Day 115, Year 10: Rodriguez Key to Long Key Bight
Date: Monday, February 2, 2015
Weather: Sunny and Windy, SW Winds 15-20, Temp in the Low 80’s F
Latitude: 24 49.894 N
Longitude: 080 47.209 W
Location: Anchored at the East End of Long Key Bight, Florida
Today’s grand plan to leave early and avoid head winds didn’t work. The wind went to the SW a few hours earlier and was much stronger than predicted. We had 15 to 20 knots of wind on the nose and current against us, so our attempts at sailing got us nowhere. So we turned on engine and motor sailed with the main and headsail for a bit, but the wind kept moving further in front of us forcing us to furl the headsail and motor on. When you beat into the wind, waves splash up on the deck leaving it a salty mess at the end of the day. It’s been a long time since Windbird has been as salty as she is tonight. But fresh water is at a premium as we won’t have a chance to fill the water tanks again until we get to Fort Myers, so I refrained from washing her down. The forecast for Thursday is rain, rain, and more rain, so washing the deck will just have to wait until then. But regardless, it was a warm, sunny day and the turquoise waters of Hawk Channel were just beautiful.
We arrived early in the afternoon, ate lunch, and then had a Skype video call with Heather, Jed, and boys. They gave us a video tour of the front yard still piled high with snow but with a slushy mess of a walkway caused by rain today. We gave them a tour of the turquoise waters surrounding Windbird. Then each boy shared some of the things they are most interested in these days. Sam got military history book for Christmas and he is really into identifying the various kinds of ships and planes. Jonah has been into painting and shared a couple of his most recent master pieces. And Ollie just wanted Sam and Jonah to go away so he could be the center of attention. He loved showing us the ‘study’ finder (two year-old way of saying stud finder) he had been using with his daddy before we called and he read books to us and built a few Lego vehicles to show us. This was the fifth day of no school in Falmouth due to bad weather, so I imagine getting ready for school tomorrow morning is going to be a challenge. Heather and Jed, we wish you luck!
After the Skype call, we put down the dinghy and went on an explore of Long Key Bight. The Bight is shaped like a horseshoe with the open end to the east. We are anchored there as our draft is too deep to go further in. It is more than a mile from where we are anchored to the other side of the Bight, so we headed across. There is a motel on the north side of the Bight with a boat dock and we thought we would go in there and see if they would let us tie up so we could take a walk. But we obviously chose the wrong path to get there as we basically went aground in our dinghy. We gave up that idea and headed to the southwestern end of the Bight to find the windy path into the town of Layton. We found the entrance and wound through the mangroves to find the canals. We had looked at Layton on Google Earth before heading out and it looked from the water just as it does on Google. There are about seven little canals lined with homes and every home has a boat parked parallel style along the canal wall. We had read on Active Captain that there was a place to tie up the dinghy and go ashore, but after searching and asking a local, we gave up on the idea of taking a walk today. There was just no shore access. So we headed back to Windbird. On the way we stopped by to say hello to Lynda and Lee. They enjoyed their trip on the Intracoastal side of the Keys but came back to the Hawk Channel ‘deep’ side this afternoon.
Good news from my sister Patsy—She is doing great and is getting released from the hospital tomorrow!
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| 150202 Day 115 Florida, USA–Rodriguez Key to Long Key Bight |
