| June 2004 Belize to the Chesapeake I would love to be able to tell you how much we enjoyed Mexico but for this trip time had run out. The Hurricane season was upon us and the north-east coast of Mexico is a very unprotected area right in the firing line for those early Caribbean Storms. We had thought about calling at 'Isla' but the latest news from the net said that clearance fees were now running about $250 US! The next day we were off without even putting a foot ashore. I do however fondly remember when serving aboard the Sea Cloud our Doctor gave a talk to the passengers on the day we set off to cruise Mexico. They were all German passengers and all very wealthy (Sea Cloud wasn't cheap!). The Talk went something like this, "Dis land is full of faeces, dey are all over. Don't drink de wasser, don't eat der food or you'll ave de Delli Belli for de rest of your time ear". Maybe some time we will get chance to check out if the good Hr. Doctor was correct. Whilst the forecast for our trip was not great, it was light winds that we would have to fight, not gales; so off we went into the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. The first twenty-four hours the current was strongly in our favour and we made good progress, after that we struggled in light airs until we got close enough to the Dry Tortugas that we could motor the remaining distance. A High Pressure Ridge had moved down to twenty-five degrees North and covered the area with light and variable winds. Although we were cursing this and having to motor on the last part of the journey it turned to our advantage when we arrived. We had beautiful, settled weather for our visit and this is a place, where you need it! On the morning of the 19th June we motored into the anchorage just south-east of Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas National Park. We had caught two Tuna just outside the park on the way in and these we served up for a hearty breakfast whilst taking stock of the anchorage. I was surprised that there were about twenty boats in the area; I assumed that the Florida Keys would empty of boats as the hurricane season approached but this assumption proved unfounded. We were back in the land of 'Finance', where people rarely own their boats; they just make the payments. Thus the taking of risk with material items is no longer considered by the individual but by the insurance companies. I have never been able to understand why an insurance company will cover a vessel sailing in the Florida Keys whilst it will not cover the same vessel sailing around (say) Puerto Rico at the same time of the year. The U.S. gets hit by far more storms than Puerto Rico does, there are much better / safer anchorage's in Puerto Rico than anywhere in Florida and if you should get some damage labour is cheaper when it comes to fixing it. Enough said, without a doubt we were sitting in paradise. Beautiful, calm, clear water stretched away to the horizon, a handful of puffy white clouds drifted across a perfect picture sky. To our north was an island-nesting colony for a variety of seabirds and to our west was the magnificent and imposing structure of Fort Jefferson, a National Monument since 1935. We were still a little worn after our passage and it was 'way to hot' to go exploring the Fort, so we settled for a lazy day snorkelling around the anchorage and the old coaling wharf. We swam from the boat and after just a short time came across a large Loggerhead Turtle feeding on the bottom, he seemed quite unaware of us watching until I got in a little to close and he moved off. On the way back from the wharf an eight-foot Nurse Shark, that came lazily swimming by, inspected us and moved on. Back at the boat we found four large (4ft) Tarpon had taken up residence in the shade we were providing from the sun. A large Barracuda circled around just to let us know who was the boss in this area. Time flew by and it was soon evening but it was so calm and relaxing we didn't want to leave the cockpit. After all those windswept days in Belize this was a welcome change. Next day we were fully recovered fit and ready to go. On the good advice of another yachty in the anchorage, we went ashore early and joined a tour group that had just arrived from Key West on the Fast Ferry. We took a walking tour of the Fort with them and had a guide explain all the detail and various points of interest along the way. I would not wish in any way to denigrate this fine structure and the effort that went into getting it built out here. However, in reality it was just another of those 'broken dream' construction projects that litter the Caribbean. It was destined to fail from day one of the building. Its main problem was it was overtaken by history, it took too long to complete, indeed it was never fully completed. By the time it was anywhere near useful the warfare in which it was designed to engage had changed and it was outdated. The Fort was responsible for the deaths of hundreds, but not a shot was ever fired in anger. They died trying to construct and man this far flung outpost in a harsh environment without good water, clean sanitation or the medical knowledge to ward off all the disease that plagued them. To us, today, this is a tropical paradise; back then it was a living hell. It was a great tour and we were very impressed, we were also impressed by the way this history was being preserved and presented to the American people. It