Day 117, Year 10: Sailing on a Polka-dotted Sea of Green
Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Weather: Sunny, Winds ESE 12-15, Clocking to the SW Tonight
Latitude: 25 21.697 N
Longitude: 081 29.720 W
Location: Sailing Off the SW Florida in the SE Gulf of Mexico
We have had a color change. The turquoise waters of Hawk Channel off the Keys has now turned sea green here in the Florida Gulf. The sea green color can be beautiful, but today the sea has looked like it has a bad case of the measles as it is polka-dotted with the buoys from crab pots. It was worse than lobster pots in Maine! It is nearing sundown as I write this and the pots are finally few and far between, but they are still there. We have spent the entire day watching and avoiding pots. We caught one early on and had to lower all the sails to slow down enough to try and get free of it. I was down below and I heard Mark talking to Lee on the radio complaining that we were losing speed. He thought the wind had just died down, so he started the motor. I heard that something was wrong and yelled up to him to shut off the motor, but he heard it too and had already acted. We both knew immediately that we had picked up a pot. Once we got the boat stopped, Mark was able to take a boat hook and push and shove until it broke loose. Thankfully it had not wrapped itself tightly around the prop. But after this little scare, we have been very vigilant and don’t want a repeat performance. If the winds drop tonight as predicted, we might be crawling into Fort Myers Beach later tomorrow morning than expected as we don’t want to turn on the motor during the night. I guess we’ll just have to access the situation as conditions change. If we had not had the worry of the crab pots, it would have been a delightful day. We were sailing on a broad reach with 12-15 knots of wind most of the day with dolphins playfully guiding us from time to time. But if this were a race, we would definitely be losing. Sea Turtle has been far out in front all day. Sea Turtle’s prop is somewhat protected by catching pots as there is a metal bar connecting the keel to the skeg that keeps line from going up to the prop area, so Lee said he gave up early on and just ignored the pots. We have had a strong current against us all day and Sea Turtle doesn’t seem to be as affected by this as Windbird. So for a number of reasons, Sea Turtle is far ahead of us. Since Lee and Lynda have only done one other overnight, they really wanted us out front, but I’m afraid they are going to have to lead the way tonight. At least we have that beautiful one night past full moon to guide us overnight. We should arrive in Fort Myers Beach tomorrow morning and begin our Florida West Coast adventure.
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| 150204 Day 117 Florida, USA–Marathon to Fort Myers Beach |
