Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Blowing in the Wind in the Dry Tortugas

Fort Jefferson and the ferry

We’ve just wrapped up a little over one week anchored out in the Dry Tortugas, Florida.  We knew when we left that there was some blowy weather coming in and that we might end up spending more than a few days there. As it turned out, two high fronts came through, one after the other, so we chose to stay put and enjoy the quiet and very pretty anchorage.

We had a nice ride out of Key West. It rained a bit (just as I was untying the lines, of course!) but the winds were behind us and the crab pots weren’t too bad.  Luckily there was only one other boat in the anchorage when we arrived. The anchorage is very small and provides the only protection from North and Easterly winds there is.  We were shocked when just after anchoring I looked down and saw a huge nurse shark and then an equally large grouper hanging out under our boat. There are several large groupers that seem to spend their days wandering between the boats at anchor.  


 Blossom & Vector at anchor

It’s really very beautiful here. The keys are tiny and all uninhabited other than Garden Key on which Fort Jefferson is located.  The fort is a huge six-sided brick structure built as a naval defense to control the straits of Florida. It was never actually used to defend against anyone though it was used as a sort of prison for a while. Now it’s a national park. There are a handful of people who live on that key, park rangers, researchers and a few people who help maintain the island. There is no internet, no cell coverage or fresh water on the island available to visitors.  Visitors arrive by a large ferry, by small plane or by private boats. 

Plane leaving the anchorage

You can camp on the island, bringing in your own water and carrying out all trash. There is a rhythm to the island. Every morning, one or two planes arrive from Key West bringing visitors around 8:30. At 10:30, the ferry from Key West arrives bringing several dozens of people. The planes come and go all day, as many times as they have people paying to come visit.  Some people stay the night, camping on the island, but most leave by plane or ferry at 3:30.  From the late afternoon to evening, boats arrive. A few sail boats came through and every evening fishing and crabbing boats would come in and anchor for the night. 

The guys

The anchorage is very small so only a handful of boats can anchor there and not be in the path of the ferry or planes.  It’s deceptive here because it looks like a huge expanse of water but much of the water around the keys are 1-2 feet deep. There is another anchorage to the west but it’s not as well protected from north and northeast winds. The charts are also way off. Martin ran through the anchorage on our tender to get a feel for the actual depths. With that information, a couple of boats were guided to anchor in what the charts said were 1-2 feet of water.

The area is teaming with wild life. In addition to some very large fish, we heard dolphins breathing in the anchorage our first night. The next afternoon a sole, large dolphin swam around the boat. There is a key called Bird Island where frigate birds breed. These are large, impressive, black birds that seem to spend most of their time floating on air drafts above the island. There are also hundreds of terns that are fairly quiet during the day but party down after sunset, making so much noise that Martin had a hard time falling asleep one night.

Bush Key and frigate birds
 Tricolored Heron
 Starfish
 Crab in need of a shell
Portuguese Man O' War
Area around the fort

I had fantasies of snorkeling around the island but the wind and the 74 degree water kept me from going.  The first day, we went to the island and took a tour of the Fort Jefferson with a ranger. Wednesday I got out my nice camera and tried to take some good photos of the island. I wasn’t terribly successful but a few came out half way decently.




Photos from Fort Jefferson

Walking the moat

On Thursday a nasty front blew through and winds were holding at 25 knots with gusts up to 34. We hunkered down and held fast. A fishing boat lost its anchor and came drifting through the anchorage in the evening. Luckily Sean saw it and blew his horn 5 times (this is a signal for danger). That got the captain out of bed and he turned on the engines and moored his boat on a mooring ball for the rest of the evening.  Otherwise our time in the anchorage was uneventful and downright peaceful.  The wind blew hard for three days and we stayed aboard reading, quilting, cooking and doing chores. It was great!  We shared dinner with Sean & Louise, on Vector and Blossom, several times.

On Sunday the wind had calmed down to 15 knots so we invited folks from the three boats in the anchorage over for sunset drinks. There were two sailboats, Sea Monkey and Vizu, and Vector. We had a great evening and I was so happy that we’d invited everyone over. One couple has been sailing for 25 years, crossed the Pacific, visiting the small islands of the south Pacific and New Zealand. The other is a young family cruising for a year hoping to provide their 12 year old son with an experience of a lifetime. What a lucky kid J  I hope we’ll be hosting many more happy hours over the next several months. Meeting such interesting people is one of the highlights of cruising!

By Tuesday the winds and waves had calmed down enough to head out so we left at daybreak for Tampa. I’ll be posting this blogpost as soon as we’re within cell range.  I surprised myself a bit by not missing the internet or email. One afternoon I listened to NPR as I was quilting and was almost sad that I had when heard the news of the week.  Sticking your head in the sand isn’t an answer but it was nice to be oblivious for a short while.  Once we’re back in cell range we’ll be taking care of business, reconnecting with friends and family and getting back into the groove of normal life.  We plan to visit St. Petersburg, Tampa, Sarasota, Cape Coral and Ft. Myers before we turn eastward and head across Florida via Lake Ocheechobee.


Boat Business: Sitting at anchor gave us the opportunity to test some systems on the boat.

Watermakers. We have two watermakers, one up front in the basement and one back in the lazarette. They both make about 35 gallons an hour. We haven’t run them yet and with such pristine water we thought this was a perfect place to do it. We were bummed to find that the membrane in our forward watermaker is fouled even though we had flushed it well after testing it at commissioning. Luckily, the aft watermaker is fine so we made a couple hundred gallons of water.  Martin tried to clean the membrane but it’s shot so we’ll get a new one before we head to the Bahamas.

Blossom with her floppers out

Flopper Stoppers. We’ve practiced deploying the floppers a few times but we’ve never really needed them until this week. The flopper stoppers are poles that stick out from the side of the boat. Normally, they stay tucked up under the side of the boat. Deployed, the stick out like wings, held by three lines. A heavy metal “fish” hangs from the end of the pole. The fish is a large rectangular piece of metal that is hinged at the bottom. As the boat tips to one side, the pole lifts the fish which opens. This movement and the weight of the fish, slows the roll of the boat. We deployed both fish before the storm hit and were really impressed by how well they worked to reduce roll. The only problem we had was that during the worse of the winds the fish would spin, coiling up the line. We need to do some research to see if this is a common problem. We’re thinking that we could put a swivel on the fish and that might stop the coiling.

Blossom’s bottom. Martin broke out our hooka system and cleaned the boat bottom along the waterline. The system worked well (an 80 foot hose attached to a dive tank) and found mostly algae with a few barnacles growing in the through hulls. (He confirmed that the water was really, really chilly!)


Underwater lights. We have lights mounted under our swim platform for night time fish viewing. Our friends, CJ & Margie had them on Pazzia and we thought it was the coolest thing. Since August, we’ve had them on a few times but seen little as the water has been pretty murky everywhere we’ve been. In Key West we were able to see some of the large tarpin come in at night to eat the little guys that were attracted to the light.  In the Dry Tortugas it was awesome!  First come the little guys, then fish about 6 inches, then some large silvery fish, about 2-3 feet long. I’m not sure what they were, and then arrive - the goliath groupers. What a nice show!  I’m looking forward to seeing what we can attract in the Bahamas.

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