A Fool's Gambit

That's right. We've got engine, we've got alternator power. So now, we're filling up on fuel, water, and food. We're doing laundry. We're withdrawing some cash. We're diving to recover an extra anchor. And when we say 'we', we mean 'I'. This is my list of things to do before I leave. I should get most things done tomorrow. I may leave Monday afternoon, but it will most likely take me until Tuesday to get everything done, since I'll want to go into the bank. Ah, the last minute things. All that, and I need to reorganize stuff on the boat so it doesn't move around on the trip.

But anyway, this will probably be the last entry before I leave, so wish me luck!

Guess whose engine started today? Did you guess me? Did you? Then you're right! I got the last part I needed yesterday afternoon. After some initial setbacks - engine turned over, ran for 30 seconds, then sputtered out - and several attempts to fully bleed the air from the fuel lines, I finally got her purring like a kitten.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the alternator isn't putting out power. I'm working on a diagnosis. I wouldn't bother, but I'd like to be sure I can use the engine to keep the batteries topped up - especially once I'm regularly using the refrigerator. If the winds aren't strong enough, my wind turbine can't keep up with its power draw.

This weekend is Key West Race Week. Lots of sleek sailboats and well-tuned crews out on the ocean. For their sake, I hope the wind we got today keeps up. The front is supposed to die out this weekend, though. Speaking of the cold front, it's a pretty big one. Highs are in the mid 60's. Winds are in the mid-20's. Brrr.

So, anyway, I hope to leave Key West while this front is still here, somewhere on the tail end of it, when it's not gusting 35 mph. I'll try to make it up to Islamorada and hang out for a day or two. My old boss from the Jolly II Rover, Joey, is up there. Then it's up to Key Largo or Biscayne Bay, and then across to Bimini. I'll check in there, and head over to Nassau. From there, I'll work my way down the Exumas. That's as far as I've got in my 'definite' plan. There isn't a time line to accompany that plan; it's just a route at this point. But I'll post at least one more time before I leave for the Bahamas, and we'll see when the next post will be after that.

Well, this is disappointing. It's the new year, and I'm still in Key West. I fixed the broken fuel return line on my engine, but broke a nut in the process. I still don't have a new fuel filter. But I think the one I need is in the mail as of the day before yesterday. Hopefully, I'll get the nut I need (it's a special little thing, not really a nut - it holds the fuel return line on and feeds fuel into it as well) tomorrow, if the mechanic has a replacement on hand. It's so hard to find parts for 25 year old marine diesels.

Anyway.... Happy New Year. Kul 'Amm Wa Antum Bikhayr. Feliz Ano Nuevo. Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun. Chestiti Nova Godina. L'Shana Tovah. There's a very multi-ethnic community in Key West. I've used all of these 'Happy New Year' phrases except the Arabic one (the first one) in the past 24 hours. A few fireworks yesterday. Lots of people here over the winter break. Crowded streets. I liked Key West more when it was slower. Smaller. More of a community feel. But I didn't really like it that much, even then. I'm sorry; I just don't. It's a place that plays like it's so far away from the mainland, but goes to extraordinary lengths to be no different than the mainland.

And I'm ready to move on.

They say cruising is performing boat repairs in exotic places around the world. I can't wait to get started, but first I have to effect a few repairs here in Key West.

First off, on Wednesday, I drilled a hole in my boat. It sounds stupid, and it was. But an understandable kind of stupid. Like, I thought I was drilling through the fiberglass liner of my icebox, but I was drilling through the fiberglass hull of the boat. Below the waterline. So in the middle of the night, I had a quarter-inch hole suddenly appear in the bottom of my boat. I grabbed a tube of 5200 (a polyurethane marine sealant that will cure underwater) and headed down to find the hole (outside the boat. I couldn't reach it from the inside thanks to the icebox liner!). A little caulk, and I'm set for a few days, weeks, months, who knows. But I'm going to haul the boat out and do a real repair before I leave, I think.

Then, on Thursday morning, I was trying to change the fuel filter, which looks like it is as old as the boat. It wouldn't come off with any filter wrench created by man, so I hammered a screwdriver through it for leverage. Still won't budge. Fudge. So now I can't run the engine (therefore, can't get to the yard under my own power for a haul-out) because there's a hole in my fuel filter. So then I tried to take off the entire mount that attached the fuel filter to the engine. In the process, I broke the fuel return line. I'm hoping that can be patched, because I don't think they make parts for my 25-year-old Volvo Penta anymore.

So it's been a rough week. I was hoping to leave this weekend. I'm not going to make it, obviously. But I'm going to leave by Christmas. That's my new pledge.

