Friday, March 23, 2012

Marathon, Key West

I spent the better part of a day extricating various components of our autopilot to send to the manufacturer. After a couple of weeks in transit and at the shop, I think the parts are headed back to us now.
As of yet, I haven't been able to talk to the guy who did the troubleshooting, but rumors are the cables were bad. I would assume at the connectors (7 little tiny wires in each cable). They were well secured, weren't corroded and were placed where they would not get bumped, so I don't know how they went from good to bad. We will see.

We had the alternator frame welded and I reinstalled the frame and large alternator with new belts.

The weather has been breezy but spectacular during our stay here. We took the bus to Key West and enjoyed a day there. Other than obscene T shirts hanging in the shop windows, we didn't see any crazy stuff that makes Key West so proud of itself. By reputation, not our type of town, but now we've "been there, done that". I will say that I've been on third world buses that were much more comfortable than the "Keys" bus. At least there weren't pigs and chickens on board.


Speaking of chickens...much like in Latin America, they roam the streets and sidewalks of KW with abandon. Mostly roosters, but you see a chicken every now and then.


Some of the 48 percentile. Tarpon begging for handouts from a fish cleaning skipper.


Waiting in line for an autograph from Albert Einstein IV. 

Actually, there was no way I was going to wait in line to take a picture of this famous landmark, so I jumped up on the little wall, and this was the best I could do.

Back at Boot Key Harbor, there has been a bit of excitement. There used to be an opening bridge which guarded the entrance to the harbor. That bridge was condemned and is now always open, but just before the bridge there are power/fiber optic lines with 65 foot clearance from the water at high tide.

It is not uncommon for an unsuspecting/unprepared skipper (with a mast over 65') to run into these lines. We have met crew from 2 different boats that were dismasted by running into the power lines. We only draw 58' 6" and the high power line is higher than the fiber optic one, so no problem for us.

A catamaran with a 73 foot mast hit the lines the other day and apparently broke the cable holding up the fiber optic line. This caused the line to droop quite a bit lower. Later, several other unsuspecting boats, which normally would have cleared, hit the lines doing some damage, but not dismasting.

Now all the boats in Boot Key are in a panic. They've been waiting several weeks for a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream. The window has finally arrived, but nobody has fixed the power lines and sailors are feeling trapped. The fiber optic line belongs to AT&T, but you can't get them on the phone. Go figure. The city and the marina are disinterested. It has been amusing listening to the chatter on the VHF. It actually makes me feel smarter than I am. I guess that's a good thing.

I am in serious discussions with the Weather Babe regarding our route back to Texas. For us, The Gulf Intercoastal Waterway starts at Pensacola. Technically, it starts around Fort Myers, but not for us.

We don't like dealing with the bridge tenders around New Orleans and our experience at the locks have included very long delays. We can handle the lock delays and the bridge tender attitude, but delays make it difficult to make it to an anchorage before dark.

On the other hand, the Gulf of Mexico has thousands of oil rigs, many of which are unlit at night. Since we are short-handed, we prefer sticking to the shipping lanes which are rig-free.  This is a lot less stressful.   

The biggest problem for me are the funky currents. The Loop Current is warm Caribbean water that squirts up between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula where it then enters the Gulf of Mexico. At one extreme, the current takes an immediate right and becomes the Florida Current south of the Florida Keys, then making a left and becoming the Gulf Stream.

At the other extreme it shoots up close to the Louisiana coast before pulling a Uy, making a circuitous route back down to the Florida Current. Usually, it is somewhere in between the 2 extremes.


At the top of the U-turn, it breaks off creating an eddy which slowly makes it's way to Mexico's west coast--with baby brother and sister eddies on it's tail.

Since an eddy is basically a current flowing in circles, it creates a couple of problems. One, if you are on the wrong side of it, you will slow down. Two is worse. You are basically assured of having wind against current somewhere close enough to create steep, square and confused seas.

The key would be to try and hit the eddy where it flows with the boat and wind direction. But the currents move around and so does the wind.

But it could be a wonderful passage. Most likely some nice, some not so nice. This is assuming we get our autopilot back.

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