Happy hour on the fly bridge at Stock Island Village Marina
After a couple of days in Ft. Lauderdale, we were rested,
had visited Coconuts twice, and so were ready to take advantage of another calm
weather forecast to head out to Key West. Before we left we had a pleasant
surprise when we were visited by Bob & Fern. They’ve been reading our blog
and when they saw that we were in Ft. Lauderdale they came to say hi. It was great to meet them and give them a
tour of Blossom. I hope we’ll see them again, maybe out on the water!
We headed out at noon. It was a gorgeous afternoon and the coast was busy with fishing boats
and people playing. A couple of dolphins came by for a brief run at the bow.
Miami from the water
In the early evening there was a heck of a squall over
Miami. Luckily it dissipated before it got to us.
Rather ominous sky (it was only about 5 o'clock!)
Rather lovely sunset
We changed the configuration of our helm screens
and added a third window that can show our
camera views or the FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red camera). We haven’t used the
FLIR much this past year and this seemed like a good passage to see what it
could do. Traveling down Hawk Channel there are buoys and markers all along the
way as well as lobster pots. We figured it would be pretty cool if we could see
in the dark. And with no moon, we knew it would be really dark.
We had mixed results with the FLIR this time. Previously, we used it while running on the ICW at night (long run and
we couldn’t get to a marina or anchorage within daylight hours). It was very
useful, showing the markers along the ditch. This time, at sea, it was much darker than on the ICW and the buoys and
markers were much farther away. At times we would pass relatively closely by a
buoy and I just couldn’t see it on the FLIR. A couple times I was able to see
them when I knew where to look - the range is very narrow so you
have to swing it back and forth to try to locate what you’re looking for. As for lobster pots, we don’t think we could
see them in the dark night. There were no pots around when the sun set and I
never saw any on my watch with the FLIR (until 4:30). Martin didn’t see any on
the FLIR until the sun began to rise. Then he saw lots, and they were much more
visible on the screen than to the naked eye at dawn. When did they start
showing up? Not so sure. We’re just
happy that we didn’t end up dragging any along with us or worse yet, tangled in
our prop. We have a cutter on the prop and deflectors on the stabilizers and
all’s well that ends well.
The FLIR, however, did prove very useful and I was very
happy we had it on when a fishing boat made a beeline for us at 2am. I had been
watching a dot on the radar that I assumed was a fishing boat sitting out in
deeper water to the south (one of several actually). Suddenly it took off at 15 knots heading straight
towards us. They had no lights on so I saw nothing visually. It’s pretty creepy
when it’s pitch black and you know something/someone is speeding directly at
you. I put on our spotlight so they would be sure to see us and know that I knew
that they were there. Then I turned the FLIR towards them. I could see it was a
very small boat with at least 2 people in it. Eventually they turned on their
own lights and passed about 25 feet along our port side – close enough? I’m
sure they were just curious to see who was cruising down Hawk Channel in the middle
of the night but it was still creepy.
We arrived right when we expected, at about 11:00am. It
wasn’t as mellow a night as we’d had coming down from Charleston. Our autopilot
needing tweaking - she was wiggling for the first half of the trip. And we were
in a bit of a channel so wiggling wasn’t appreciated. Once that got settled
(Martin messed with the parameters on the autopilot), she behaved much better. Then,
just after sunrise we found ourselves surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of
lobster pots. I have never seen so many. There was no path through them, just
line after line of pots going in all directions like an acid-trip inspired
spider web. Guess when spiny lobster season started in Florida? August 6th
– oops! It only lasted about an hour and then there was a more (what I
consider) “normal” amount and you could navigate through them. What this meant though was that we had to be
doubly alert while on watch, pulling her back on track as she meandered or
trying to avoid the pots. It was a fine trip, but we were tired when we
arrived.
The Stock Island Marina Village is tucked away about 5 miles
south east of downtown Key West on the channel side of the island. It’s
surrounded by working marinas so the view isn’t the best but the facilities
themselves are all new with recently renovated docks, office, lounge and gym.
There’s a fun little restaurant/bar - Shrimp Road Grill that’s an outdoor area
with a food truck on one end and a little bar on the other. Ice tea is home
brewed and served from a cooler. There’s even an open air pool table. It’s very
“island style” and I can see how it would be a lot of fun during the high
season when there are lots of cruisers here. They have a complementary shuttle
that will take you either to a Publix or downtown three times a day too.
Shrimp Road Grill
The weather wasn’t looking too bad at any point in the next
week so we took a few days to recuperate. We took the shuttle into town a
couple times, once to mail off a package and another evening to go into town.
We walked all the way down Duval and found a great restaurant, Nine One Five.
Martin enjoying our
evening out
We were also very busy with boat tasks as we began planning,
organizing and checking off some of the tasks we need to do to put Blossom up
for the season. It seems hard to believe that we’ve been aboard for an entire
year all ready. Both Martin and I have
conflicting feelings. We’ve been gone from CA for 18 months and we miss our
home there and our friends. But Blossom has become our home now too and we’re
reluctant to leave her.
As for our future plans - our thought from the get-go was to
live aboard for the “shake down” year to work through the kinks of a new boat.
Then we’d become “bi-coastal” and live in CA for 6 months and aboard Blossom
for 6 months. We began our shake-down year much later than we had anticipated
so this year we’ll only be back in CA for 4 months, through December. Then
we’ll head back to Blossom around New Year’s to start our second (6 month)
season aboard.
Boat Business:
- Packing. We got some boxes and I’ve begun packing up some of my quilting supplies to take home. Wow, I have a lot of fabric on board! We’ll have more space next winter J
- Clearing out the pantry. I began going through our cupboards and stores. We’re removing all food from the boat so I have a crate of canned goods that we’ll donate once we get to the mainland.
- Screens. I removed (it’s too hot for open windows) cleaned and polished the porthole screens.
- Engine support. Installed the upper bracket of the exhaust elbow support.
- Generators. Martin replaced the coolant hose from the heat exchanger cap to the expansion tank with heat resistant hose.
- Light in cockpit. Installed a footman’s loop above the barbecue so we can hang a Lucy light.
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