is my considered opinion, from what I have seen at home and around the world, that America does very well in preserving its heritage for future generations and at the same time presents it at little or no cost to all those interested in looking. There are indeed many countries with a finer more 'colourful' history, but few that do anything to preserve it in the way they do here. When we were done exploring and watching historical movies in the air-conditioned theatre, it was time to venture out into the blazing hot sun once more. We quickly decided that it was a good day to get into the water and stay there! We returned to the boat, heaved up the anchor and motored across to Loggerhead Cay where we anchored off the dock on the eastern side. The Cay is named for the Loggerhead Turtles that nest on its beaches each year and there were several swimming around offshore awaiting the cover of darkness to come ashore and lay eggs. We took all our snorkel gear ashore to walk across the island and swim on the western side where there was reported to be some very nice coral and fish. Our first attempt failed after only twenty yards. We came 'hot-footing' back to the beach where we made clouds of steam immersing our feet in the water! The island was way to hot to walk on without footwear so with our 'reef-walkers' protecting our soles (and probably our souls) we made it across and slipped into the water off the rocky shelf. The back side of the reef, towards the beech, seemed a disappointment; however the other side was a pleasant surprise. The coral was nice and there was quite a bit to be seen, also there were loads of fish. The biggest surprises of all though, were the Tarpon. A shoal of them seemed to live on this reef and glided around without fear. We had to get quite close before they would turn and swim away. It was a great experience swimming with them and we got some lovely photos, which still didn't do them justice! In the late afternoon we returned to the anchorage by the Fort, as it is not permitted to anchor overnight anywhere else. It was another great evening following a brilliant day, we relaxed, drank cheap Cuban Rum and watched the stars appear in a cloudless sky. Next day was the 21st of June and it was a scorcher, the sun beat down unmercifully and the boat was incredibly hot. Again we elected to spend most of the day in the water and took the dinghy to the area just west of Fort Jefferson. I believe that the fast ferry's and the seaplanes coming and going stir up the water a bit in this area as the visibility was less than perfect but still quite good. We found lots of good size fish, some huge lobster and another shoal of Tarpon (it was a good thing we still had film for our underwater camera!). In all it was top rate but after nearly three hours in the water we needed a little rest so we returned for a little light lunch on board. After lunch Paula did a little on the computer and I checked the engine over before going back over the side to clean up the hull and cool off. No sooner had I come out again and showered, Paula spotted a large Jewfish swimming past. I grabbed my gear and camera and went off in pursuit. The result of this great chase was some fuzzy photos and me worn out, but I do believe I made a friend. For in the evening, in the middle of dinner, our Jewfish came back and brought four of his friends along. Yes, Yes, Yes, we had FIVE of these of these huge (250lbs plus); magnificent creatures sitting close under our boat. It was calm enough to see them clearly and we got the photo's to prove it. We watched them till the sun went down and for all we know they spent the night there sleeping with us in our little patch of paradise. Just to keep us on our toes, a Thunder Buster came through close to the south of us in the night, we were treated to a good lightning display and the wind went round to the south-east and piped up to 25kts. We were OK but a couple of boats dragged and had to re-anchor. We saw it as a reminder from nature that we should be moving on, getting to someplace with a little more protection. Next day we moved off after an early breakfast and made the passage to the north of Rebecca Shoal and via the Northwest Channel in to Key West. We were sorry to leave the Dry Tortugas and will look forward to another visit sometime in the future. The passage to Key West was a mixed bag, we started with some good breeze and nice sailing but ended up motoring when the wind died and went on the nose. The bonus for the trip was to catch a 53-inch Wahoo, it provided over 40 lbs. of fish fillet and proved to be the final influence on us to do something about our onboard refrigeration! Needless to say we had fish for dinner and fish for both breakfast and lunch the next day, however we did end up giving the most of it away and it seemed such a waste. The next day we went alongside at A&B Marina fuel dock and 'cleared in' to the U.S.A. As usual we found the officials helpful and courteous; the procedure went quickly and painlessly and we were soon on our way. For once we actually had an inspection, more like they strolled down to the dock to look over the boat! Again they were most hospitable and in short order we were cleared to leave the berth. I have heard complaints from people at the hands of American Bureaucracy, more than once in this very port, I have never experienced this, in fact, quite the opposite. I guess it goes to prove that if you try