Layday in Bahia Honda Key

Last evening at anchor here was outstanding. By sundown, the beach was clear and there were four boats at anchor. By sunrise we were alone here. All other boats departed before we looked out. Fishing is a big thing between the bridges and that goes on night and day. I decided to use the hooka air system we brought aboard so that we did not have scuba tanks and limited air available. It worked as advertized and makes unlimited air available. During the first dive with it, I learned the reason for the knocking at low speed. I thought it might be something loose in one of the lockers that tunes in on the engine harmonics. Not so. It is the pesky Autoprop, a feathering prop that has been a pain. Many swear by Autoprop and it is very efficient. For some reason, ours keeps failing. Seals fail and seawater destroys the internal bearings, always on the same blade. We have had it factory repaired three times at great expense and I am now done with it. I changed back to the original "mouse ear" prop in the water. Thank goodness the water is so clear because I dropped a wrench but saw it all the way to the bottom. Anyway, that was the excitement for the day. We will spend another night here then move on to Marathon.

Bear's back is still kicking up a bit. It will take some time to recover but if it does not ease a bit more today, we will seek another solution in Marathon. Methinks a day of horizontal hard surface per the doctor will help and so far she has logged about six and one half hours today. No worries mate.

Round the corner

Sticking with our plan to be where we are going to be by three, we set sail (that's right set sail) form Key West this morning at 0815 bound for Marathon, Fl. About three hours into the only great sail we have had so far, we decided to take the advice of Safari and stop in Bahia Honda Key. A quick look at the charts said that there were gremlins on the approach but, as it turned out, there were none. We had the best sail today in a long time. At times we hit at least mach .000001 or more precisely 8.1 kts. Not fibbing here since until the wind died, we were beating a Nordhaven trawler. This is a real treat. It is a State Park between bridges on the Keys highway. The holding is good and the water is awesome. We can see our anchor 13 feet down. Gee, I hope it rolls over and digs in. This is one of the stops folks before us told us about. We may stay yet another night. The bars are only three tonight so I will keep this one short.

Rigged and Ready

This is our last night in Key West. We have had a butt kicking time here and perhaps tonight was one of the top nights here. We stopped by Schooner Warf for dinner, heard a jazz band and they mentioned a web cam. We texted some whom we knew would be near a computer and let them know we were making faces into that cam. They saw us and we talked whilst doing that. How 21 st century is that?

We have been here and done this. I spent most of the day putting things right for our milestone turn of the corner into the Atlantic coast. Tomorrow we sail for New Found Harbor or perhaps Marathon Key. We do not plan to rush it to Miami but hope to visit with Safari when they return. As I was working on a pesky dinghy air leak, someone yelled Why Knot. It was the folks on Rumba Line that we met in Port Saint Joe. We have shawdowed each other for several weeks now. It turns out that they have been in the anchorage for a few days. They will not be heading up the coast as we, but rather they will be heading for points south, say about 90 miles south. Can you say old cars and harbors stuck in the 50's?

Ok, now for the big news of the day: we were walking back to the boat just before sunset. We saw several folks looking over the rail into the water. It turned out to be three, countem, three large Manatee. These are the first we have seen, ever. Wow, not sure what their purpose in life is but they resemble elongate potatoes or perhaps fat globs. In their own way, they are sort of cute in a dumplin sort of way. So, we now know that they do exist and it is not merely a traffic control scheme by Florida. To the point, one cutie had several prop marks on its back. Bet that hurt, but they looked healed. We will definitely not try to avoid them and leave them alone

Tomorrow, we sail. We might well be in a place with no 3G bars so posting might not happen for a day or so. Until then, we will try not to make any artifical reefs.

Our last Friday night in KW (for a while)

It is 2245 hours and Bear has been asleep for a while. I am so thankful that she is recovering from the back thing. By now, I am starting to sound like a commercial for Key West. Really, everyone should visit this place before leaving the planet. Tonight is the first time since we arrived here that I have stayed up this late. We stayed aboard most of the day and I used the time to start the weather checks (dang, Texas is getting hammered). Tonight, even late in the evening, dinks are transiting to and from the mooring/anchorage field. The sights and sound are wonderful, except for the boat about three slips away that has a bad a/c pump. It is really rare that motor vessels (those without sails) will acknowledge we "blow boaters". Tonight, whilst delivering trash to the can at the end of the dock, someone said "goodnight sailor". Sorta touches my soul. Tonight marks a milestone in our quest for that which we may no be able to do much longer (years). This is part of life's cruise with Bear which we have dreamed of for so long. It is the absolute best French fries and gravy we can have (Merkelites know what that means).

We saw a sailing ship (that's right, a ship meaning that she could land a boat on her deck) leave harbor today. The crew was chanting sea songs as they hoisted sail the hard way- no winches (or wenches) to a sea song. One, two, three and heave ho. She is magnificent and she left harbor the right way. Fair winds.

Tomorrow is the day when we start monitoring the weather and planning the next passage. Mind you, said passage will be short and to a protected anchorage. We are rested and ready to do some anchoring behind some key with other sail boats. Why Knot has not tugged at the dock lines until today. Methinks she is giving us a chance to let Bear fully recover. Funny how she knows when that is important to the crew. She is like a puppy, as mentioned earlier referring to my A.D.D. and she lets us know that it is time to go.

During our stay, which was admittedly too long, we saw old friends, repaired ship and became tourists. How bad is that? Soon, we will be making our way north toward Safari, our friends from Port A and a rendezvous with my old Commanding Officer from Vietnam in Jacksonville. That is a meeting we never thought possible some 38 years ago in a bunker in Fire Base Bastogne, Vietnam, the Republic Of.

Spc, Brown, of the 101st died yesterday in Afghanistan. As always, we toast those who gave it all and to those young lions still on watch. Sleep tight for they are on duty.