February 1 - 3 -- Key West to Marquesa Keys, to Boca Grande and Back to Key West-- 29.9, 15.8, and 17.5 Miles, Respectively

Everyone says the Marquesa Keys are about 20 miles from Key West, but our route measured at 29.9. On the way, once out of the channel, we enjoyed about 25 knots of wind on our port quarter (20 knots of apparent wind) which filled our Genoa nicely. No need for the mainsail -- too much wind and plenty of time for the short passage. Part of the longer distance was going north on the east side of Fleming Key (a naval air reserve without a landing strip) and down south again on its west side, 1.8 miles each way, under power. 

Marquesas Keys looks a bit like a roundish South Pacific atoll (think Bikini before we atomized it), except it is mangroves instead of palms. It is large, four miles from NE to SW, and Mooney Harbor, in the middle, is too shallow for ILENE, though we did see two small power boats in there. This picture refused to rotate; North is the right side.

We had planned to anchor to the west side of Mooney Harbor Key, the tiny dot on the south side toward the west. The chart says it is only three feet deep on the approach from the south, but Alex had assured us, with a confirming visual from Google Earth, that there is a minimum of six feet of depth to the anchorage. But the 25 knots of wind was from the ESE, which kicked up five foot waves that left us no margin for error; they would have pounded us onto the coral on the way in if we were not perfect. I would love to try Alex's recommendation on a calm day when you can slowly hunt your way in -- and back out if there is a problem. So we continued a couple of miles west of the location then a couple of miles north and finally east and anchored at the spot indicated by the divider point at the top of the picture.

Going in, our Raymarine chart plotter was worthless. Its largest scale was six miles, showing not nearly enough detail to cut around the un-buoyed  shallow spots. So Lene manned the iPad, with its InavX  program which shows our location and a yellow line showing our course over the ground. "About ten degrees right, " she coached me, and we got in fine and anchored in 12 feet with 80 feet of snubbed chain and her phone's anchor alarm, just in case. Such anchor alarms are rather worthless in a crowded anchorage like in Marathon where we are only 15 yards from the boat behind us. By the time you hear the beep, it is too late to take corrective action. But we have miles of open water behind us here and if we started to drag we would have time to fix the problem. Our anchoring detail ran into a snag which we solved with many whacks of the boats hammers, first the rubber mallet and then the metal one. Last time we raised, at Marathon, I accidentally stepped on the "up" button causing the windlass to jam the anchor up into its housing. There was lots of room and time here for the whacking process which eventually freed the anchor.

The only other sailboat here was about a mile north of us, behind the most southern Island in the atoll's west wall. So we had "our" island all to ourselves. A tropical paradise except with this wind, though we are partially shielded from it b y the island, dinghy adventures were too fraught for us.

The waves here were less than at the unprotected mooring field at Key West.

Specifically, we were at N 24 32.566; W 82 09.946. This is the furthest that we will go and 1063 nautical miles from the Harlem. From now on we will b e heading home. By adding up the mileages of each of the legs from there to here I find that the actual miles traveled to this point are 1676.8 (1928.3 in land miles). Of the 117 days since and including October 8, we have moved the boat only 45 of them, only 38 percent of them, with almost two thirds of our days as lay days. Three of the passages involved one or more overnights, making for only 41 separate passages. I think we are taking it easy, trying to avoid problems with weather and enjoying ourselves.

About 10 miles off the south coast of Grenada in 2011 marks ILENE's southernmost boundary of travel so far. Eastport, Maine marks her furthest northern and eastern destination and we were now at the westernmost point of her range --so far.

