A few more images from our journey to the Tortugas….

We left the fort at first light before sunrise. Our goal was to make a 45 mile run to the Marquesas keys where we planned to anchor for the night. The wind was forecast to be east/southeast, so we were expecting to be heading into the wind the whole way. That meant planning to have to motor the entire time. Returning the way we came would have meant traveling southeast right into the wind, so we decided to take the northern route back. So once we cleared the outer shelf of the Tortugas, we turned northeast in hopes of being able to sail on a close reach with a southeast wind.

We didn’t have the luck that we wanted, and the wind was more east/northeast than expected. We kept our sails up and sheeted them in as tight as possible. We actually pulled the leeward jib sheet inside the spreaders to get it as close to the centerline as possible, and we still had to run the motor anyway, since we had 45 miles to cover and only 12 hours of daylight to do it in. We didn’t want to get into the Marquesas after dark, as the shoals around them are known as “the quicksands.” They are very shallow and have shifted since the charts were created, so you can’t know what you are going to find until you sound your way in. The prudent sailor goes when the sun is high and behind him so that he can see the bottom. When the sun is low in the sky, all you can see is reflection and glare on the surface of the water, which block seeing the bottom and knowing where the shallow spots are.

The water was as calm as a serene lake. The color was truly astonishing. It just glowed the most alluring vibrant magic blues all day long. It was luminous and enchanting. The winds were present but light, so they kept us cool and maybe added half a knot to our speed. We soaked in the glorious spaciousness of being surrounded by heavenly glowing blue as far as the eye could see in all directions.

We kept the sails up all day but had to keep the motor going all day too. We arrived at the Marquesas keys and slowly approached through the quicksands from the northwest. We crawled in slowly and dropped 2 anchors in a “Bahamian mooring” style in a 1 knot southward current along the west shore of the southwest Marquesas keys, just off of a lovely west beach. We still had two hours of daylight, so the sun was still fairly high. That really helped us to see and dodge the shallow and shifting and uncharted sandbars that we had to navigate on the way in!

Wes, on Gemini Dreams, immediately jumped into his dinghy with fishing rods and cast off for shore. Then he remembered that he hadn’t put his oars in! He was drifting out to sea in a 1 knot current with no supplies! He tried paddling back with his hands, but they didn’t give him enough power to fight the current. So he took off his shoes and used them as hand paddles and made it back to his boat to get his oars! He went ashore and caught dinner.

We packed up supplies and readied ourselves for a camp fire dinner ashore. Finally! We’ve wanted one for a thousand miles, but all of the islands and beaches along the way are inhabited or controlled.

Cooked up rice and beans and green beans and fish on the coals and watched the sunset and ensuing darkening of the sky and unveiling of the stars. They are so bright out there because of the lack of light pollution. Then after dark had completely enveloped us, Wes discovered phosphorescent / bioluminescent life in the shallow tidal flat just off the beach. We were there at low tide, and the tidal flat extended about 200 ft from the beach. Each step that we took on the flats erupted in a pulse of excited spots of light that radiated out in all directions like a shock wave. Imagine turning on stars beneath your feet with every step. Surrounded above by the stars and galaxies of the heavens while releasing hidden galaxies and starfields in the sand beneath our dancing feet was cathartic. Even paddling back out to our boats, each oar stroke would trigger a dozen bioluminescent sparks in the water around our dinghies. The Marquesas are magic, and are highly recommended! Just be sure to bring bug repellant!

The next morning we were off again at first light for another long run. Our goal this time was to make it to Newfound Harbor just west of Bahia Honda. That meant another 45 to 50 miles in just 12 hours of sunlight. So we expected that we’d have to motor all day again, as the winds were forecast to be “light and variable.” We went southward from the Marquesas into Hawk Channel and then headed east towards Key West. We motor sailed along with just the Jib out for about 15 miles until the wind picked up from the north.

The water was luminous Caribbean blue again. The temperature was in the lower 80’s, and we hauled up the main sail to find that we could scream along at up to 6.5 knots under sail! We shut off the motor and relished our unexpected blessing of good winds for ten miles as we passed Key West. With the Autopilot on and the sails trimmed right, Wee Happy just sailed along happy and bouncing and gleeful. It was perfect sailing. It was the dream sailing that everyone has in the keys, but few find because they stay in the middle and upper keys and don’t make it out to Key West and beyond.

Then we crossed a line in the water where the color ceased to glow any longer. It changed from the enticing enchanting blue to everglade green. Think olive green with a little brown in it, and you’ll imagine it right. Oh well. Welcome back to the middle keys. Just about the same time, the wind went “light and variable” again and we had to start the motor to have hope of making our anchorage before sunfall.

