Creaking and Groaning

Creaking and Groaning

Tuesday 9th March 2021

If yesterday was windy then today has been very windy and Cotinga is creaking and groaning on the mooring … or maybe that’s just me! We have been pretty much stuck on the boat today with only a couple of wild dinghy rides to accomplish jobs ashore. We topped up our forward fuel tank with diesel and then took the Dumb Dog to a fuel dock about a mile away to re-fill the three empty jerry cans. It was a pleasant ride down-wind and a brutal splash-mountain trip back the boat! The hardest part was coming back into the ladder on Cotinga and getting tied up because the dinghy bounces up and down so much in the chop. We also fixed our salt-water faucet which was blocked (again) – it turned out it was clogged with bits of sea grass and was a relatively easy fix. We then turned out attention to the engine, topping up the oil and adding some coolant to the fresh-water cooling system. We seem to be losing a little coolant over time and whilst there don’t appear to be any obvious leaks in the system it’s something to keep an eye on. After a long lazy lunch I made a second trip to shore to go and fill up a propane tank and get some fresh water. We last filled our water tanks two weeks ago in Key West and have 120-gallon capacity. On average we use ~ 6 gallons a day and we are trying to get back up to full capacity by picking up 10 gallons in jerry cans every time we go to shore. 

Gloria is making chicken tagine for dinner – I’m sure it will be delicious. I doubt we will leave the boat again today; we’ll probably just hang out, read our books and watch Netflix! I have to be honest and say that “hanging out” doesn’t come naturally to me and I do tend to get a bit antsy. The wind and seas are due to settle down as we go into the weekend and eventually shift a little south of east. When that happens we’ll jump on the opportunity and make our way eastwards and then northwards up the coast of Florida. 

Mike

24 42.327 N, 81 05.701 W

Looking west across Boot Key Harbor from our mooring. This is an excellent harbor with land protection on all sides. There is no swell, but it can get a little choppy in these high winds

More or less the same position as the photo above, but now taken on a tripod after sunset with a long exposure and Cotinga swinging on the mooring

This is our wind speed data from the instrument on the top of our mast (TWS = True Wind Speed). As you can see it was hovering around 20 knots for the hour leading up to this photo and had been closer to 25 knots in the last 15 minute section before gusting to close to 30 knots ... for the photo!