Dena Hankins's Blog, page 11

Our last year at sea

On May 22, 2022, we (Dena and I, James) went sailing. We left the City of Sin, Mass, and pointed the boat at Gloucester with our eyes on the Azores.

S/V S.N. Cetacea wasn’t ready for an epic adventure yet but we sure were. After two whole winters in New England we were more than ready…we were running away.

No one in the North Shore area was willing to pull our mast, and we had some real repair work to do on the yankee furler foil. A general inspection was also in order before heading out to sea plus we had a tricolor and windex to install. We weren’t going to wait for the local marinas to finish launching their winter customers, but it seemed realistic that we’d find some willing shipyard between Buzzard’s Bay and the Narraganset.

We had a good list of completed projects that made a shakedown coastal cruise totally possible. The primary energies tower was installed and we were taking on so much power that we couldn’t even come close to using it all with what draw we had. The watermaker was ready to run, and we thought that the main project left was pulling the mast for some repairs and installations.

While we finished readying the boat for a cross Atlantic run for São Jorge, we’d get some cruising in and find a few little things to fix here and there…If only it had gone like that! Instead, we ran into engine trouble almost immediately. We were getting a lot of oil out of the port side and broke a timing gear case bolt trying to tighten down that seam. Then the watermaker motor started popping the breaker and had to be deep-cleaned by a pro. James got deeply ill (the electric motor pro was a few towns and a long virus-filled bus ride away) and so the first couple weeks away were packed with adversity.

Getting all up inside that engine

We swept into East Greenwich, RI, feeling relieved and hopeful. Illness gone, an array of boatyards (one of which was sure to want our money for the mast-pulling), and some reasonably good weather all helped us feel that, though we were getting edgy about the beginning of hurricane season, we were still in reasonably good shape for that big jump across the Atlantic.

There was only one boatyard that would pull our mast and so we went to Wickford. June 13th, they yanked that sucker and, on June 19th, they put it back. It was a hell of a big project and I (Dena) am glad we did it if only for this one thing…

Tragedy averted!

And then the weather really went to shit! We sailed to different islands in the Narragansett for protection from the different gales, then took what weather improvements we found to do more shakedown cruising…and realized along the way that we were taking on way too much water from the packing gland. Another big project to take care of, unexpectedly, and by the way our bottom was way too dirty. So we did a haulout on July 14th.

The dinner crowd couldn’t wait to see what we’d do next!

By the 18th we were back in the water!

The boat was provisioned, the crew was exhausted but mentally ready, and with a few days of rest before the next perfect weather window we knew we’d be ready to jump when the time came. But what about that rig? Well…it had stretched quite between our initial tuning in Wickford and splashing in New London. I (James) knew we had some slackness but not really enough to do a full-on tuning before going offshore. I was wrong about that. (We both were.)

At 0600 on June 22, 2022, we left the Thames River on a fair current doing 6 knots on a cool fresh broad reach. Nine hours later we anchored in Block Island’s Great Salt Pond with all our tails between all our legs.

Out at sea, on the way across the local ocean, I had looked up at our mast and seen a thing I’d never seen before. Our mast sapped like a whip and our rig shuddered like a child freezing in the cold, cold, cold. We were pounded by the potato patch between Montauk and Block Island (as well as every 60 foot sportfisher descending from the fog). We took a ten foot wave over the bow…tucked up and turned back for Block.

That really was our agony. That was our agonizing reappraisal of what we were and what we were doing. Not only were we not ready to go…neither was Cetacea.

So we pointed the boat Downeast and went sailing.

It definitely wasn’t all eating out and chilling out. In one of the most remote parts of the Maine coast, we managed to break yet another bolt. In a year of awful engine work, this took the cake. And yet, I (Dena) don’t want to talk about it. Fuck that story.

North to Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia would have been a little more easygoing without the aforesaid engine problem and Hurricane Fiona (thanks, beeotch) but we in our restlessness still needed to move on and definitely didn’t want another northern winter.

Heading south. Multi-day passages with night-sky realizations and the slogs through the internal passages because wow, weather! Ages later, November 1, 2022, we transited the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn at night in order to exit New York Harbor and get the fuck out of the Northeast.

There was an idea that we’d meet my (Dena’s) dad in Mexico that got scotched by the combination of pains James experienced between the broken rib and the mother’s death. Not gonna revisit those here, but it really took us all the way through March without a way off this oh-so-glorious Eastern Seaboard. April was the weather eye toward leaving. May 2023 has turned into the month we free ourselves of a terrible weight.