We slowly approached Newfound Harbor just before 6:00pm, and had to fight against a 2 knot tidal current and large fast motorboat wakes to make it into the harbor. It took almost an hour to travel the additional 4 miles to get to the spot where we dropped anchor, and once we were there we realized it would be a 2 mile dinghy ride to any restaurants or grocery stores. By this time we were completely out of ice and most all food that required coolness to stay edible, so not being able to go ashore to get dinner was frustrating.

So Wes came over and we made our last dinner together before we plan to part ways. We swapped photographs and relived stories. He’s going home to northern panhandle Florida from Marathon, and we are planning to continue up the keys to cross to the Bahamas. The anchorage, although remote, was pristinely calm. It was almost like sleeping on land. It was quiet and spacious.

That’s the end of the Dry Tortugas story, but we have lots more pictures that we will post shortly, so stay tuned!

We have been planning on going to the Dry Tortugas for over a month. Things kept getting in the way, like work projects, the weather, etc. We were starting to think that maybe we didn’t have time after all to get all the way out there and back before a fire performance gig we had booked for March 26.

Looking at the forecast showed seven days of good weather and nice winds. Sailing for the day from Isla Morada to Key West, where we planned to stay the night and provision for the trip to the Tortugas, we enjoyed the conditions so much that we remarked that “if the whole trip to the Tortugas would be like this, we’d just ail through the night.”

Let’s just GET there already! The Dry Tortugas is about 70 miles from Key West, so it would take us approximately 20 hours to get there. We wanted to arrive in the daylight, so that meant going through the night. We had our buddy boat Gemini Dreams with us, and he too wanted to make the trip but didn’t want to do it alone. It would be the first time for both of us sailing out on the open ocean out of sight of land. A big milestone!

We stopped at a marina on the east side of Key West on Stock Island, Oceanside marina. We filled up with gas and ice. Lala, and Wes from Gemini Dreams, went to the bus and then on to the grocery store and K mart. Capt’n K stayed aboard and researched the weather and talked to tow boatUS about our planned route and any local knowledge they could impart.

The weather forecast was for 7 day of mostly sunny conditions with NE to SE winds between 10 and 20 knots. For the trip out there, the forecast was for E-NE winds around 15 knots, with clear skies and an almost full moon. How perfect! We called friends and family and told them about our plan. We told them our itinerary and route and asked them to wait to hear for us until a certain date and time, and if we hadn’t checked in by then they should call the coast guard and have them send out a search and rescue boat. we always do that when we go out on trips into the wilderness or water. If no one knows where you are going, what route you are going, and when you are supposed to be back, then you have next to no hope of being found.

We have an 8-horse Honda bf8d 4-stroke outboard. It’s supposed to average about 0.5 to 0.8 gallons per hour, but at full throttle into the wind and seas, I bet it could use a gallon per hour. So if we had to motor for 24 hours at 3 knots to make it back to Key West, we’d need 24 gallons. Lala picked up an extra gas can so that we could carry at least 25 gallons on board for the trip. We currently only had two 5-gallon cans and a 7-gallon portable tank, totaling 17 gallons. If we were to have to motor back at full throttle into the wind and heavy seas, we would need more than that.

So Lala got food and an extra gas can and gas, and so did Wes. Capt’n K checked over the boat and inspected all the rigging. He remembered that he still hadn’t put the cotter pins back in the turnbuckles on the stays and shrouds (the cables that hold the mast up), so he got them in before we left. He took the outboard off the dinghy and stowed it on desk so that the dinghy would be easier to tow. We have a 10.6 foot long dinghy, so it’s too big to put on deck. The lesser of the two evils is to lighten the dinghy by emptying its contents and then just tow it.

So even though we were quite nervous, we set out from Key West at sunset. A glorious sunset it was, too. With East winds blowing a steady 10-15 knots, we had a downwind run almost the whole way. Sometimes downwind sailing can be a breeze, and sometimes it can be REALLY annoying. We experienced a bit of both. For Lala, sailing downwind is the most challenging point of sail, and when the boat gets rolly and the sails won’t stay full, it makes her CRAZY with aggravation. But when the sailing is easy, well….she loves that part! The seas were pretty gentle and they rolled us along at a steady 4 knots through the night. We didn’t fly our cruising spinnaker because Wes doesn’t have one, and we wanted to stay close to each other all night. It was a good thing too, because he was sailing solo, and got very tired after over 20 hours holding the tiller. A little chit-chat on the radio and keeping tabs on each other kept us awake and safe.

