We are in Key West, Capital of the Conch Republic, which was a tongue-in-cheek secession of the Keys declared in the 80's.
We departed Vero Beach after the boat being there 2 weeks, with time either side of our family vacation in Punta Cana. We only had 60 miles to go to get to the Palm Beach area, which would be our Xmas stop, so we could take our time.
First stop was the Pelican Yacht Club in Fort Pierce area, just an easy 2 hour run south. We arrived early afternoon and made full use of their unoccupied pool. Next day we traveled about 30 miles to Hobe Sound, in the Jupiter area and anchored for the first time all trip. We selected a very nice bay in a no-wake zone, with a nearby sandbar, and also got our first ocean swim in. Very warm. A woman from NY area noticed our Vancouver hailing port and came out on her paddle board to chat.
That left only a couple of hours run to get to North Palm Beach, which would be our home for the next 10 days. Tristan's girlfriend Dominique's family has a place in Palm Beach and spend Xmas there, hence the choice of a PB area marina so we could be close by. Tristan arrived on Sunday the 19th and had a rental car (a Ford Mustang Convertible!) to get us back and forth, and allow for more mobility during our stay.
We had stopped at this marina once before and just thought of it as a good overnight stop - not much else. What we didn't realize previously, and what made this marina highly desirable for the time in PB area, is that it provided access to the country club across the street and its wonderful pool. Finding extended term moorage in Florida is very difficult this year due to the number of people boating, so we felt very fortunate that this place had become available.
There is also a park nearby with a nice beach on the ICW, where we could read, relax, and watch boats go by. Of course, we had to get some Xmas preparation done and shopping between stints mainly at the pool. And fortunately the weather was excellent for pool time.
Dom's family invited us to join them for Xmas eve dinner and Xmas day as well. Time with them was great, including the wonderful seafood dinner Xmas eve and the larger family dinner on Xmas day. We were also able to spend a few afternoons at the beach by their place on the ocean side, which was a nice treat with the surprisingly warm and calm Atlantic water making for great swimming and a bit of snorkeling.
We departed PB on Dec 28th to continue our journey south. The 80 mile stretch of the ICW from PB to Miami has 35 bridges, of which 26 have to open for us, which makes for slow travel. So for the first leg to Fort Lauderdale we elected to "go outside" and travel in the ocean rather than the ICW. The forecast for this was great, with calm air in the morning and a bit of wind in the afternoon, after we planned to be back inside. The morning did start well with flat seas, but the wind came up out of the SE a bit earlier than expected and we had an hour of so of beating into moderate chop conditions before we went back into the ICW at Hillsboro inlet, but we had avoided 12 bridges and only had 4 more to to this day before getting to our destination at the Coral Ridge Yacht Club.
Dom joined us there to accompany us for the next few days of travel south. We departed relatively early the next morning as we wanted to make good progress into Biscayne Bay, and did have 10 more bridges to transit. The key to making decent time with the bridges, and not having to kill much time at idle, is to know the opening times and set the boat speed to arrive at the bridge for the open. Good practice is to be there a few minutes ahead of time, as you certainly don't want to miss it and wait a half an hour. But the result is one can only average about 6 to 7 knots at best thru this stretch of the ICW.
We cleared the last bridge out of Miami just after noon and continued for 3 hours into the south of Biscayne Bay, under beautiful conditions, to our anchorage at Elliott Key. We all swam and enjoyed the quiet night at anchor.
We departed 1/2 hour before sunrise the next morning as we had a long day to put in to get to Marathon, which would be our stop for a few days over New Years.
From Biscayne Bay south, the control depth for the ICW channel is supposed to be 8 feet, but in reality a lot of the the channel is 6 to 8 feet, and some portions are less than 6 feet. In these very shallow sections, the attitude of the boat changes as the wave off the bottom of the hull bounces off the bottom and hits the hull midships, and causes the stern to squat. It is quite noticeable when this happens as the exhaust note changes due to the exhaust ports, which are normally half submerged, being fully submerged. The swim grid, which is normally a few inches above the water, depresses into the water. The boat slows noticeably as well as it fights its own bottom wave. The only solution is to actually slow the engines a bit, reduce the stern squat and fortunately not lose much more speed. About 20 miles of the 70 miles have these unusually shallow water conditions.
We arrived at Marlin Bay marina in Marathon late afternoon and enjoyed a swim in the pool. Tristan had to pick up a rental car as he would be returning Dom to Palm Beach on New Years Day. We spent New Years Eve day enjoying the pool and getting a provisioning run done with the rental car. New Years Eve was spent at the marina, with our midnight entertainment being the various fire works displays along the coast. We could see 5 from our viewpoint.
Tristan had a long day driving Dom back to PB, and returning to Marathon after dark. We departed the next morning for the 7 hour run to Key West with SW 10 to 15 forecast, but saw close to 20 knots crossing the top of the lower Keys. Due to the water depth the route can't really run within the lee of the land so there is still a pretty good fetch to pick up the water and waves. The stabilizers do make a huge difference, but the boat did get very salty, particularly on the port side as we made our way west. The wind eased a bit mid afternoon so the final hour or so into Key West was more comfortable. We arrived at Key West Bight Marina late afternoon and a temporary spot for overnight as there was an inoperable boat in our designated slip.
We celebrated our arrival with an evening at one of our favourite bars, Hank's Hair of the Dog Saloon. The seating is all outside and is revised to table groupings now, so we were able to sit appropriately socially distanced and enjoy the music.
We will be in Key West for a month. Due to new restrictions in Ontario, Tristan and Dom have both extended their trips to work remotely (check out the floating office for the new age banker) for January so we are looking forward to spending more time with them.
And we have some friends visiting for a few days mid-month. Having spent a fair bit of time here in past years, we know we like it but we will have to make a point of trying to see and do some new things. Having our bikes here this year will help a lot to extend our range to get out and see things.
Comments
Post a Comment