by Susan and Jeff from M/V Gran Vita. Once again it’s a small world, Barb and Ross were the first boaters we met on our trip back in Joliet Illinois.
 |
| Restaurant on our way to Fort Myers |
 |
| Sundown as seen from Fort Myers Yacht Basin. Just beautiful. |
Comments
Post a Comment