Capt’n K remembered a lesson that Rene in New Jersey had taught us about towing a dinghy. He put it out behind us and fiddled with the length of tow rope until he got the dinghy riding the crest of waves two waves behind us at the time we were cresting the wave we were on. This stopped the dinghy from being tossed up close on our stern and then falling back away from our boat and being violently pulled forward again by the tow line. If you tow your dinghy in following seas, play with the length of the rope until you get it in the same part of the wave that you are on. Then you can basically forget about it because it’s so easy to tow! What a joy to not have the stress of a lurching and worrisome dinghy!

We passed one sailboat in the night who didn’t have all his lights working and didn’t answer the radio on ch 16 or 68…bad bad bad! Hope he was okay! We learned about Sand Key Light’s different colors for different directions. If you are in Hawk channel the light is white, but if you are too far south and in the shoal danger zone, then the light is red. Cool! We never spotted the 2nd lighthouse of the route however. Being out this far, any lights you can see are a valuable asset, and they are very few and far between. Imagine driving in the dark without street lights or headlights.

We were able to take two to three hour shifts on watch while the other rested in the cabin. We had a working autopilot which meant we didn’t have to hold the tiller the whole time. Wes on Gemini Dreams, however, had to do the whole trip solo and without an autopilot! He sure was exhausted by twilight! We kept chit chatting on the radio to help stay awake and alert. The currents around Rebecca shoal set us to the north, and we had a difficult time staying far enough south to clear the “Tide Rip” on the chart. We’d gotten a bit separated from Wes, so we hove to and let him catch up a bit. Once we got back together it was such an emotional relief. Being all alone out there in the black on your first time out is scary! Luckily we didn’t snag a crab pot because we could see them in the moonlight.

Sailed most of the way but decided to lower sails and motor when we were clearing Rebecca shoal. There were confused waters there because the currents from north and south of the shoals converge there. We didn’t get sick, but we could have. Glad we hadn’t consumed any alcohol the day before we left! After we got clear of the convergence we were able to go back to sail and made a reach for 20 miles to the DTs. We tracked our progress by noting gps coordinates and speed and wind & wave direction periodically on paper charts and a notepad in case we lost our gps for some reason.

This is just the beginning. Most of the story and all of the beautiful photos and video are yet to come. Stay tuned!

We Made it! We’re back! More to come! We just got back to Key West, and we’re on our way to Marathon via Newfound Harbor. When we get time soon we’ll post all about our trip. In the mean time, enjoy this fabulous picture of Bush Key in the Dry Tortugas! Click on it to view it full size!

Another glorious day in the Keys. Sunny, warm, East winds 10-15 knots. A perfect day to go out sailing! Gemini Dreams and Wee Happy were headed for Key West to get ready to launch to the Dry Tortugas, and Earendil was headed towards Loo Key to go snorkeling.
We got out of the harbor to discover big ocean swells coming out of the southeast, and since we had to go slightly downwind, we got uncomfortably rocked in the swells. The wind wasn’t that strong, but the swells were really large. That combination is tricky– we couldn’t keep the sails full when the boat was rocked so strongly and sails would occasionally snap violently with the rocking of the boat. Cap’t K. was commenting on how bad that is for the rigging, and we were exploring other points of sail to make it more comfortable, when we looked up and saw our genoa coming down! The snap shackle that connects the sail to the top of the mast had come loose and dropped our sail! We caught it before it went in the water and stuffed it in the V-berth and managed to successfully heave to while we pondered our options. We were only a few miles out from Bahia Honda, and so we decided to turn around and go back to fix our sail.

Meanwhile, Sara and Trevor were also getting rocked like a bucking horse and were having major engine problems. They too turned around and came back.
Wes was doing fine, but decided to come back with us since we were forming a traveling team, and so he also turned around. But as he was tacking back towards the harbor, the violent rocking of the boat and the snapping of the sails tore his genoa sail in multiple places and he too, limped back into the harbor!!
Right after we anchored we noticed another boat stumbling back in from the giant swells also with a torn genoa sail! A dangerous day to be out considering it seemed like such a nice day!
So we are all “stuck” here in paradise for another day.

Luckily, we only had a small part to replace and suffered no major damage. Wes was not so lucky as he has to have major sail repair done now. Earendil had a spare part we were able to use to reattach our sail to the boat. But doing so meant someone had to climb to the top of the mast to retrieve the broken snap shackle. Cap’t K. was not feeling his normal superhuman self today because he pulled a muscle in his shoulder and has been in pain all day with minimal range of movement. So guess whose turn it was to climb the mast?! Yes, I faced a great fear today and did my sailor’s duty of climbing to the top of the mast! I’m not fond of heights, and I was pretty scared going up. Our friend Kurt has a bosun chair (a.k.a. climbing harness) that we used to hoist me up with the mainsail line. With Kurt and Cap’t K. pulling the lines, I was lifted high, high, up above the water. About halfway up I started freaking out and panicking, but then I realized that I actually was pretty stable in the harness and that it was beautifully awesome up there, and I ended up doing better than I thought I would. I even managed to snap a few photos from the air:

All’s well that ends well. We’ll try again tomorrow!

