Preparing for an overnight passage

Preparing for an overnight passage

Saturday 13th March 2021

We have been watching the weather forecast with great interest. We initially thought that Monday would be the best day to start our journey north, but as the forecast evolved we have brought forward our departure. All being well we will drop our mooring in Boot Key Harbor and head out at first light. The winds are predicted to be East to East-South-East at 10-15 knots and later around 5-10 knots. We’ll be pretty much dead into the wind to start with and expect to be motor sailing, but as we progress up the keys our route will turn more to the north and hopefully we’ll be able to sail. It’s always good to have a range of goals, so our ultimate goal is to sail non-stop to Fort Pierce Inlet (205 nautical miles) and arrive late Monday afternoon. Our fall-back destinations are Lake Worth Inlet (160 NM), For Lauderdale (120 NM) or Miami Inlet (95 NM). There is one “decent” anchorage at Rodrigues Key (50 NM) but it is completely open to the east, so no protection from the prevailing winds and seas.  We have decided that navigating the shallow channel into Biscayne Bay (~88 NM) is too risky, particularly as it might be quite close to low tide. However, we would be comfortable going into Miami Inlet in the dark and anchoring behind Fisher Island where we have stayed before.

These decisions have been influenced by the realization earlier today that I inadvertently deleted some of our old “tracks” on the GPS, specifically the “tracks” from our journey down through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. These would have been really helpful in navigating complicated areas or finding our way back to an anchorage where we have been before. On our way down the Keys we had a couple of instances when the chart plotter froze up and I needed to re-boot the system. I suspected that maybe we had too much data stored so I started to delete old “tracks” without checking what they were. There’s no denying it – I’m an idiot and I’m really bummed out that I did that.

We took a long hot shower ashore and I cut my hair with the clippers. We topped up the fresh water and brought our bikes back to the boat and stored them away in the lazarette. The dinghy got hauled up, deflated and stowed on the foredeck and we set up our inner forestay and stay-sail. Dinner is ready prepared for tomorrow night and if we’re smart we’ll make up some sandwiches for lunches. All told I think we ready to go – famous last words! We managed to fit in a final lunch at “Castaways” – as ever, sitting outside as far away from other people as possible. We shared a plate of peal and eat shrimp and then Gloria had a ginger salad with blackened chicken and I had the “hog-fish” sandwich. Both were very good. 

Mike

24 42.327 N, 81 05.701 W

The Dumb-Dog tied up alongside Cotinga with the fold-up bikes in the front and a couple of water jerry cans. We do have nice bags for the bikes but forgot to take them to shore when we went to collect the bikes

The fore-deck with the dinghy stowed in the blue bag, spinnaker sails in the red bags and the stay-sail mounted on the inner-forestay. You have to store the dinghy well so that you don't block the spinnaker pole from being deployed from the mast if you need it.

A time lapse video (15 minutes) of Gloria and I hauling out the Dumb Dog and stowing it away on the foredeck. It's a bit of a pain but better than towing the dinghy off-shore