We started out the last year with the idea that we’d fix the last couple things and then cross the ocean. We met so many reasons to change course and did what we needed to do, moment by moment. It ultimately culminated in a need to stop tearing the boat up every day to check the oil and pour in what had leaked to soak into the oilsorb pads. We practiced sailing on and off the anchor; we worked out the difference between speed and steerageway. Out of control? Not awesome. On track to hit harbor more than a day after we’d thought? Absolutely fine.

We did it, we shook her down and proved that what we needed to do was to prove to ourselves and to the world that we didn’t need to spend another dime, another thought, another calorie on the evils of humanity’s past. What we needed to do was remove our thirsty mouths from the petroleum tit once and for all. Remove ourselves purposefully from the very thing that will surely destroy the only Earth we have.

The engine had to go!

We sailed all the way down to Key West to say our goodbye’s to my (James’s) mother…then we went back to Vaca Key to give up another addiction. The worst one of all.

…Done!

So now we begin a new year of adventure, only this time we’re on a completely electric sailing vessel. A vessel who will take the three of us around the world without a single drop of oil.

It’s always nice to have goals…even little ones, right?

Our year last at sea

On May 22, 2022, we (Dena and I, James) went sailing. We left the City of Sin, Mass, and pointed the boat at Gloucester with our eyes on the Azores.

S/V S.N. Cetacea wasn’t ready for an epic adventure yet but we sure were. After two whole winters in New England we were more than ready…we were running away.

No one in the North Shore area was willing to pull our mast, and we had some real repair work to do on the yankee furler foil. A general inspection was also in order before heading out to sea plus we had a tricolor and windex to install. We weren’t going to wait for the local marinas to finish launching their winter customers, but it seemed realistic that we’d find some willing shipyard between Buzzard’s Bay and the Narraganset.

We had a good list of completed projects that made a shakedown coastal cruise totally possible. The primary energies tower was installed and we were taking on so much power that we couldn’t even come close to using it all with what draw we had. The watermaker was ready to run, and we thought that the main project left was pulling the mast for some repairs and installations.

While we finished readying the boat for a cross Atlantic run for São Jorge, we’d get some cruising in and find a few little things to fix here and there…If only it had gone like that! Instead, we ran into engine trouble almost immediately. We were getting a lot of oil out of the port side and broke a timing gear case bolt trying to tighten down that seam. Then the watermaker motor started popping the breaker and had to be deep-cleaned by a pro. James got deeply ill (the electric motor pro was a few towns and a long virus-filled bus ride away) and so the first couple weeks away were packed with adversity.

Getting all up inside that engine

We swept into East Greenwich, RI, feeling relieved and hopeful. Illness gone, an array of boatyards (one of which was sure to want our money for the mast-pulling), and some reasonably good weather all helped us feel that, though we were getting edgy about the beginning of hurricane season, we were still in reasonably good shape for that big jump across the Atlantic.

There was only one boatyard that would pull our mast and so we went to Wickford. June 13th, they yanked that sucker and, on June 19th, they put it back. It was a hell of a big project and I (Dena) am glad we did it if only for this one thing…

Tragedy averted!

And then the weather really went to shit! We sailed to different islands in the Narragansett for protection from the different gales, then took what weather improvements we found to do more shakedown cruising…and realized along the way that we were taking on way too much water from the packing gland. Another big project to take care of, unexpectedly, and by the way our bottom was way too dirty. So we did a haulout on July 14th.

The dinner crowd couldn’t wait to see what we’d do next!

By the 18th we were back in the water!

The boat was provisioned, the crew was exhausted but mentally ready, and with a few days of rest before the next perfect weather window we knew we’d be ready to jump when the time came. But what about that rig? Well…it had stretched quite between our initial tuning in Wickford and splashing in New London. I (James) knew we had some slackness but not really enough to do a full-on tuning before going offshore. I was wrong about that. (We both were.)

At 0600 on June 22, 2022, we left the Thames River on a fair current doing 6 knots on a cool fresh broad reach. Nine hours later we anchored in Block Island’s Great Salt Pond with all our tails between all our legs.

Out at sea, on the way across the local ocean, I had looked up at our mast and seen a thing I’d never seen before. Our mast sapped like a whip and our rig shuddered like a child freezing in the cold, cold, cold. We were pounded by the potato patch between Montauk and Block Island (as well as every 60 foot sportfisher descending from the fog). We took a ten foot wave over the bow…tucked up and turned back for Block.

