SAILS 1990 45 Florida Bay Coaster
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SAILS....Cruising Blogs
These are all the Blogs posted on Saturday, 26 March, 2022.
FL to CT Day 7
Lignumvitae Key, FL to Key Largo,FL
We had a very interesting night on the mooring ball… winds picked up to over 20 knots and lines were really creaking as we swung on the ball in the wind… plus we had a current that was beam to the boat so the swing was extreme… it was a 1000lb mooring and we were assured it would hold us in any winds… I was not so sure so before we went to bed, I set the anchor drag alarm for 250 ft. About 5am I was awoken by the noise… I got up and checked the winds and they were gusting to 30 knots… we had 2-foot waves… then the anchor alarm went off… we were dragging the 1000lb mooring… was just getting ready to start the engines and we stopped dragging… wind settled down to less than 20 knots… I stayed up and monitored the wind and dragging… 0730 arrived and winds down to less than 15 knots… We had planned to stay here another day but with the events of early morning we decided to move on.

We dropped the mooring ball at 0830 and headed back out to the ICW… hunting for a new more protected area to anchor and get to land… we have not been to land at this point for 5 or is it 6 days… not sure… but the dogs need some land time and so do we….

The northerly winds evidently push the water out of Florida Bay in the Upper Keys… we were seeing a foot to 1.5 feet lower than charted depths… depth alarm was going off all days long… or the depth stopped working totally as it was too shallow to get a reading… between the shallow water and the crab pots it was an anxious day… did not hit any crab pots luckily… you could sure tell where we had been… leaving a trail of mud/sand in the water behind us.

We looked at every anchorage there was along the way and nothing seemed right… just no real wind protection for northerly winds and it was forecast to be windy again tonight so we wanted to be sure and be in a safe spot… We thought about Tarpon Bay in Key Largo… good wind protection but we could not find any place to land the dinghy to get to land… made several calls and asked about dinghy access and all said NO… no marinas of adequate size to accommodate us… finally we found two options at the far north end of Key Largo… Northeast end of Blackwater Sound at Jewfish Creek… Gilbert’s Resort and Anchorage Resort… made calls to both… Gilbert’s was no reservations… “fish come first serve”… Anchorage Resort was an answering machine… There was an anchorage option in the area as well… so we continued on hoping that there were either be space at Gilbert’s Resort or Anchorage Resort would call us back.

About 2 miles out Anchorage Resort called us back and we reserved a slip… YAY! Upon arriving to the area we saw that Gilbert’s had no available dock space so were very happy to have a slip at Anchorage Resort.

We arrived at approximately 1245 and were secure in the slip for the night at approximately 1300. Our Position for the night is N25°11.003', W080°23.287'. We traveled today for 4.5 hours covering 25.95 nautical miles averaging 5.8 knots.
Posted at 4:45 PM by:Jay
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