So, on Monday afternoon I decided to go to the Dry Tortugas. I had the week off because the schooner was in the yard, and with nothing better to do, I figured I'd give it a go. I left at about 1:30 pm on Monday. I had an uneventful sail in light north winds to Boca Grande, where I anchored just as the sun went down. (By the way, on all of the Google Maps links, if you look in the left sidebar, there's frequently pictures or video from the location available under 'Explore this area'.) I should have left earlier, but I wanted to get my Monitor windvane steering system working. I didn't get it working - I hand-steered the whole trip there and back.

I left my anchoring site at Boca Grande at 6:30 in the morning, hoping to make it to the Dry Tortugas before sunset. I hand-steered for 12 hours straight. I did manage to balance the rig just right so that I could leave it alone for a few minutes at a time, but at a slower pace than I needed to go to make landfall before nightfall. After I got past the Marquesas (they're the islands just west of Boca Grande, if you're looking at the map linked to above....), the waves got much bigger - 4 to 5 feet. And I needed to set a course slightly into them. Things did not stay put. With an hour and a half before sunset, although I could see the Dry Tortugas, I knew I wasn't going to make it at my current pace, so I fired up the engine and motorsailed up to the islands. I got there with just enough light to wind my way into the anchorage, and dropped my hook (4 times before it finally set!) at this location. (Sorry, the maps at Google Maps of these places are a little incomplete.... You could try the same coordinates at Microsoft's Virtual Earth and see what you get)

As a side note, a 45 pound anchor with 75 feet of chain attached to it is not light. It's not pleasant to try to anchor several times by hand after 12 hours of sailing.

For a little background on the Dry Tortugas and Fort Jefferson, read this article, or the Wikipedia article (a little sparse on info, but with some decent pictures and drawings).

Anyway, I anchored where I did initially because it was marked on the chart as the designated anchoring area. It was not very comfortable there (pretty rolly from all that northerly swell sweeping in), but in the morning I found out I was allowed to anchor behind Bush Key, so I moved there the next morning. That's Wednesday, if we're keeping track. Wednesday afternoon I dinghied ('to dinghy' - that's a verb, right?) over to Loggerhead Key - you'll find it just west of the group of islands I was anchored by. There's a lighthouse on the island, and I was tipped off that there was some good snorkeling on the far side that I wanted to check out. It was a little murky, but I blame that on the north winds (it would be protected from the usual east winds, and stay clearer). There were plenty of barracuda. I had some dinner, and went over and visited with a neighboring boat for a couple of hours before hitting the sack.

In the morning I woke up, ready to check out the fort and maybe do some more snorkeling. Unfortunately, when I went into Fort Jefferson, I was warned that there was a chance of a Hurricane hitting us - Paloma had just formed up out of nowhere, and was a tropical storm on its way to becoming a hurricane. If it was going to come near southern Florida, it would be Saturday night or Sunday morning, so my new friends from the nearby boat and I decided it would be prudent to head back to the mainland as soon as possible. We went back to our boats, and were on our way at 11 am, knowing we wouldn't see land again before nightfall, but confident we were doing the right thing in getting to a safe harbor well in advance. Unfortunately, the winds that morning were nothing to brag about - maybe 5 knots out of the northeast. By late afternoon though, the breezes had freshened to 15 to 20 knots, and were kicking up 3 to 4 foot waves. With a double-reefed main, I breezed on past the Marquesas about midnight, and Key West was in view by daybreak.

But blast! There are powerboat races going on, and they had the harbor closed until 11:30. So I had to wait, exhausted and hungry, while a bunch of overcompensating jerk-wads turned left over and over again. It's like NASCAR on the water. Luckily, there was a mechanical failure in one of the boats, and since it had to be towed back in, they called off the rest of the morning's races a little early, so I was back on my mooring at 11:15 am - only slightly longer than a full day at sea. And I still haven't slept yet - so I apologize for any typographical errors in this post.

Here's the trip home by the numbers: 24 hour total - 83.13 nautical miles, for an average speed of 3.46 knots. It took me longer to get back because the wind was forward of the beam (so I had to tack back and forth, making for a longer total distance sailed), and I spent a lot of time trimmed to autosteer so I could relax (especially at night when I had a lot of trouble steering a steady course because the light on my compass doesn't work), and because there was almost no wind for the first 6 hours. Plus I had to wait for about an hour to get back into the harbor. When I was hand steering in good wind, I was averaging about 4.5 knots. So yes, I make a few excuses for my average boat speed.

My original plan had been to spend 3 full days at the Dry Tortugas - get in Tuesday afternoon and leave at dawn on Saturday. The trip would have been worth it for that. But I don't think it was worth 41 hours behind the wheel to spend 40 hours at the park (and that includes the time I was sleeping! Twice!). No. Probably not worth it.

Anyway, there's a little more about the trip on my photoblog - with pictures, of course.