Florida Keys 2003
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Great Cruising areas that we have found
This is a collection of emails (with some additions) sent to our friends during our trip.
Throughout this article, you can click on the thumbnail pictures to enlarge them.
A new adventure begins on Tropic Daze.
With thoughts of warm water, tropical beaches and the call of the islands; can the spring migration be far behind? No. As Sue and I head for Florida’s west coast, our new boat and a new adventure, you are welcome to come along and join us as we explore the Florida Keys and learn our new boat.
For those who haven’t heard about our new boat “Tropic Daze”, here is the story. Much to our surprise when we weren't really looking or ready, we found a cruising catamaran (1995 Jeaneau Lagoon 4200) that was in great shape and under valued. We were in Cape Coral over Christmas break to see some cruising friends and knew that there was a catamaran for sale, but we didn't expect much. The pervious cats that we had seen were in poor shape, out of our price range, and not configured for cruising without a lot of modifications (read additional $$$$). Well there it was, a great boat, modified for cruising, and within our budget. Within hours we had a deal, took her out for a sea trial the next day, followed quickly by a survey. Before you could say “Cat in a Hat”, we had a new boat. We quickly pulled our gear off of Windancer, our trusty Caliber 33, cleaned her up and put her up for sale with a local dealer. We signed her over to her new owners a month later. Sometimes things just work out.
Our tentative plans are to move our gear from Windancer's old slip on Tampa Bay, to the boat in Cape Coral and load the gear. We plan to spend a week or two getting familiar with the boat and getting her ready for a few months in the Keys. In early May, we planned to sail south to the Keys and bum around between Marathon and Key West, checking out a variety of anchorages, snorkeling the reefs, exploring, and enjoying the lay back island life style.
Tropic Daze has been from New England, where she was born, to the British Virgin Islands and many points in between, so she knows her way around. Because we are new to her, she has a lot to teach us, so we will just hang out in the Keys this year and save the Bahamas for next year. After that, who knows? She is a fine boat and can take us anywhere that we dream.
The Voyages of ‘Tropic Daze’ Begin
On Saturday, the 3rd
of May, Sue released the dock lines and Tropic Daze’s twin diesels moved her
smartly out of Tarpon Point Marina, Cape Coral, Florida. Before we had even
cleared the mouth of the marina, we were greeted by a pod of dolphins diving
under our bows. What a great omen, to have dolphins see us off on the first leg
of what we hope will be many memorable adventures.
We navigated out through the maze of narrow channels that wind around the shallows and sandbars, into the Okeechobee Waterway and on downstream to the Sanibel Bridge. Sue hailed the bridge on the VHF radio, requesting an opening. We only had to wait about six minutes for the next scheduled opening time, then the 28’ bridge opened to allow our 65’ mast to pass through.
Once clear of the bridge, we navigated out through San Carlos Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. Sue brought Tropic Daze into the wind at idle speed, while I raised the main sail. This was the first time we had had her sails up with any real wind, as the day we test sailed her was almost calm. The mail sail is huge. The bottom (foot) of the sail is over 20’ long and the front of the sail (the luff) is 51’ high. The sail is made of very heavy sail cloth to withstand the extreme pressures that a catamaran, with its wide stance, can put on a sail in heavy wind. The size of the sail, plus the weight of the material and add in full battens, and you have one heavy sail to raise to the top of the mast. Sue and I take turns cranking the sail to the top. Once the sail was up, we turned off the wind, the big sail filled and we accelerated. The winds were light to moderate and we were doing 7 knots (about 8 MPH). We shut off the engines and for the first time we were sailing on Tropic Daze. It was very quiet, with just the light sounds of the wind and the water splashing against the hulls. We enjoyed a peaceful sail south.