Next morning, we had a problem. It was after a nice breakfast and we were cleaning the boat and not paying attention to the fact that the wind had changed direction. When the wind was from the east, we had miles of deep ocean behind us to the west. When they came from the north it was much less. The anchor alarm probably began to sound while the shop vacuum cleaner was roaring. We heard it and got the engine on, but in the course of getting up the anchor we drifted into water that was shallower than our draft. And the wind was pushing us further on. The engine could not get us off, even when we heeled the boat with the jib. We saw a fishing boat and called on VHF radio Channel 16. The  Coast Guard heard our call and responded. They switched us to channel 22A and asked us many questions including our Towboat US towing insurance number. They called Towboat US  "Ranger" for us with their more powerful VHF radio on a high antenna and it was dispatched to us from Key West. In the meantime I lowered the dink and put our port anchor with 20 feet of chain and about 80 of our 280 feet of line in it and motored away, paying out the line and dropped that anchor as a kedge, to try to prevent the waves from pushing us further into shallower water. Lene hailed some fishermen who tried to tow us off but their engine was not powerful enough. We waited with anxious thoughts. We heard a soft thumping when waves lifted us and put us back down on the sand. Not "pounding" but bad enough. When we on shore for the winter, the keel supports the weight of the boat. Four pairs of "jackstands", at the sides, stabilize the boat to prevent it from falling over, but the weight is on the keel. When afloat, all of the weight is supported by the water but here, when a wave lifted us a wee bit and dropped us down again, the thump was transmitted through the keel to the rest of the boat. Not a good thing. 

Chris, master of Towboat US "Ranger" arrived and passed us bridles to attach to each bow cleat to pull us off. He powered his engine but we were not moving -- our speed over ground was still "0.0 knots". I suggested putting up sails to heel the boat (and thus lift the keel,) and when Chris said OK we did so, but we were oriented facing the wind so they did not do much good until Chris twisted our orientation to catch some wind. Eventually we broke loose and I was hauling in the line of our kedge anchor but aftert a while it held fast to the bottom. When we wanted to drag it up, it would not budge in the direction we were going, holding us back. Chris said to cut the line. No way! Then he suggested tying a fender to the line and casting it off and promised to retrieve it for us later. We got all 280 feet of line out on deck with a fender tied along the way.  Chris left us not very far from where we had been, but in 13 feet of water, where we anchored with the starboard anchor, our normal one with all chain rode. He retrieved our port anchor, brought it back and gave me some very handy advice of how to get it reinstalled through its "bail" roller. He checked our rudder for damage and it turned freely. If we had not purchased unlimited towing insurance, this escapade would have cost us $1200. Chris was so helpful and polite. The antithesis of the Towboat US operator at Point Judith, RI, who claimed salvage ($27,000) for a tow in August 2010 -- and lost his case.  Power boaters need towing insurance because if their engines fail they need to be towed back to port. In this case, port was Key West, 29 miles away. But sailors can generally get back to port, we only need to be towed off the sand, mud or rock.

Well that experience soured us a bit on the Marquesas, and we started to head back to Key West, but the wind was light and from the west, and we were not going fast and would have arrived after dark and even though I have passed through the harbor coming and going, I really do not like night arrivals. On our way back, we were passing Boca Grande, and Lene said "Why not stay here for the night?" This island is surrounded by shoals but with a marked channel between them. The large green areas are shoals, less than one foot of water. So it looks like you are in the middle of the ocean.

The shoals do nothing to stop wind but eliminate all the waves which break up on them instead of us. North of us, the channel leads to water than only shallow draft boats can use, less than six feet.

The only problems noted in our cruising guides were a tidal current and sharks, but we did not plan to swim.  So we headed north to and into the channel and anchored right in the channel in 17 feet of water with 90 feet of snubbed chain out between R16 and G15, as shown on the chart.  (The distance from one horizontal line to the next is one mile.)  Around nine pm the tidal current started to run the other way and we swung on our anchor to face the other way. Normally, one should not anchor in a channel but here the book said this channel is so little used, especially at night, that it is all right. We could see no other boats. A nice calm night -- until about three a.m., when howling 20 plus knot winds shook the boat and woke me up. I turned on instruments and went to the cockpit and was not really well oriented yet when I looked at the depth meter and speedometer. we were moving at half a knot and the depth, which had been 17 feet the evening before was now 11 and falling to as little as 7.5. Oh no; Not again." I turned on the engine and tried, while the anchor was still down, to direct us toward where I hoped the deeper water was. The only landmark was the  G15 daymark buoy which I could see only by flashlight.

Eventually I turned the engine off and watched and realized that as the boat was moving around with the freedom that its anchor chain allowed, we were passing back and forth over that 7.5 foot spot, we were not dragging and we were not likely to do so with the winds which were now diminishing. By then I was bone chilled and went back to bed.
In the morning we motor-sailed back to Key West, with only the small jib.

We passed these two cruise boats on our way north into the bight where we tied up to a dock for a few days of touring here. ILENE needs a bath; and we do too. And it's Lene's birthday.