February 15 17 Marathon to Rodriquez Key to Hurricane Harbor on Key Biscayne and Lay DayThere 46 4 and 47 4 Miles

Well the good news is that I did not screw up the screw -- i.e., the transmission still turns the propeller. But the bad news is that the rattle is still there. I guess its time to have a professional take a look. And with all the contortionism required to muscle bolts with wrenches in a terribly cramped space, I got a back pain though it was a little better the second day and gone the third. Its just that so many tasks require throwing your weight into it or reaching or bending -- everything except typing a blog -- that one notices such pains. But ibuprofen helps.

And I started the first day with a mistake, though not a harmful one. I recalled that some of the three passage days from Biscayne Bay to Key West were 20-25 mile days and others were 40-50 mile days, but I guessed wrong on the trip to Rodriguez and we lallygaged about and made a late start at 8:45 for what was a longer day, arriving after five. Some of the trip was good sailing, some motor sailing and during the last hour and a half the wind was directly in our faces and rather than tack back and forth we furled all sails and just motored slowly. We were passed by a boat. I could not read the boat name because it is in a fancy script- more later.

We anchored on the west side of Rodriguez Key; we stayed on the other side when going south;  it appeared to provide some shelter from the wind, which was quite strong.

But the oblong island is aligned from north to south and so neither side gives much protection from a wind that was mostly from the south. But we put out 110 feet of snubbed chain in ten feet of water, with plenty of room behind us. Our nearest neighbor, 100 yards away, was the unnamed boat that had passed us. I awoke from the wind at 2 a.m. and sat up worried the rest of the night in fear of dragging. The anchor alarm suggested that we had slowly dragged but in the morning light

it appears that we did not. Not a good nights sleep.

Next day after a great french toast breakfast, thanks Lene, we set off at 8 am. We gradually caught up with that boat that had passed us the day before, who had left before us. They passed us the day before because I did not want to push the engine with its rattle. But now, I saw, via the binoculars, that she was a Catalina 34 with hailing port Oriental NC. I called them on low power on channel 16, and we switched to 17 to not impede the Coast Guard: "Catalina 34 hailing from Oriental; this is the sailboat ILENE on your port quarter." I learned that their boats name was "RagTop" and they were making the same two passages as we were and planned to stay in No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne as we were. ILENE is longer and hence faster under sail. When we passed them we wished each other a good passage and said we would try to meet up in No Name. I still did not know the peoples names.

The wind was in the low 20s and on our starboard bow. It was on shore yet the waves were not large. The Keys, heading for Key Biscaye through Hawk Channel are arrayed in a curve and as we got closer we were able to gradually steer a bit more north and a bit less east so the wind came from near close hauled to near our beam. We had full main and small jib and were heeled quite a bit,

though Witty wasnt upset by it.  We were doing near seven knots on average the whole way up Hawk passage and hit eight for a few minutes. We could probably have gone faster with less heeling if we had reefed the main but the forecast called for 10 to 20, not 20 to 25.

 We accomplished  in one day the mileage that  took us two days on the way south, going directly between Rodriquez Key and Biscayne Bay without the stop at Pumpkin Key. This was in part due to the free open speedy passage in Hawk Channel and was necessitated by the fact that we passed the entrance to Angelfish Creek way before high tide and waves were pushing on shore there. We entered through Biscayne Channel which is wide, deep and well marked.

Still with the wind and waves and tide all pushing us in, and never having been there before, and with the course involving some jibes, and channels always looking narrower on the charts than in real life, we dropped the main before entering and used the small jib, the tide and the engine at low rpms to make 5 to six knots on the way in. The channel is marked by 20 day marks and several fishing camps, houses built on stilts, on its sides. You can occasionally see shoals that line the sides, but mostly they are under water so you cant see them; it was like Boca Grande. Once through the channel into Biscayne Bay, we turned to starboard for No Name Harbor, which the book says is horribly overcrowded on weekends. This was Presidents Day and it was quite overcrowded, so we went to Hurricane Harbor, where the entrance was shallow, 62" at mid tide, but it quite deep enough at fifteen feet once inside.
And there was plenty of room for ten boats with only three present. I called RagTop and told them we were in Hurricane and they were anchoring outside of No Name due to the crowd so I suggested that they come over. There are NO waves in Huricane Harbor and precious little wind. The advantage of No Name is that though they charge you $20, they have a dinghy dock, restaurants and access to beaches etc. This harbor is completely surrounded by private homes.

and there is no shore access at their private docks, but we do not need shore access every day. In the second photo, on the right, through the harbor entrance, you can see the skyline of Coconut Grove, about four miles across Biscayne Bay.