hard enough, you can rub even the nicest people up the wrong way! I won't harp on about our beautiful boat but I have to say, that whilst manoeuvring in the Marina Basin in Key West, the crew on the (replica) schooner "America" stopped work to look us over and hailed us to tell us what a nice boat we have! We had to work hard on finding a good anchorage here in Key West and even harder in finding a free dinghy dock! We made it and did the town, we got a bus that took us around the Key and we visited Publix and K-mart just to get back into the swing of things. The down town area was different and we enjoyed our little walk around, however it was a tourist trap and I can live without seeing it again. We decided that we would do the inside route from the Key's back to Miami, most yachts go on the outside due to draft restrictions but with ours at 4ft we took advantage of being able to see a little more and stop off at some of more interesting places. The theory worked well in that we did get to see lots of places however I can't say that they were that interesting! Miami brought us back to ground level, we put in some more stores, indulged in the things we had been missing or run out of and cleaned up the boat with plenty of fresh water. On the Forth of July we were treated to several spectacular fireworks displays. Unfortunately some of the displays went off at the same time so it was difficult to know which way to look to see the best of the best. Taxpayers always like to see their money going up in smoke; it confirms what they already suspected! We made a couple of hops up the outside and were soon in Vero Beach where we caught up on boat work for a few days. I managed to get the hull cleaned off and polished whilst Paula brought the slide show up to date. We only stayed three days this time and I think in the future, we will be cutting that further. The fees are going up from $8 to $10 and whilst this is cheap for Florida it does eat into our cruising kitty. Two weeks here would pay for storing the boat for four months in the Bahamas! We were lucky with the weather going north, we came out at Fort Pierce and went directly to Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina. We were trying to make Beaufort but the wind went on the nose when we were still eight hours out. Rather than motor into it (or spend a whole day tacking), we bore off and three hours later had our hook down. From Wrightsville we decided to go up the inside, there wasn't going to be much wind around and we thought to break up the trip into small segments and try out a few different anchorages. We spent a night at Mile Hammock and would like to go back to do further exploration in that area. It has good access to some remote and beautiful beaches, foreshore and wetlands. Another success was Spooner's Creek, which we had all to ourselves. This was a nice anchorage and very well located for great shopping when storing up a boat. The drawback was that it is rather small and just a couple of cruising yachts would fill it! The rest of our journey was a mixed bag of motoring in calms, motoring or sailing in the rain and sailing with a nice following breeze. We had the Cruising Chute up for a good number of hours and made up for not getting much use out of it in the Northwest Caribbean. All good things 'come to an end' however and on the 28th of August we came to rest in Coan River Marina where "Mr John" was hauled and blocked up for a period ashore. And that was the end of Voyage Two We had been out for one year, almost to the day. We had stopped off in eight countries and covered several thousand miles. Breakage's, loss and damage was confined to small items like the mainsail slugs (I had expected that and had a bag of replacements along for the ride). The refrigerator didn't so much die, as never really developed life. We have decided to start that whole story from scratch, at least I know more about refrigeration now than I did before! I did loose a Stainless Wine Goblet, actually I lost it four times but on the other three occasions was able to dive down and get it back! After three years of use one of my lengths of anchor chain has been condemned and my HF radio isn't performing so well on 8Mhz. When we hauled out I noted that we should really have a look at the lower bearing on the rudder before she goes back in. All in all a very short list and I have to say that looking over the boat when she was ashore she looked more like a boat ready to be launched than one that had just completed a long cruise! It is my opinion that every eighteen months a GRP boat should have six months ashore to dry out, this helps avoid the dreaded osmosis. This also has the advantage of firmly planting ones feet in one spot for a while and this has numerous benefits. Like getting to know people properly, instead of the usual 'passing acquaintances'. Getting to know an area; Seeing it change with the seasons, and becoming a part of it. Catching up on all those projects that one puts aside because there is something new and exciting to be seen. Relaxing, not having to worry about the weather, the anchor dragging or the thousand and one other things that can go wrong on a small yacht. There is always another adventure just around the corner and we are already packing to embark on several. I guess the relaxation will come soon enough, for now, we have to go!! John & Paula |
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