Our destination for the first day was a small protected anchorage behind Coconut Island, near Marco, Florida. As we arrived at Capri Pass, we dropped our sails and motored through the pass and behind Coconut Island. This uninhabited little island is a popular spot with the locals for swimming, fishing, sunbathing, and just playing in the sun and sand. Sue motored us to a good spot and I dropped the 66 lb. Bruce anchor and chain rode. The anchor grabbed the bottom, Sue applied reverse engines to set the anchor deep, and we were set for the night. It was time to kick back, admire the scenery, and wait for the sun to set. Tomorrow will be another adventure to another new anchorage, the Shark River and Ponce de Leon Bay.
Sunday, we departed Coconut Island and were again greeted by dolphins as we motored out of Capri Pass. Once out in the Gulf of Mexico, we turned head to wind and raised the sails. The wind was more on our nose and sail boats can’t sail directly into the wind, or even close. Our choices were to turn off the engines and tack back and forth across the wind, or motor/sail directly to the next anchorage. Due to the length of the trip for that day, we elected to motor/sail and maintain our schedule. Anchorages on the southwest tip of Florida are few and far between. This is the Everglades, the area is wild and uninhabited (well it is habited, but not by people, as we were soon to find out). The trip south was a pleasant ride.
In the early afternoon, Sue spotted something large floating in the water ahead. Using the binoculars, I could make it out as a Cuban refugee raft/boat. We approached it slowly, no one was on board. The raft/boat was built with Styrofoam packing as its base, then three large inner tubes forming three compartments, and then more Styrofoam. The whole thing was held together by strapping material. Inside were two hand made oars that could be used as rudders, some uprights and sheets for protection from the sun or to be used as sails, empty water bottles and other debris. The raft/boat was in very good shape for having traveled hundreds of miles from Cuba.
Did these desperate sailors make it to freedom or were they swept north, missing the keys, and falling victim to the sea? It is hard for us, in Middle America, to realize how often this still goes on. It is an almost daily occurrence in the Florida Keys. If the refugees can get close enough to land to swim to shore and put their feet on American soil, they are granted asylum and can remain in the U.S. How desperate must you be to risk your life in a raft made of scraps and hope that the wind and currents will take you to America. The chances that these people take, in hopes of getting what we all too often take for granted, should give us cause to reflect and appreciate what we have and think about how we can help others find freedom.
We pressed on to the Shark River. As we approached we saw two other boats anchored about a mile off shore. We had heard that the mosquitoes could get bad and although there were some beautiful anchorages deeper in the bay and up the river, we elected to stay well off shore. The wind was blowing at about 15 knots out of the southwest, so we had no protection from the waves. Three other catamarans came in later and elected to go deep into Ponce de Leon Bay to get into the protected water and not get bounced around. Sue and I didn’t think it was that bad so we stayed off shore with what was now about seven boats.
Well to make a long story (night) short, one mile off shore is not enough. More mosquitoes than we had ever seen descended on us at dusk. Our new boat is not yet equipped with screens for any of the hatches. Mosquito repellant, electronic mosquito repellers, and other devices had no measurable effect. We buried ourselves in sheets, but they bit us through the sheets. We buried ourselves in blankets, they couldn’t bite through, but we were melting in our personnel saunas. We tried it inside, we tried it outside, and we tried it in our cabin, all to no avail. We finally closed up the boat and attacked the mosquitoes with alcohol from a spray bottle. We had heard that that would kill them and it seemed to work, although some seemed to like the alcohol a little more than others. We turned lights on in some cabins to attract them there and then closed the doors trapping them. The battle was bloody, and I mean that literally. We finally got some sleep early in the morning. When we woke about six, the mosquitoes were still outside waiting to make a meal of us. We lathered up with mosquito repellant, fired up the engines, pulled up the anchor and got out of there. You might think that the story ends there, but hundreds and hundreds of mosquitoes were hiding in every nook and cranny of the boat. They lived for weeks..