Our neighbors here have left us alone, which is better than some of Floridas wealthy waterfront land owners have behaved. We exercise our legal right to anchor, for free, in the navigable waters of the USA and do no harm. And ILENE is a pretty boat, at least in our opinion and enhances their view. But some have tried to use legal means and sheer harassment to exclude boats from the waters near them. They dont own the water but they like to think they do. One guy moored a fleet of his own small faux miniboats in front of his house to "use up" all the available space. The idiot spoiled his own view with those ugly things.

When they had anchored we invited  Rag Top for wine and thereby finally learned their names: Don and Trish. They live four hours inland by car from Oriental, and this is their first extended cruise. They were part of a rally of new cruisers who went from Hampton VA to Florida, sort of like the Caribbean 1500, but via the ICW, so they partied most nights.  They are pretty good sailors in that they only gave a few tenths of a knot to ILENE. We enjoyed talking with them about cruising and boats in general.

The lay day was devoted to cleaning, -- the spots that we dont get to very often. Benny of s/v ""Rhianna", who we met in Beaufort SC, alerted to our nearness by Dean, of s/v Autumn Born, called and we might meet up with them soon. Three of four boats came into this harbor during the day but left within hours. We were also very close to Bob and Brenda of s/v "Pandora", which I helped sail from Essex CT to Annapolis in September. Our last night in Hurricane they were in No Name, only a mile away. Now back to Miami Beach where we have guests coming from NYC.

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December 4 9 Jacksonville to St Augustine and Five Lay Days There 46 8 Miles

Bridges made this passage a long one. JVilles Main Street Bridge had requested advance notice so I called the afternoon before our departure and requested a 7:30 am opening and was told OK. I told other boats who were planning to leave that day and all of us prepared to be underway, near the bridge, before 7:30. But one of the other boats called again in the morning to confirm and was told that they were not allowed to open between 7 and 8:30. If the tender had told me this the day before we would all have left at 7, but we had to hang on the dock for another hour plus.

We did not make it out until 8:30 and hence got a somewhat late start considering the distance. ILENE soon led the way and hoisted the small jib to supplement the engine.  But the tide was again only slightly favorable at the start, growing in speed until the right turn, south, into the ICW. There, of course, the same tide was then against us, for several hours.

The only rough spot in the ICW was at the Salamander Landing Bridge, which was high enough but narrow which channelled the tidal waters to run through it fast against us. Bridges, even modern ones on concrete pillars, tend to block the wind somewhat, thereby reducing the efficiency of the sail. But the biggest cause of the sudden drop of speed from 4.8 to 1 knot in a tight swirly spot was the force of the water rushing past us -- like at Hells Gate. Lene had the helm. She cranked the engine a bit higher than we like to run her, for about two minutes, and the danger was past. Then, it became a race for the Bridge of Lions, that crosses the ICW a few hundred yards north of the St Augustine Municipal Marina, which provides moorings.

I got a wonderful pleasant surprize from my beloved Lene today. She has often criticised me for tweaking the sail trim too often. She had the helm and gave me several suggestions to ease or harden the sheet in response to minor changes of course mandated by curves in the ICW and of wind speeds. And her suggestions were correct. The last vestiges of her claim: "Im not really a sailor!" are now toast!! Lene IS a sailor!

But more than five miles before the Bridge of Lions we figured out that we could not go fast enough to make it to its 4:30 opening, and would have to wait until 5:30. So we slowed down the engine, later took in the sail and eventually turned off the engine to simply float with the tide. But we still got there 35 minutes early and had to motor slowly, away from the bridge to try to maintain an approximately geostationary position against the tidal flow. And we got to our mooring after sunset but before dark. Technically this is called between civil twilight and nautical twilight. Underway from 8:15 to 5:45; a long day.

It is the holiday season in St. Augustine with its Christmas parade, including all sorts of clubs and businesses and every school with either a band or a high powered blast of recorded Christmas music. And the central plaza is lighted extensively. One evening saw the end of the annual "Night Watch". Groups of costumed British, Hessian, Native American and Colonist "reenactors" spent the night partying and then marched to the square to hear a reading of the "Proclamation of Freedom" from the Spanish.

We actually skipped the festivities. Its funny though, there are many Hispanic restaurants in town and most of the downtown streets have names such as Castillo, San Marco, Menendez, Ponce de Leon, Sevilla, Carrera, Valencia, Cordova, Ribiera and Aviles. Though I have been told that they regained these Hispanic names from the Anglican ones in the 1920s to promote tourism.
We have had some good weather hours here, but two of the days were very foggy (as had been one in JVille). Fog is less frequent here than in New England but just as unpleasant. And we also had two days of windstorm, making us happy that we were on a mooring rather than anchor. They are called "northers," and mark the passing of a cold front. This one gave us about 48 hours of 25-30 knot winds from the north. The first day we decided to forego the dink, which would have meant a wet ride, and take the marinas launch in to town, even though its hours are inconvenient -- only at 10, 12, 2, 4, and 6.  But the second day of the wind storm, our plan to leave that day having been adjourned, the launch came out to yell that it was too dangerous for them to take is in. So we had a day aboard for reading, blogging, correspondence and I plotted out the routes and distances of each remaining leg from here to the Dry Tortugas. It was a roly day because the strong north or south flowing tidal currents determine which way the goat faces, but the stong northerly winds, when in opposition to the currect turn the boat so it is not facing the wind, causing it to be rocked by the waves coming at the side.

