We had a rolly night behind Wisteria Island at Key West, but
an uneventful one.
After breakfast, we weighed anchor (raised the anchor) and
started out the Key West Northwest Channel for the Dry Tortugas. There is no
real place to stop along the way. We need to make this 68 mile journey in one
leap… today.
While in the channel, we motored. It’s a long channel
several miles long. With the tidal current against us, it was slow going. As we
were transiting the channel, the Yankee Freedom III passed us. That is the Fast
Ferry to the Dry Tortugas, which Linda, Grace, and I took last year.
There’s a reason they call it the Fast Ferry. In just a few
minutes, it was out of sight.
Once outside the Channel we raised the mainsail and headed
west.
Most of the day was wonderful sailing on a broad reach.
That’s when the wind is coming from one side slightly behind the boat . The
boat sailed well. Later in the day, the winds had veered and were coming almost
dead behind us. I don’t have a spinnaker, so we had to adjust course and were losing
speed and of course that is time to our destination. I put the jib out on the
whisker pole to hold it on the opposite side of the mainsail; not really
wing-n-wind as we were still on a broad reach. I don’t have a preventer rigged
on this boat yet. A preventer, prevents the boom from crashing wildly from one
side of the boat to the other when the wind is coming from behind. That
crashing of the boom is called an accidental jibe and can be very dangerous for the crew and the boat. Our speed increased to over
6 knots, which was fantastic!
By 4:00pm, the winds died down and veered again. We started
the engine to start motorsailing. This would allow us to sail more directly to
the Dry Tortugas, but making the wind less effective since the boat and wind
would be travelling in the same direction.
It turned dark before we reached the entrance channel. We still
had an hour to go to reach Garden Key where the anchorages were. Only three
channel markers on the main entrance channel are lighted. Once inside, none of
the channel markers were lit. We were blessed this night with a clear sky; the day before a
full moon. The moon was high with a clear sky and we found our way into the
anchorage without an issue.
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