We sailed south around Cape Sable and into Florida Bay, which separates the Florida mainland from the Keys. The forecast of 10 to 15 knot winds proved to be 20 plus and on the nose again. Combine 20 plus knots of wind blowing across Florida Bay, which is only about 10 feet deep, and you get waves at very close intervals, called chop. The conditions were bad. Two other boats were also heading to Marathon and crossing Florida Bay. One a smaller catamaran gave up and headed for Key West which was a better heading, not into the wind. The other boat, about a 35’ monohull, kept beating into the wind and waves for a while, and then turned around and headed back to the Shark River to wait for better weather. If we had been in Windancer, we too would have had to turn around, as the pounding waves almost stop your forward progress, but to return to the Shark River and Death by Mosquitoes, what a choice. But Tropic Daze was up to the task. She took the waves with ease and still averaged about six knots. She proved that she is stable and comfortable, even in poor conditions.
With dolphins greeting us, we
pulled into Marathon, one of our favorite haunts in the Keys and brought them a
fresh supply of those famous Shark River Mosquitoes. We chilled out at
“Sombrero Marina & Dockside Lounge”, where they have live music every night on
the dockside patio and dinner specials where Sue and I can both eat and each
have a beer for about $10 total. What a kick back life style. We work on the
boat, bicycle around town, and talk with other sailors and the locals. The Keys
are a whole different world.
The next week we left Marathon and explored some new anchorages in the lower Keys and then headed to Key West to meet our daughter Lisa. After Lisa’s visit, Dave would fly in for 10 days. Sherry Morris would be visiting, as would Lisa and Tommy Kizer. It was going to be a full summer.
Tropic Daze’s Progress Report.
In the last email, we had arrived at Marathon, FL, which is in the middle of the Florida Keys, 50 miles east of Key West. We spent eight days in Marathon working and cleaning on the boat, and enjoying the layback life style of the middle keys. We will fill you in as to what we have been doing and then give you some background on our two favorite towns in the keys, Marathon and Key West.
During the three day sail south, we had noted a number of things that we wanted to fix, investigate, modify, or replace. Marathon was the perfect hangout for boat chores. On Windancer, we spent three years adding and modifying systems, integrating the navigation and electrical power systems, getting everything sealed, repaired, cleaned, stowed, and documented. On Tropic Daze, we tried to do much of that in the three weeks at Cape Coral. Well, it isn’t all done and we will be continuing that process, to some degree, for the next two months. By the end of this summer we should have found most of her surprises and will have her ready to go to the Bahamas next year.
After eight days in Marathon’s Boot Key Harbor, we were ready to move to Key West to meet our daughter Lisa. Just one problem, we had measured our mast and lights at 63.5 feet, which does not count the flexible VHF radio antenna at the top of the mast. When we entered the harbor and passed under the overhead cables, which are listed at 65’, Sue saw the antenna bend back as it passed under. We compared the tide at the time we entered to our desired at departure time. Because of the full moon, we had maximum tide swings which limited the times that we could leave the harbor without solid contact between mast lights and the cable. So we elected to depart the harbor on a low tide, the afternoon before our planned departure, and stay in the anchorage outside of Boot Key. We spent an enjoyable evening on the hook, relaxing, reading, and watching the sun set across Florida Bay.
The next morning we took off from the anchorage and sailed to Key West. We have found that because of the new boats speed we are not pressed to make the next marina or anchorage, so we can shut off the engines and sail much of the time. It was a great sail down the Hawk Channel, beautiful weather, fair breezes, a few dolphins and a sea turtle for good measure.
We entered Key West Bight, which is the main harbor and marina area, for a slip in the Conch Harbor Marina. The marina directed me down a fairway that appeared to be about 40 feet wide, to the last slip. Tropic Daze is almost 23 feet wide and over 42 feet long. In a fairway flanked with half million dollar boats, I got a chance to demonstrate my skill with twin diesels, one in forward and one in reverse, varying their RPMs to rotate the boat in place and start backing her in between to two pilings that were 24 feet apart. Beginners luck or skill, I don’t know, but it looked textbook to the onlookers. I guess because I made it into the slip, when we left three days later, the marina raised the ante and placed more boats on the other side of the fairway, making it even narrower. The marina did send a dinghy down to fend me off the multi-million dollar yacht that they had parked in front of me. We drew quite a crowd as people realized we were going to attempt to leave the slip, especially on the opposite dock where the owners of the other boats watched intently. We took her out playing her dual throttles and shifters, she moved forward then rotated in place and only touched the pilings, no other boats. Again, luck or skill, who knows, but we did it.