That really was our agony. That was our agonizing reappraisal of what we were and what we were doing. Not only were we not ready to go…neither was Cetacea.

So we pointed the boat Downeast and went sailing.

It definitely wasn’t all eating out and chilling out. In one of the most remote parts of the Maine coast, we managed to break yet another bolt. In a year of awful engine work, this took the cake. And yet, I (Dena) don’t want to talk about it. Fuck that story.

North to Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia would have been a little more easygoing without the aforesaid engine problem and Hurricane Fiona (thanks, beeotch) but we in our restlessness still needed to move on and definitely didn’t want another northern winter.

Heading south. Multi-day passages with night-sky realizations and the slogs through the internal passages because wow, weather! Ages later, November 1, 2022, we transited the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn at night in order to exit New York Harbor and get the fuck out of the Northeast.

There was an idea that we’d meet my (Dena’s) dad in Mexico that got scotched by the combination of pains James experienced between the broken rib and the mother’s death. Not gonna revisit those here, but it really took us all the way through March without a way off this oh-so-glorious Eastern Seaboard. April was the weather eye toward leaving. May 2023 has turned into the month we free ourselves of a terrible weight.

We started out the last year with the idea that we’d fix the last couple things and then cross the ocean. We met so many reasons to change course and did what we needed to do, moment by moment. It ultimately culminated in a need to stop tearing the boat up every day to check the oil and pour in what had leaked to soak into the oilsorb pads. We practiced sailing on and off the anchor; we worked out the difference between speed and steerageway. Out of control? Not awesome. On track to hit harbor more than a day after we’d thought? Absolutely fine.

We did it, we shook her down and proved that what we needed to do was to prove to ourselves and to the world that we didn’t need to spend another dime, another thought, another calorie on the evils of humanity’s past. What we needed to do was remove our thirsty mouths from the petroleum tit once and for all. Remove ourselves purposefully from the very thing that will surely destroy the only Earth we have.

The engine had to go!

We sailed all the way down to Key West to say our goodbye’s to my (James’s) mother…then we went back to Vaca Key to give up another addiction. The worst one of all.

…Done!

So now we begin a new year of adventure, only this time we’re on a completely electric sailing vessel. A vessel who will take the three of us around the world without a single drop of oil.

It’s always nice to have goals…even little ones, right?

The Smallest

…the slowest, the best and absolute finest spaceship on Earth has just added way-too-much power for our immediate needs.

The smallest 1.8kw wind and solar farm in the world!

…A funny thing about needs and humans. Humans need so fucking much! We try to be exceptions, not bringing some great big life down to the water and wedging it awkwardly into a sailboat. Instead, we consider what we really need versus what makes things easier versus what is decadent in an enjoyable way versus those decadent touches that don’t ever pay off in pleasure…

48v to the left, 12/24v to the right

Strength and independence require so many tools and supplies that we can’t make for ourselves. I (Dena) don’t know how to mine copper or make strands of it. I don’t know how to tin those strands and twist them into marine-grade electrical cable. But I’m really really good at repurposing cable that already exists instead of buying new stuff and…yeah. Whenever possible.

The old 12v system is different now. The 500 watt wind generator is still up and generating, but we had three sets of solar panels…one on each side of the tower and a third made up of two panels flat on top of the tower. We moved the two panels from the top of the tower to the lifelines and hooked them to the tower-side panels to make two 24v systems of what used to be 3 12v systems. So far, our power production has increased, not decreased.

…The 7Mile during The Show!

The top of the tower has been given over to two 24v panels that are wired to the terminal block in the previous picture to form a 48v solar array. We also installed the 48v Rutland 1200 wind generator that looks identical to our 12v Rutland 1200. It’s a pleasing symmetry.

And yet…here we are…four boxes of LiFePO4 cells and a big box of electric motor in the Cruiser’s Dance Hall of Vaca Key. None of the 48v charging systems are charging the cells that we can’t install until the diesel fuel tank is removed and none of the space for the motor is open until the OMG-AYFKM diesel is pulled and taken out of our teeny-tiny realm of power.

Excruciating.

Anole in the mangrove

There are beauties but…WTAFO…kind of weeping here!

…kind of not!

Oh the row…yeah, motherfuckers, there’s a row again…and we are totally rocking this shit.

Oh, let’s put up another 500watt wind generator!

…and a manatee with a suckling…um..cub, pup, ouch, okay, calf…just one, tiny, totally covered in some kind of slime that doesn’t look all that kind. I’m so glad we didn’t hit you with our oar.

