Ships Blog Single Posts
Previous Post <<<------>>> Next Post
Date:Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:57:16 GMT
Day Two of the Journey North
Smoother day than yesterday
Hello Friends!
Day two was much easier. We motor sailed for the first
half of the day and sailed for the second half.
We had partly cloudy skies with random pop up thunderstorms
Waves in the channel were 2-4 feet and the winds were
15-10 also off our starboard beam.
As the route around the keys turns more northerly we were
finally able to just sail close hauled. We made between
6-9 knots and hit a maximum speed of 9.2 knots in 21 knots
of wind close hauled rails in the water! We spent much of
the day in this heeled over configuration.
We left Rodriguez Key around 10am after a breakfast of
eggs and toast. Around 11:30 or so we ran into our first
little microburst. Winds picked up to 40 knots and the driving
rain mixed with the see spray and pelted us until we were
soaked to the bone with salt water again. (two days in a row)
It is interesting how the waves calm down in the center
of a storm. We were hit by 2 other small showers during
the course of the day but mostly they missed us. We did.
seed a tornado forming under one of the storms on land.
Lunch was PBJ and dinner is fried burritos which we are
eating now. Later tonight we will be cleaning up the
cabin sole. The salt water has made it so slick and
it never want's to dry out. (because of the salt)
Around 5pm I heard a bump!! We were all pretty freaked out.
as we looked at the chart plotter we saw a shoal right on
the edge of the channel. It was not marked on the navionics
charts unless you zoomed in really close! It's a tiny shoal
that rises about 10 feet in about a 10 meter area.
We draw 5.5ft and we hit on the bottom of the swell.
My depth gauge clocked it at 7ft. As far as I can tell
no damage was done with our full keel and we didn't hit
very hard.
After we anchored the boat next to us moved about 200 yards
farther away. There was plenty of room but I hope we didn't
offend them or something. We were easily 100 yards away from
them.
Bye for now.