 Notice boats facing different ways, the one on the right is "pinned" with its mooring ball rubbing at its side rather than out in front

We had breakfast at a Athena, a greek restaurant one day, lunch at O.C. White, an American fish place, another and pizza for dinner on our last night. The lunch was with Dean and Susan of "Autumn Borne" and their friends, Cathy and Earl, from North Carolina, of  s/v "Seeker". The Autumn Borners shared a bottle of wine with me another night,
For all the many folks who have had blueberry and or mango pancakes on ILENE, you have to come back. Why? To try the new and definitely improved sweet potato ones we tried.

Ilene spent quite a bit of time in the laundry room lounge, not just doing laundry, but also watching her TV programs on the excellent wifi -- excellent except that it does not reach the boat, half a mile away. I visited a store that sells used and some new boating stuff. I was looking for a teak pencil holder to attach to the nav station so I wont have to open its desk top to get a pencil. While they had a lot of stuff including lots of teak fixtures, this item was not among them. I did get a set of running lights for the dink to replace the ones that had gone bad. I wish there was such a store in the NY area. Another day I paid $5 for a round trip in a van to a supermarket to get everything on Lenes list.
I also polished and waxed more of the exterior stainless. And with Deans help we overcame a problem with coffee one morning: No propane was flowing to the stove. I checked the fuse, that the tank was full and got out the documentation we have on the Trident propane control and detector system. Dean brought a thermos of hot coffee with him and we continued to try to localize the problem. He took apart the solenoid. The electricity either turns it on to allow the flow of propane from its outside locker to the stove or cuts off that flow when a connected sensor detects a leak in the cabin. Finally we discovered the problem: a butt connector (it joins two wires, end to end, to allow electricity to flow from one through the other) under the galley sink had come loose. A wire was just dangling there. So crimping on a new connector solved the problem. Thanks again Dean, and for the coffee too!
During Lenes marathon sessions with Breaking Bad, I did some sightseeing. Not the fort and the two big former luxury hotels now a museum and a college. We had toured them in 2012. Instead, one afternoon I visited about ten of the many galleries. My favorite was Bouvier Maps and Prints on Avila St., (the oldest street in the US). Im juist a sucker for poring over maps, including expensive antique maps. Mr. Bouvier did not have charts published by the US Navy Hydrographic Office but many others of ports we have sailed in.
I also took the tour of the Hispanic Military Hospital Museum.

The young lady explained that Spanish society had developed much higher standards of certification of medical service providers and, more importantly, sanitation, compared to the British. She attributed this to the influence of the moors in Spain for hundreds of years, for whom hand washing, for example, is a religious obligation. I further attributed it to the influence of Jewish physicians such as Rabbi Moses Mainonides, the personal physician of the moorish ruler, on the moors. I also toured an exhibit in the town hall that, like all the others celebrated Floridas cultural diversity.

Another day I visited the Barracks, now the headquarters of the Florida National Guard with this brilliantly polished brass cannon out front,

the Royal Bakery (disappointingly now simply an auto garage), and the Gonzalez-Alvarez House, reputed to be the oldest, with its coquina (shell limestone) Hispanic first story and a wooden British second story having been added. The docent revealed that in the Victorian period the new owner had added Victorian additions that the Historical Society had removed after it took over the house in 1918. More cultural exhibits, followed by a room of maps of the world and later Florida, from the 16th through the 21st centuries. And there are more historic sites to visit on future stops in St. Augustine.

Actually we had planned only three lay days here and ended with five. The first of the extra days was while the wind howled. The second was also related to the wind. It had kicked up a sort of "storm surge" which raised the water level in the ICW. When we approached the first fixed 65 foot high bridge, about two miles south of the mooring at about 8 am, we took a look at the white board with numbers showing the feet above the water level that the bridge is. The water washed it at 62 feet that morning and our mast is 63.5 feet above the water. So I slammed us into reverse and gave a lot of throttle to overcome our seven knot forward speed and get away from the bridge. And the water was scheduled to rise until 10 am and not get low enough until the afternoon, too late to start a passage of more than 40 miles. So we went back onto our mooring to wait until the next day.

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