Sometimes the wind is against me (James). Oh yeah, I remember this one. Less than a mile and my fucking arms are falling off my body in a 30 knot breeze…maybe less, I don’t know. (Hi, Dena here. It was 27 steady, more than 30 in the gusts.)

Ah, but it’s so much better than that evil gas engine scream. We’re back to physical power and careful planning…the best case scenario!

Right?!

Build that shit!

Were back to putting it together ourselves and building something that is real and life changing… for us, for now hopefully forever, right?

Electrifying!

We posted local ads on dregslist and facefuck for our diesel engine and left Key West on a sheet of glass covered in salad.

…shhhhhh, it’s quiet time!

Not a breath, a sigh, nor even a whisper of wind on our ocean all the live long day.

…And any day you have to listen to a diesel infernal-combustion engine on a sailboat is a long fucking day!

We anchored on the southwest side of Lois Key for a change of view and because it would allow us to sail off the anchor the next day, which we did. Not only did we weigh anchor under sail, though, we made good time for the first 15 miles to Boot Key. The last 5 took hours as the wind died down, but never quite out, and we enjoyed the quiet and easy motion through the water. We made an average speed of 3.29 knots, which is amazing to think about since we were doing less than 2 knots by the time we were approaching the anchoring area west of Boot Key.

The conditions were gentle enough that we rolled into a good position, James dropped the anchor, and I (Dena) pushed the mainsail to the side so the boat would back down while he let out the chain. We set that anchor with the current as much as with the light wind, but it was a trustworthy bury.

…sweeping just north of us!

We made it back to Boot Key just in time to discover we had a serious offer on that diesel we hadn’t used. The more we talked to the guy who is interested in the engine, the more we discovered how truly serious he was. And that’s when all the other serious offers started to pour in.

The Show over the 7Mile Bridge

Next thing you know we secured an unexpected but absolutely welcome grant for most of the cost of the electric motor conversion project.

Dean Hankins, you fucking rock!

We mapped out the project. Firmed up the prospective budget, made some tough decisions, and started procuring the equipment and parts we’ll need. Then we went sailing!

Balanced out at 4 knots on a close port reach, incredible!

Sailing is the perfect meditation on profound revolutionary change. Silently moving through the multiverse at the speed of the Earth around you brings a clarity of combined vision and imagination.

We sailed off the anchor in a rising North Atlantic ocean breeze that must have warmed considerably on its way to us from Downeast. By the time that wind filled our mainsail, it was warm and friendly like the myth of the south.

Salad soup.

We anchored in about eleven feet just off Key Lois, pretty close to where we were when we stopped there on our way to Key West.

All by ourselves!

There was lots of weekend power-boater bullshit going on all around us but none of it was close and we were protected on two sides by reefs and one side by Key Lois.

Tripping Balls at Goldenhour…

It was…sublime.

Once again, we sailed off the anchor, this time with shoals on each side and a foul current. We’ve gotten so much more confident in our reading of the wind and water, and especially in our feeling of control over Cetacea at slow speeds. She’s a bit more cumbersome than Nomad was because of her much greater beam (Nomad was only 8’7″ and Cetacea is 10’4″), but maneuvering under sail is a better education than motoring.

A single-tack day

Once back at Boot Key, we anchored much closer to the entrance channel than before. Tursiops, our still fairly new-to-us dinghy, hasn’t been burdened with the outboard since we proved (in Key West) that it could drive the dinghy along. Boy, can that 2.5 horse outboard send Tursiops flying! On the other hand, one of the great pleasures we’d been missing since we sold Nomad was rowing Tinker.

Rowing Tinker in Yarmouth, Maine 2012

So we’ve been rowing Tursiops in and out of Boot Key Harbor, about a mile each way. The new spot saves us almost a quarter of a mile to the closer (and cheaper) of the two dinghy dock options. We’ve eaten at Burdine’s more than we would have otherwise, so having a dinghy dock is good business for them, and the city marina charges $22 per day for dinghies which isn’t much less than lunch at the restaurant.

We get to cut the corner over the shoal area and see lots and lots of fish, birds hunting fish, and sometimes people on small boats netting bait. On the less-charming side, we also get a good view of the damage done by jet skis.

