From Birth Until Age 85, You Have 750,000 Hours - How Will You Spend Them?

Friday, March 6, 2009

5-Mile Channel to Rodriguez Key

After leaving Marathon, we headed 20 miles up the coast to the bridge by 5-Mile Channel where we spent two nights anchored. While there, we tested out the fishing gear, which has yet to entice any fish out of the sea. Nice anchorage, good bridge, lots of Harleys going by on the road.

This morning the forecast was 20 knots with wind from the east which would enable us to motorsail most of the way to our next stop, Rodriguez Key. This is a bit more going into the wind than we would like, but we decided to give it a go - figuring that we could turn back or that there were two bail out points along the way. Yet again, the enclosure made what could have been a miserable day a great one! Waves crashing on the front of the boat all day, bouncy, and we were just as warm as toast!

We arrived at Rodriquez Key at about 2-ish and found a nice location to anchor. Steve dropped the anchor and it wouldn't set. Steve pulled it up, we moved, dropped it again and it wouldn't set. Again, wouldn't set. And AGAIN, wouldn't set. We've had the anchor drag, but it never wouldn't set before. We now know what SO on the chart means, soft sand - and that means our anchor won't hold there.

So we backtracked around to the south side of the island, tossed the anchor overboard and it set the first time. (I think poor Steve will either be in pain tomorrow or have Popeye arms - our windlass, which pulls up the anchor, has to be cranked manually!)

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1 comment:

  1. Welcome back! Sounds like the new outdoor patio is working GREAT for you :-) And how fun your radio internet is working.........I love your blog too much to have to wait for a wifi connection. Been busy here learning to take one step at least each day and eventually we will walk out of all this. Where we end up is of course not always where we expect to be when we start. Just one step min a day and one step closer to the next one.

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