We did it! We got out of the vortex of Boot Key Harbor! AND, we gathered a wee armada of 27 foot sailboats to go with us. 4 sailboats total, all 27 footers….We all had a few things in common: we are on 27 foot sailboats and we are not retired. We made our way downwind together to the famed Bahia Honda Beach. An epically beautiful day.
There is a phenomenon that tends to happen in Boot Key Harbor that causes people to stay in the harbor for longer than anticipated and they stop going out sailing. We noticed the pull ourselves, and we have also been surprised to see it in others even more than us. People come long distances in their boats to spend time in one of the best sailing grounds in North America, only to just sit in the harbor and stop sailing. We discovered that it was not uncommon for people to be there for months and not go out at all in their boats. We have also discovered that the bigger the boat, the more reasons there are to not go out sailing. There are more things to break and need repaired, there is more expense to buy and maintain the boat, therefore more time that needs to be spent working and not sailing. And, when you live aboard, it’s easier to fill a large deck up with stuff that needs to be moved in order to go out sailing and just getting the boat ready to go out becomes a major task. So there is a plug for the benefit of a simpler, wee boat!

So we managed to break the inertia and convinced our friends aboard 27 footers to sail with us the whopping 10 miles to Bahia Honda. Whoo Hoo!

Sara and Trevor led the pack in Earendil, a 27 foot Hunter, leading the way with their glorious rainbow colored genoa sail. Our friend Wes, in his Albin Vega just like ours (only a bit more spiffy with a new coat of hull paint) joined the pack. And our friends Dave and Janae went on their first solo sail ever in their new boat, Wave Dancer, a 27 foot Erickson. We became the Wee Armada!

The Wee Armada needed to eat once we got all anchored safely in harbor. How many people can you fit onto a 27 foot boat? 7 is the maximum number any of us had hosted on any of our 27 foot boats, and we boat hopped for dinner. First it was drinks, chips, and salsa aboard Wee Happy.

Then, we discovered a new version of a potluck aboard Earendil. Everyone went back to their respective boats to make their contribution to our one-dish potluck meal: Wave Dancer cooked pasta, Gemini Dreams made sauce, Wee Happy sauteed peppers and mushrooms, and Earendil cooked sausages. Everyone brought their food over to Earendil’s boat (because they had the big table on their boat!), and we ended up with one delicious pasta dish!!
Conversation about issues particular to wee boats went on late into the evening, when we finally decided to play cards. We played a game of “Bullshit” and Cap’t. K and I failed miserably in the skill of lying.

Then, everyone aboard the wee boats in the Wee Armada went to sleep, hoping to not drag their anchors between the two tall bridges. We all dreamed some version of waking up dangerously close to a bridge…..

Today we hung out on various parts of the long Bahia Honda Beach. We even went out to a small island with our friends cat and our kite. The cat freaked out. The kite flew high. Our friends Kurt and Christina arrived, (on a 35 footer. but still honorary members of the Wee Armada), Dave and Janae left, and all who were present had grilled shrimp kabobs on the beach at sunset. The Wee Armada Rules!

This morning we woke up extra early, thanks to our cat SlowMo who puked up a hairball 5 inches from my head. Although it was a REALLY gross way to wake up, it’s been lovely having these early morning hours to get extra stuff done. And we got to see a very special visitor who came to our boat to say hello.

We are calling this lovely creature a spotted ray, although it may have another more official name. What a peaceful, serene creature! It moved gracefully through the water like it was flying. It flew over to our boat, circled slowly a few times, and went off into the turquoise blue water. We’ve never seen one up close before, although I have seen other types of rays that I heard were called Eagle Rays, jump VERY high out of the water, and they make an impressively huge splash.

This morning Cap’t K. tackled the last stage of installing the wind generator. He had to contort himself into crazy and dangerous positions to install this heavy piece of equipment up on a pole that is mounted on the stern of Wee Happy. Here he is putting the last propeller blade up:

The wind generator is now spinning in the wind beautifully and K. is doing the final install of attaching the cables to the batteries as I write. This will be a major improvement in our power situation, as we only had a very wee 20 watt solar panel before. We were extremely blessed in getting this used wind generator for a mere $35 plus the cost of a few nuts and bolts and the cables….normally these things cost THOUSANDS of dollars, so we got the deal of a lifetime!