But when we got back to Boot Key, we also got back to work on the electric motor project. The spreadsheet that started as a rough budget turned into a detailed budget. Another tab became the list of each and every ring terminal and battery lug and charger and instrument we’d need to buy. Ripping out every part of a marine diesel system includes the fuel and electrical and cooling water systems, and installing an electric motor includes a whole new set of battery and charging systems.

Because our throttle and shifter levers are on the binnacle (just above the wheel hub and just below the compass), we also are doing our long-awaited conversion from wheel to tiller steering. We found a fabricator here in Marathon to make the fitting that will extend the rudder shaft above the cockpit seat and we’re getting a tiller fitting from Bacon Sails. A new compass will be mounted in the recess that used to house the engine kill pull cable. It’s another set of expenses, but it really has to be done at the same time as the electric motor conversion.

This is it people! We are going electric with tiller steering and that will complete (for now…he he) the vision of the vessel bought in 2018 now known as S/V S.N-E Cetacea.

…Stay tuned!

Splashed!!!

To a job well done!

Sewing up the Gunwale-Guard

We both woke with a strong dedication to finish the job-at-hand: the rebuild of S/V S.N. Tursiops. We were so close to splashing that sucker.

The gunwale-guard is a soft poly-fiber textile with a light-weight foam fender running through it. It attaches at ninety degree angles completely around the boat and takes whole lot of tiny epoxy bedded screws with finish washers to secure it to the gunwale. It’s a big job but well worth the effort.

Splash ready…

We also installed four small fenders for a little extra buoyancy and topsides protection.

The countdown is on!

We flipped for it and guess who won?

The Captain and Tursiops

Dena might have won the toss but she was cool about it and let me take a spin around the big boat just to confirm what I (James) already knew. Tursiops rows like a dream!

We then put the motor on her and went into town for provisions. The trip took less time than we were used to spending in the old dinghy, and we were dryer on arrival than we had been on any wind-vs-current trip since we’ve been here. It’s a really good sign, even though we plan to row as much as is feasible. Rowing is better for health and happiness, and it lets us get into shallower, more interesting waters.

At the Key West dinghy dock

It’s a good thing we installed the extra fenders…the dock was packed when we got back a couple hours later.

Tracks like a champ

We made about five knots over the ground going back to Cetacea, with very little current pushing us and the wind alongside. Back at Cetacea, we left the fenders out just in case we got the wild wind-vs-current boat-clash in the middle of the night but there was no need. Tursiops silently tracked behind all night long.

Now we can’t wait to take her sailing!

The Continental South

Okay so we did it, we made it to the one deadline we had to make this year. The southernmost town of the continental U.S. of (WTAF) A. We pulled it off, said goodbye to the fam and…what?

What now?

Watch the nightly boat show in Key West?!

No, now we get to get back to the job at hand.

We’re going to sell an infernal-combustion engine or two, a RIB dinghy and write a whole bunch of sell-able fiction.

That’s the plan anyway.

We (James and Dena) are truly inspired by the experience of our last year at sea. We’ve sailed over 2000 nautical miles this year, anchored about three hundred times and written as much inspired fiction as we believe we could have. Now all we have to do is perfect each piece.

First, we gotta finish that Fatty Knees!

Caprails epoxied!

Tursiops was far from perfect when we got her. As a matter of fact, she was a broke-dick-god after leaning against the side of a house for a few years in West Palm Beach, Florida.

…note the great big hole in the bow!

No, we got to completely transform this once-diminished dog into a tiny ship to be worshiped and admired!

I’ve always believed that 90% of all construction is in the cleaning of the the project. The only way to truly understand a project is to clean it to perfection…then clean it again and again and again.

…cleaning, cleaning, cleaning!

And she was a very dirty girl.

But after my mother’s Celebration of Life, we got seriously motivated to finish what we’d started on Tursiops.

Bilge coated and the rudder hardware installed!

Our new rowing/sailing dinghy, S/V S.N. Sojourner Tursiops is almost ready for christening.

There will be revels.

We grinded, we fiberglassed, we sanded, we coated, we primed, and we painted until the cracks were gone and surfaces were fair to our liking. Now we get to unload the old one, the RIB that has been the bane of my (James’) existence for five years now.

You see, the problem I’ve always had with zodiac-style inflatable boats is: if they hold air at all they’re totally resellable in almost any market. That’s why I’ve always hated having one, because I’ve always thought someone would steal ours for its resell value alone. Fuck that!!!

No one wants to work to steal anything. If you steal a rowboat, you’re a dipshit or so you’re so fucking desperate I might just have some sympathy for you.

