Fiu left the Rodriguez Key anchorage at 7:45 AM with a strong northerly wind blowing around 15 to 20 knots with an occasional gust to 27 knots. So this quickly became a repeat of the day before with strong winds from our backs and sides. This kind of sailing is tiring because the waves are approaching Fiu from our rear starboard quarter. What seems to happen is when the wave is under the middle of the boat the bow will turn and the wave will enhance this action. We counteract the turning of the boat with a hard turn of the wheel in the opposite direction of travel. Do this every three to ten seconds and one needs relief quite often during the voyage. We are fortunate to have autohelm. This self-steering mechanism is based on a bearing or compass direction. It takes a few seconds for the system to discover a change and then send a signal to correct the change. Basically, autohelm is not reactive quick enough to counteract the wave action that changes the boats direction in this case. It is however, great in all other instances!
While pulling up the anchor it became entangled in an old anchor lines left by someone else. It was easy to untangle and we were on our way! We caught the wind almost immediately and spent the day on another wild ride! We traveled between 6.5 and 8.9 knots.
An interesting boating circumstance occurred just before arriving at Vacca Key and the entrance to Boot Key Harbor. We were overtaking an older sailboat on their starboard side. Just as we were almost abreast of them the boat turned toward us. The rule is the overtaken boat maintains course and speed until the pass is made. While I turned to starboard to avoid collision the shoal was quite close to us and I dared not venture too far or risk grounding. We were close enough to see the captain and a lady give me a dirty look which I ignored. It seems there are more rules of the road (other than official) than I realized!
The entrance to Boot Key Harbor was a welcome site since the last two days were spent surfing! We talked with Pat and Walt and agreed to enter the harbor knowing we were unable to get a mooring ball this day. The mooring field was full! We motored in slowly and decided to anchor just off the channel just past the retired bascule bridge by red 16. The water is shallow here and care needs to be taken to avoid grounding. We anchored at 2:30PM and readied the dinghy to get to the harbormaster to register for a mooring ball. We were put on a waiting list at number 11 and 12.
There will be more to come following our daily adventures in Marathon!
Captain Sid
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