Lisa, our daughter, flew into Key West and joined us on Tropic Daze for four days. We enjoyed the town, its shopping, dinning, and attractions with her. A couple of her college friends from Fort Lauderdale joined us for a few days and we all went sailing out to the reef and back.
Lisa left on Tuesday and David arrived on Friday, followed by Sherri Morris on Sunday. In between we planned to sail up the Keys and explore some new anchorages.
Tropic Daze Update
It has been a busy month since our last email. Between exploring the Keys, boat guests, maintenance, etc., the time has flown.
Two quick updates, first the new boat is great. She is a fast, stable, and a comfortable ride. We are finding, fixing, and modifying things to match our cruising style. She is manageable by two people, but handles a crowd comfortably.
Second, how are the Florida Keys for a bare boat chartering destination? The British Virgin Islands or the Bahamas they are not. The Keys are a great vacation spot with a variety of activities, water sports, and other attractions, but the Keys lack the beaches and protected anchorages of other popular bare boat cruising grounds. Other than the Dry Tortugas, Key West, and Marathon, the Keys offer few cruising destinations, and none like the protected anchorages, sand beaches and quaint beach bars and restaurants of the BVI, the Abacos, etc. Don’t take this wrong, we love the Keys, but if you are thinking of the Keys as a destination for a one week bare boat charter, think elsewhere. If you want a great vacation spot, come on down.
Now back to the continuing Adventures on Tropic Daze:
After our daughter Lisa and her friends left us in Key West, we sailed up the Keys to Looe Key reef and snorkeled the reef. The reef is rated as one of the best in the keys for snorkeling and diving. After our snorkel, we sailed past Little Palm Island Resort ($500+ per night) into Newfound Harbor. We had a little trouble setting the 66 pound Bruce anchor in the harbor’s grassy bottom. Big clumps of grass and mud would pull free and clog the anchor, then the anchor just bounced along the bottom. We were use to a plow type anchor on Windancer and our procedure was to set the anchor deep by pulling on it with the boat in reverse, until we were sure that it would hold us through the night. We found that with the Bruce anchor, that with much reverse power we just pulled up big chunks of the bottom which hung in the anchor until we cleared them out. We finally got the anchor to hold, but didn’t pull hard on it. Was this a harbinger of things that could go wrong in the dark of the night?
We explored Newfound Harbor and found nothing of interest, just a harbor protected from the waves and current, but with poor holding. Not a great destination for our upcoming guests. We returned to Key West to meet our son David on Friday, followed by Sherri Morris on Sunday. Our plans were to spend a couple of days with them in Key West and then sail 70 miles west to the Dry Tortugas and Fort Jefferson. What is that saying about the best laid plans? While performing a routine check of the engines, I found a significant sea water leak around the starboard engine cooling pump. It was a few days till we could get the seals to rebuild the pump, delaying our departure for the Dry Tortugas.
Meanwhile, Dave took advantage
of the fact that we were parked right beside a popular dive boat and signed up
for a couple of resort dives. He enjoyed the diving so much that he went out
again the next day for two more dives, and the next day. Six resort dives in
all.
With the water pump seals replaced we watched the weather for our planned trip to Fort Jefferson. As it often happens, the Wind Gods know where you want to go and that is where the wind blows from, in this case out of the west. Typically when sailing to a destination up wind you just tack back and forth to get there, but not when you are surrounded by reefs and shallows that have claimed thousands of boats. Even a mild wind out of the west would have been manageable using the engines, but 15 to 20 knots with high seas and heavy thunder storms; we elected to stay in the Key West area.
With a few days on our hands and Dave’s birthday approaching, we asked him if he would like to get his SCUBA certification as a birthday present. After some intense studying and two days of classes and dives, he earned his certification.