Nah…Anyway…

The point is, we rowed a dinghy for almost a decade in some of the “roughest” neighborhoods on the East Coast of the U.S. and never once worried about it getting stolen…EVER!

I can’t wait to go back to that reality.

So here we are, anchored off the southernmost town of the continental United (haha) States, once again about to revel in the freedom of the loss of one more infernal-combustion engine in the world.

Let the revels begin… again, and again!

A celebration of a life

From 1967 until 1969, my (James’) bio-fam lived in Key West Florida on the Navy base, you know, always the worst place in paradise. But the most amazing thing about my memories of Key West is how happy my mother seemed in all of those memories. Incredibly, my older sister and brother agreed with me on these now very distant memories and we (Dena, Beluga Greyfinger and I) sailed to Key West for the sole purpose of meeting them to celebrate the long life of my mother.

Because Larry (my slightly older brother) is a working professor in postmodern literature, his time frame for the party was limited to spring break. Lea Anne (my slightly older sister) just retired from the last wage-slave gig she’ll ever have, so she was ready to party any time.

My freaking birthday was right smack in the middle of the proposed week (which was kind of weird in a way but not too bad) and it always comes exactly one day before St. (fucking) Patrick’s Day.

…kind of a big deal in Key West.

Two-Stroke Grimace

So we, the Cetacea crew, and they, my sibs, made it to Key West all at the same time. If you know us you know we usually run screaming from an itinerary. But this was most definitely a special case and we made it, we all actually made it there!

James, Larry Allen, Lea Anne and Dena…The Fam.

The first day was a travel day for them so we met up after they checked in, ate some food, did some shots at Tattoos and Scars then called it an early evening. It was light and fun and exactly what we all needed.

…Larry told us he slept deeply for the first time since November 7th, 2022.

The next day, my birthday, the wind was way too fresh from the northeast to sail anywhere without a really bumpy ride. We opted to party hook-down in Man Of War Harbor. It is just north of town between Wisteria and Fleming or rather…right in the middle of everything. Lea Anne had said she didn’t mind if it was a busy harbor and Larry just wanted to get a line wet so he was easy.

…that totally happened!

Dena and I worked the logistics and got everyone out to the boat (completely drenched by splashing and spray) and Key West didn’t let us down. It was warm and sunny with a brisk nor’easter and a constant wake-chop until sunset. Beluga Greyfinger hid all day long.

We had some black beans and yellow rice, some shots and mocktails while Lea Anne nursed a Bloody Mary and then we consigned our mother’s mortal remains to the sea.

It was a weepy affair.

The water was so clear that we got to watch her ashes drift abaft until she settled on a coral reef about fifty yards off our stern.

My mother feeds the coral from that day on.

We all agreed that this was a fitting place for our mother’s ultimate resting place. After all, as a family, we all remembered some wonderful things from this place. Although it was arguably one of the most tumultuous times in American history, the four of us…my mother, my sister, my brother and I…were once, no twice, a family in Key West.

My mother’s sunset

I (Dena) tried to maintain a subtle facilitator’s role. I’m an inveterate storyteller, so I did go off on a few riffs about family that were inspired by their stories, but I was in the background or an avid listener for a lot of the day. My favorite part, my favorite role, was as the person handed a photo and told a story since I was the only person who hadn’t heard so many of them. Lea Anne had brought a yellow envelope bulging with prints, and I learned about so many generations of their family.

James astounded his sibs with his recall of names and places. Each of them at some point told something the others didn’t know. I just soaked up the stuttering continuity of family history. Starts and stops, agreements and contested realities, the folks from long ago that made them proud and the people they were only decades ago but struggle to see so clearly. All the stories.

Free and Easy

We are at loose ends for the first time since the beginning of November, when James’ mom died and we started planning how to get him to her celebration of life. The trip to this moment has been a combination of harrowing and boring, quiet enjoyment of birds and fish and sadness over wildlife wounded by people. We couldn’t make it to Isla Mujeres on the Yucatan Peninsula in Quintana Roo, Mexico, to meet my dad, which was disappointing, but that gave us a lot of leisure along the way to Key West, where Larry Allen and Lea Anne were meeting us.

When we last left you, dear reader, we had sailed off the anchor at Old Rhodes Key and sailed incredibly slowly to Rodriguez Key.

The skies were never less than gorgeous. This shot includes Venus and Jupiter as they were approaching each other.

