Day 109
We woke up to another glorious morning, but this time surrounded by millionaires! 😊 Actually, we only saw their homes, but we knew they were inside, probably hoping we’d pull anchor this morning and get the heck out of their backyards! So, we did just that – pulled anchor at 7:45 am and slowly headed out of our super-swanky anchorage back through Gordon Pass and out into the gulf. Next stop: an anchorage in the Florida Everglades! Naturally, as soon as we left the pass, we encountered even MORE CRAB-POTS. Mostly manual steering for Steve again today! In fact, his line for the day was: “If it’s not f-ing crab-pots, it f-ing BIRDS [floating in the water] pretending to be f-ing crab-pots!” LOL! 🙂
We wove our way through crab-pots for miles southward that morning, past Keewaydin Island, Marco Island, and Ten Thousand Island. Winds were picking up a bit, but we still had good cruising conditions and warmer temperatures (upper 60s), which always improves the day. In fact, the cool breeze, warm sun, and shimmering, emerald-green waters seemed like Nirvana. As we cruised along, we were passed by the Key West Express running at an average of 34 knots, about a mile to our west. We looked it up online to learn that it was a 136-ft commercial yacht, one of several that ferries passengers back and forth, daily, from Fort Myers or Marco Island, FL, to Key West – a trip that takes approximately 3 hours, one-way.
Now becoming common-place, but still thrilling, dolphins escorted us further and further south – far past the peninsula of Marco Island, until we were completely out of sight of any land anywhere. Again, we saw nothing but water, water everywhere from horizon to horizon. We were not totally alone, as we did see several other boats miles out from us, but only a few came close enough to photograph. One of them was a beautiful Island Packet sailboat flying a large, burgundy-colored Genoa sail.
So, I’d been wondering for awhile now if anyone ever checks all those crab-pots, and we finally passed a crab-boat doing that very thing, out west of the Everglades. Well, okay, then!
About 12:30 pm that afternoon, our formerly calm winds began to pick-up to 17-18 knots, which makes for a much rougher ride. By 1:30 pm, we saw they’d increased to 22 knots. So instead of shimmering ripples, Legacy was now riding some white-caps. The weather was still clear and sunny, just blustery now, so we closed up a few windows in the flybridge as a result. Before we knew it, some of those waves were throwing spray up and over our bow as they hit us, which meant conditions had gone from serene to “EXCITING”, at best. And all the while, we were STILL dodging crab-pots as we fought the waves! Did we not check any weather or sea-condition forecasts before we left this morning, you might ask? Well, the answer is OF COURSE, but forecasts are just that – forecasts and not reality. Just best-guesses, so cruising conditions are always a gamble. We bounced along like this for several hours until my nerves were beginning to fray. I tried to distract myself with the mangrove clumps now appearing to our east, as we approached the Everglades, growing larger and larger, the closer we got. At about 2:30 pm, we finally arrived at our anchorage in the Little Shark River, inside which was wonderful protection from the wind, so the water calmed from waves back to shimmering ripples. Coming into the mouth of the river, we slowed way down, as our depths were suddenly almost non-existent! We watched readings of 1-2 feet beneath Legacy’s keel skinny to only .5, .4 or “—” (which means NO depth reading!) as we inched our way in. Steve had previously read that depth-charts for the Florida Keys are basically best-guesses, as well, as the sandy bottoms are always shifting from day-to-day, which also changes the true depths from day-to-day. So, if the chart indicates a depth of 5-10 feet in a specific area, in the real world, that could easily become 1-5 feet… or LESS. Inching forward VERY SLOWLY, watching the depth-gauge the entire time, probably sounds a bit stressful. Which it is! We took some comfort in the fact that the bottom was mostly sand, so if we did happen to run aground, we should be able to get ourselves back off with the thrusters and/or engines, but we didn’t really want to get to that point. Finally, we reached a place in the mouth of the river that deepened enough we felt reasonably comfortable dropping anchor and not worrying about waking up the next morning, sitting on the bottom when the tide went completely out.