Meanwhile Sue and Sherri shopped, swam, caught some rays, and generally enjoyed Key West. We did get some day sailing in. We planned a sail to the Marquesas Keys, which are a collection of mangrove islands that form a circle around a shallow lake. According to the “Cruising Guide to the Florida Keys” (worthless) there is a beach on the island on the east side of the Marquesas. We sailed to the east side of the Marquesas and explored, but found no beaches, just shallow grass flats and mangroves. We have since learned from the locals, that there hasn’t been a beach there since a hurricane 8 or 10 years ago. The same locals told us of some of their favorite spots after we promised not to tell anyone. You aren’t just “anyone”, so we can tell you. According to the locals, there are beaches on a couple islands on the southwest side of the Marquesas. To reach these beaches you have to navigate around a number of shallows, shoals, and submerged wrecks. After Sherri and David left, we sailed back to the Marquesas and explored these beaches. Yes, there was some sand beyond the grass and mud, but still not a great spot to bring guests.
After the Marquesas, we sailed to Cottrell Reef off of Cottrell Key, which is northwest of Key West. We saw a lot of fish, among them were tarpon as big as us, a number of six foot rays and a big nurse shark.
From Cottrell, we sailed east to Snipe Key and anchored off Snipe Point. Finally, we found a great looking spot. Sand beaches and a sandy bottom under 1 to 6 feet of water that stretched for miles. We had heard that this was a favorite weekend spot of the locals and as it was Saturday, there were 15 small boats scattered around the area with families and groups enjoying the clear, warm water. We anchored in 10 feet of water and again we had a problem setting the anchor to our satisfaction. Once anchored, we dropped the dinghy, explored the area, and chatted with the locals. A couple hours before sunset, the boats started departing and by sunset we were alone in this beautiful spot. After dinner, under a full moon, we watched lightning in the distance far to the north and south of us, but these would pass far from us. We set the GPS’s anchor alarm to alert us if we moved more than 180 feet. With 90 feet of chain out, we could swing a little less than 180 feet and still remain anchored.
3:30AM and the alarm is screaming in the cockpit. The moon is down and it is pitch black in rain and heavy wind. The GPS says that we are moving, but which way? The wind has shifted 180 degrees, but where are the islands, the shallow, and the rocks? We fire up both engines, ready to take evasive actions, as soon as we can figure out which way is danger. I run to the bow with a flashlight in an attempt to determine whether we are dragging the anchor. I think we are dragging so I let out more anchor chain in an attempt to hook the bottom. The boat is pitching in the wind and waves, and yanking hard on the anchor chain. We still can’t see the islands, shallows or rocks, and we are not sure with the swirling winds which way they are. All of the instruments and instrument lighting is not on, more trips to the power panel to flip on additional circuit breakers. Sue, who has been manning the helm, is firing up the radar. I run down to the forward cabin and get out the 400,000 candle power search light in an attempt to spot the islands. The rain and moisture won’t allow the light to penetrate the darkness. We concentrate on the GPS and depth gauge. We still are in ten feet of water, but are we moving towards the islands? The speed and direction of movement being reported by the GPS keep varying drastically. The speed averages about a half a knot (less than one mile per hour), but the direction, which is most important, is confusing. We had never drug our anchor before and this was one emergency drill we hadn’t fully thought through. The loss of visual data meant that we had to resolve what our instruments were trying to tell us, make sense of it all, and then take appropriate action.
With the radar through its warm up, we could see the source of the wind and waves; a line of severe storms to our east was creating a strong in flow of air which had caused the boat to turn and pull on the anchor in the opposite direction. The line was moving north and would not cross our position.
The anchor, with the additional chain I had let out, seemed to be holding and not bouncing on the bottom, so maybe we were stopped. The GPS still said that we were moving, but with the wind and the waves, we were swinging like a pendulum from the end of our anchor chain. We were moving rapidly back and forth across the bottom, but we really weren’t going anywhere. The anchor was holding and the winds were subsiding.