Once there, in completely dead air, we couldn’t bring ourselves to force a motoring day when we still had more than two weeks before we needed to be in Key West. Instead, we swam (crystal clear water and maybe a blue-striped grunt [we’re still refining our fish ID skills]), cleaned the boat hull by hand (which attracted a smallish grouper that adopted us for shade!), took acid for the first time in ages (brilliant!), and enjoyed time for writing and editing.

James has amazing concentration, but I guess so does Beluga Greyfinger.

We do have something like “my side and his side” due to my preference for writing on my lap and James’ for having his computer on the table.

Beluga sleeps a lot, but not alllll the time.

On the fourth day, after several other boats had come and gone, we sailed off the anchor again. It’s a real joy to keep a day peaceful like that. We did nearly constant fiddling with the sails because the wind rose and fell so often. When you only have about 8 knots of wind to begin with, a lull or gust doesn’t have to be intense to have a real effect on the angle of sail…and the attitude of the sailors!

As much as I’d like to geek out about it, I’ll just say for the interested that the reason will become clear if you goog “apparent wind”.

Our destination for the day was Fiesta Key because some strong southerlies were predicted and all the other anchorages are exposed to the Caribbean Sea and/or Gulf of Mexico…it gets a little questionable in that area. The entire key is an RV park, more or less, with a marina and some cabins and a restaurant with a happy (more than an) hour even on the weekends. We hadn’t successfully eaten out for a while (still sad about missing out on South Indian food) so it seemed like a good time to try again.

The protection Fiesta Key provided was from the big waves off the big water, but we still got chop off the extended shallows. Going into the marina for food was a wet and wild experience, and oh boy did we concentrate on enjoying ourselves. Discipline is key when the sunburnt folks around are too drunk to know why they’re in pain and the servers are coked up to the point of ‘I could give a fuck!’

Hey…we didn’t have to cook and we didn’t have to clean. It worked out just fine for us. Too bad for the people who have to keep going back there day after day just to feed the fam.

The sunset view was thrilling.

The best thing about the spot we chose? We were completely alone at anchor. Sure, fishing boats of all sizes rocked us with their wakes sometimes, but the jet skis and the Trawndos (Trawler/Condo on the water) (surely drinking tranya) remained well away from us. We could hear the live music from ashore but just barely. And each evening, we had the sunset absolutely to ourselves.

After the southerlies, the wind was quite hard to find. Less than ten days until James’ brother and sister were to reach Key West, we decided we’d go ahead and motorsail to Marathon. We were also out of, oh, everything. Bread, dinghy fuel, eggs…the list went on and on. James hailed the city marina as we approached the Boot Key Channel and got no answer. He called and was told that there were no moorings available so we aborted our approach. The area just outside the channel is used as anchorage though not an officially designated one, and I realized that the sheer number of boats anchored in nearly unprotected water should have clued me in that there was no room at the inn.

I know that some folks love Marathon, but I couldn’t get over the negatives. Notice the curious lack of photos? The water big-game hunters blasted through the anchored boats as though resenting our presence…or just not giving a shit. The rental jet ski operators looked frighteningly inept and even the other boats that came in and anchored just didn’t exhibit the kind of skill that would allow us to be truly comfortable.

It’s a long dinghy ride and a long walk to anything in Marathon from the anchorage outside the Boot Key Harbor. There’s a restaurant not far from the entrance that has a $10 dinghy dock (free if you eat there and no one patrols it anyway), but it’s definitely not near provisioning. We walked the 3.5 miles out to groceries and got a cab back.

Another couple miles in by dinghy, the city marina charges $22 for people at anchor to use the dinghy dock…the same amount they charge for a night on a mooring. That provides access to showers that we didn’t use, laundry we couldn’t use because of how many people were lined up for the machines, and free pumpout that we didn’t need. As the kind of person who thinks breakfast for two should still be less than that, I was not happy.

And yet, the combination of weather and Key West’s reputation as difficult for anchored boats kept us off Boot Key for six long days. We only went in twice, and spent the rest of the time on writing and projects and watching ‘Serials’ on James’ tech.

The next stop was a good night’s sleep in the middle of nowhere. No, seriously, Lois Key has nothing going on except wave breakage and it was exactly what we needed. A deep finger reaches between some shoals but doesn’t continue all the way to the mangrove key, so there weren’t all those dumb fishing boats using it as a channel.

The only work we got done…I (Dena) replaced our ragged top-dead-center mark for James’ up-n-coming birthday.