Even though we were literally in the middle of nowhere (the Everglades!), where there are NO cell towers, it was reassuring to see several other boats anchoring a distance from us in the Little Shark River. Our cell phones wouldn’t work, but we could at least hail one of these boats on radio channel 16 for assistance, should there be an emergency. Once we were settled in, we attempted to enjoy beverages up in the flybridge to watch the sunset, but unfortunately we were TOO protected from the winds in that anchorage, which meant the air was still enough to accommodate those dastardly “no-seeums” that love to feast on unsuspecting humans, when breezes are too weak to blow them away. ☹ Why not just use bug-spray, you might ask? Well, we could, but the no-seeums have figured out the best feasting can be had on the human scalp, because that’s where they always seem to attack. Who wants to put bug spray in their hair and on their scalp? So we grabbed our drinks and ran for the protection of inside the boat. Later, Steve found an old log entry made by Legacy’s previous owner regarding that exact same anchorage, that stated it was “Good protection from winds, but apparently a haven for insects.” LOL – no kidding!
Another thing we’d heard about this particular anchorage after dark, was if you shine a spotlight out over the surface of the water, you can see hundreds of sets of tiny, red alligator eyes glowing back at you from all around your boat. Steve decided to brave the insects, and carried our spotlight outside for a look. I told him to let me know if he saw anything, as I had no intention of going back out into that insect-haven for no reason! Sure enough, after only a few minutes, Steve was back inside, attesting to seeing NO glowing red eyes – only bazillions of tiny bugs flying within the beam of his spotlight! No, thank you!
Even though we had no internet to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime that night, we did still have our DirecTV Satellite to watch, though we’ve about reached the point where we find little entertainment on network TV. Steve had thoroughly reviewed all of his weather sites online that morning, before we left cellular/internet coverage, and they all seemed to agree that, while the winds could be between 10-15 knots, and wave heights from 1-3 feet on 12/30/20 (the following day) for our final crossing from the Little Shark River to Stock Island Marina Village in Key West, we could handle those conditions. But by the time we reached our point in the middle of nowhere later in the day, we only had NOAA weather radio to consult, along with The Weather Channel via satellite TV. As we listened to NOAA’s cryptic-sounding forecast, we began to get concerned that predicted conditions for the next day were worsening, as NOAA was predicting stronger winds and larger waves than we’d first heard for 12/30/20. The NOAA weather forecast is a recorded, continuous loop of information broadcast by an electronically-generated robot-like voice, that’s difficult to even understand, let alone follow. As we listened to the forecast loop play over and over, with the forecast winds increasing to 15-20 knots, and subsequent wave heights of 2-4 feet, we began to second guess our crossing plans. If we didn’t leave on 12/30, the weather was going downhill fast, which meant we’d be stuck anchoring there in the bug-infested, completely isolated Little Shark River for several more days before the weather cleared. To make matters more stressful, while we’d advised our families that we would be outside of cell coverage for the night of 12/29, we’d failed to remind them that period could extend if we encountered poor weather and decided to stay put. The Weather Channel’s forecast does not include wave-heights, but the conditions and winds predicted seemed to agree with what NOAA was saying. Still, we longed for cellular connectivity so we could access our other weather sites via the internet. We also kept remembering Scott Johnson, of Mona Gee, saying he felt NOAA was not very reliable, as whenever he’d listened to its forecast, he’d found he should’ve increased the predicted wind speed by at least 5 mph and doubled the predicted wave heights! 😐 We spent most of that evening vacillating back and forth between going or staying, until we finally decided to go for it. If we got out there and conditions were too bad, we could always just turn around and come back. Still, neither one of us slept well that night, as we could not stop thinking about the following day.
Position: N 25° 33.19.660, W 81° 08.841
Distance traveled: 73 SM
Total distance traveled: 2309 SM
Total marina nights: 89
Total nights at anchor: 19
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27