Tortugas Trip Day 8 - Boca Grande to Boot Key

This morning I rose early, around 5:00am to weight the secondary anchor. The plan was to weigh that anchor, leaving the primary anchor set, and prepare the boat to sail before waking Grace. I took the sail cover off.  Then, while hauling in the anchor line of the secondary anchor, I encountered a wrap. This means the boat turned 360 degrees in the same direction, rather 180 degrees one way and back 180 degrees the other.  I had to untangle the two anchor lines.  I was able to get most of it done, but finally woke Grace up to motor over the primary line for me. In doing so, the tangle came undone. And the secondary anchor was stowed.

I prepared the mainsail to be raised. At anchor we were facing into the wind. So, it seemed best to weigh the primary anchor and immediately raise the main sail before turning to head out of the channel. This plan worked almost perfectly and we were away by 7:00am.

Shortly after exiting the channel, I prepared the staysail and jib. We would be sailing at an angle into the wind most of the day. This boat is a cutter with two headsails, which works best in these conditions.

Once the sails were set, we were off and so was the motor. It wasn’t long before the winds died down and the motor was back on as we motor-sailed ahead. Throughout the entire day, the perfect winds to sail back that were forecasted never appeared. We search for wind and sail just as the wind would change direction, or die down and we’d be motor-sailing again. The direction was the worst.  We were forced to tack back and forth all day; making the distance traveled much greater than planned.

American Shoal Lighthouse

In this next picture, we have just tacked away from the American Shoal Lighthouse. You can see it in the background. Yes, I am getting "The Look" from Grace for pointing the camera at her... even worst. That smile means I am in trouble for doing so. :-)

Our original destination was Bahia Honda, a Florida State Park with a nice beach and showers. Since it was taking so long to make forward progress, we had to abandon that plan. The entrance to the bay did not have any channel markers at all. We would not be able to find our way in, through the missing section of the old railway bridge in the dark. We decided to go all the way to Marathon.

Marathon does have channel markers along the channel, but only one is lit at night. We would have to anchor off Boot Key for the night and enter at daylight… but enter to where? We did not have a slip. That problem will have to wait until tomorrow to be solved.

Finally, around 11:00pm the forecasted winds arrived. For the last two hours of a very long day, we sailed marvelously directly towards out destination. At 1am, as we arrived we saw many anchor lights off Boot Key.  If someone forgot to turn their anchor light on, I would run the risk of running into their boat. Not having great depth perception at night, I opted to just anchor at a reasonable spot away from everyone else.

After setting the anchor, and getting the boat prepared for the night, I still had to wash the dishes. All week, Grace has cooked dinner and I did the dishes. The original plan was to alternate, but this seemed to work best. I always made breakfast, so I did not want to make breakfast and do dishes when I got up. Grace volunteered to do dishes, but I would not let her.