The instruments and the GPS in particular, can flood you with data, distilling the essential information out of all that data in an emergency requires forethought and planning. We learned a lot from this experience and are better prepared, should it happen again. We discussed the previous owner’s choice of a Bruce as the primary anchor over the plow type that the boat was originally equipped with. We are not big Bruce fans and were losing confidence fast. A Bruce is fine in sandy bottoms, but add grass and it has problems.
In the morning, when the sun was high enough to see the bottom, Sue put on her snorkel gear and swam to inspect the anchor. She swam straight back to the boat and said that we were leaving. The anchor was lying upside down, with only one of its three points slightly penetrating the bottom. Sue was ready to go back to Key West and find a better anchor. The next day we had a 55 pound Delta, a top notch plow type anchor, mounted on the bow and the Bruce was retired.
That same day, Lisa and Tommy Kizer came on board for a four day visit. Two of those nights were spent anchored successfully in the same location off on Snipe Point, but with the new Delta anchor. We had a great time with Lisa and Tommy, sailing around Florida Bay, snorkeling Cottrell Reef, exploring Key West and the islands, and enjoying some fine meals, both onboard and off.
Lisa and Tommy left in the morning and our Daughter-in-law Gina arrived in the afternoon. After a little time in Key West, we would sail up the keys to Marathon and hangout there. Our cruising companions from last year, Teri and Jim Crowley, would be arriving in Marathon from the Bahamas later in th week. We planned to hangout in the Marathon area with Gina, Teri and Jim until Gina had to leave, then maybe some more exploring up around Cudjoe Channel on the Florida Bay side of the keys.
After our guests left, we sailed back up the keys to Marathon and prepared for our trip north to Tampa Bay. To avoid the Shark River on the return trip, we planned an afternoon departure with its low tide so we could make it under the 65' cables exiting Boot Key Harbor and then sail across Florida Bay. Depending on conditions, we planned to either anchor off of Cape Sable (15 miles south of the Shark) or sail through the night and bypass the Shark and the Everglades.
For a week or more, the Keys and Southwest Florida had been plagued with numerous thunderstorms moving up the coast. Departure day looked good, no thunderstorms, so at 3:00pm we departed Dockside and Boot Key Harbor, then sailed across Florida Bay for a couple of hours until the wind died to about 4 knots off the stern. We motorsailed till the wind picked up again. The wind picked up 40 degrees off the stern and we were making a downwind run at 8+ knots. The weather was great, no thunderstorms on radar, and none it the forecast, so we elected to sail on through the night. The wind built a little more and we hit 10.5 knots as we surfed the waves down wind. A little later we hit 12.5 knots, things were going great.
At 2:20am during Sue's watch, while I slept in the saloon, the only thunderstorm in Florida sprang up directly off our stern. Though asleep, I heard the boom swing across the stern as the outflow wind from the thunderstorm jibed the sail and built to 30 knots. Sue spun the boat around to put her bows into the wind while I raced to the foredeck. As Sue turned on the foredeck lights and I could see that the wind had turned Gulf waters angry and confused, with waves crashing in all directions. I quickly dropped the mainsail and secured it, then rolled the jib. Sue turned us back around and we continued on our way motoring north. Only a little rain, but a lot of wind. The thunderstorm dissipated and the rest of the night was uneventful.
We seem to have a history of adventures at night. They reminded us of a quote from Captain Ron, “If it’s going to happen, it will happen out there”; well we have modified that saying, “If it’s going to happen, it will happen out there at night”.
At 4:25 that afternoon we pulled into the Crow's Nest Marina in Venice, Florida; 40 miles short of Tampa Bay. We made 172 miles in 25 and a half hours, an average of just under 7 knots. After a meal and a good nights sleep, we sailed up the coast, into Tampa Bay and into our slip at Bahia Beach Marina. Another adventure complete. We are comfortable on Tropic Daze and ready to take her to the Bahamas next year. See you then.