Sailing Last Mango

3-1-18 This morning at 6:45 Karen motored out of the south anchorage of Fort Jefferson while I was on deck securing the anchor to Mango’s bow. We chose this morning to leave because all of the wind forecasts we could obtain from fellow cruisers with SSB radios and sat phones stated “leave today or wait several days to a week”. Morning winds were easterly at 15 to 17 with the promise of veering to ESE and then south until they die out late in the day. Mango chose to use a north route to Key West verses the south route that two other cruisers chose. We chose the north route acknowledging that Mango can’t point as close to the winds as the 2 other boats.   After a charting and navigating snafu by yours truly we had the sails set beating into 3 foot seas speeding along at 5.5 to 7 knots, the sail trim has never been set so perfect as today. We knew we needed at least 70 miles to make it to Key West and had chosen Boca Grande as a stop off point for the night. M...

2-20-18 January 9 Karen and I arrived here in Marathon aboard Mango chomping at the bit wanting to sail to the Bahamas. Our normal traveling partners aboard S/V Fracas left for the Bahamas before Karen and I were ready. There was a somewhat short weather window and Fracas has the good fortune of being able to move through the water much faster than Mango. Greg and ML have since reported that the crossing was the best they’ve ever had. Oh Well, we can always hope that we get blessed with great weather also. Mango’s still located at mooring ball S7 and since then we have witnessed many sunrises over Mango’s bow and many sunsets over her stern. I reference the bow and stern because the wind direction and speed has been relentless. Each morning when we wake Mango is pointing east into the wind with almost the same compass heading as the day before. The wind has been great for producing power this year since the addition of the Marine Kinetix wind generator. We’ve bee...