And then we sailed to Key West. The plethora of boats spreads throughout Man Of War Harbor, which is between the Key West Channel, the Garrison Bight Channel, and the Calda Channel, forced us into a location near the center in depths of about 25 feet with mixed rock and mud. Lotta chain, lotta making sure we don’t drag, lotta big-water-game hunters bearing down on us at full speed, lotta right-off-the-cruise-ship jet ski operators putting us on edge with their nearly-out-of-control antics…and a whole lotta awesome sunsets!

We were early for the fam. Just early enough, really.

Turns out, Key West’s dinghy dock experience is $8 to Marathon’s $22 and one line on a printed Excel sheet to Marathon’s invasive ten minutes of questioning. Marathon even requires that you provide a copy of the registration for the ANCHORED boat as well as the dinghy. Can you believe that? Key West, it turns out, is less tight-assed than Marathon. Good to know.

A vessel James first saw as a participant in the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race.

The experience of being in Key West for both Spring Break and the week of St Patrick’s Day was overwhelming, but we loved the birds and the boats.

To be continued…

Bending West through the Keys

Our local planetary system didn’t disappoint.

We took off from Key Biscayne bright and early, having checked the weather forecast again that morning and comparing what they said to what we saw. Sure…looks about right.

Way out there…

The very end of the ebb gnawed the sea into sharp, short peaks and, after an hour and the turn we were hoping would open up our possibilities, we realized that the wind was too far south of east and too weak/flukey to be sailed down Hawk Channel. The irritating chop and the mainsail that continually threatened to flog met up with our strong desire not to motor all day and we…turned around.

Going back anywhere is not our first instinct. Finding that a weather forecast was just wrong enough to create miserable conditions and adapting to that, though? We learned that lesson on S/V Sovereign Nation in the Puget Sound, when we had pointed the boat at Sidney, BC, but we finally realized that we were not impervious to the facts. Sometimes the facts are that misery lies in one direction and happiness in the other.

We chose happiness.

Ubiquitous

Not only did it turn into teatime-in-the-cockpit conditions as soon as we turned around, we were immediately able to finish the engine. We downwinded all the way back to the anchorage area off Biscayne, bypassing the far-out spot we’d taken during the Miami boat show clusterfuck. A good sized gap between boats presented itself a full quarter of a mile closer to the shore-access basin (called No Name Harbor…yawn), and I (Dena), being the one at the helm, made the executive decision (after consultation with James) that we would anchor under sail rather than torture ourselves and Beluga Greyfinger with the infernal combustion engine.

The maneuver was a complete success, though it didn’t look or feel as elegant as I’d hoped. The bow falls off mighty fast when our speed goes below a couple of knots. I’m getting better at predicting it but maybe didn’t give the building flood current quite enough credit for how it would spin us. Still learning, every day even after 23 years.

Tursiops right-side-up and looking good!

The constant wakes (right next to a no-wake sign) made working on Tursiops untenable, whether on deck or in the water, so our consolation prize for being back in a place we’d just left was supposed to be a decadent and hopefully excellent South Indian meal. Mmm, idly and vada with sambar and chutneys, maybe even a Kerala style fish dish? The next day, we meandered down the path through the park, eyes and ears alert for the wonderful big lizards and sparky wee ones too.

Crazy little critter

Leaving the good stuff, we marched right past all the condo complexes and vacation rentals. People driving golf carts down the road, taking their time, ignored cars in a hurry bearing down on them and honking, and we tried to stay separate from the car politics. There is so much beautiful life in Florida, it’s too bad about that Stupid Floridian infestation, ugh.

We’d already done this 5-mile walk once, only to discover that the restaurant was closed on Mondays…cue the weeping. This time, we’d double-checked that they would be open and, sure enough, they closed between lunch and dinner and we carefully timed our arrival for safety. Seated and entertained by Bollywood-style song-and-dance on a TV screen, we bartered over how much food was reasonable to order compared with how greedy we felt about getting enough of each flavor.

As soon as I (Dena) started to order, the server said, “We do not serve South Indian here.” I replied with some strangled version of a wha?!? He explained further, “Only Midtown. Only in Midtown do they serve this.”

…Midtown Miami, fuck that shit!

An entire menu printed and still loosely laying across my palms, and it never occurred to anyone that this could be misleading? Disappointing? Disappointed? Is that the word for how I felt?

Sure, let’s go with that.

So on a wave of righteous indignation we went back to the boat with the bone-deep conviction that Key Biscayne had nothing further to offer us.

…finally some peace!

We left at first light, before sunrise, the next morning.

Once in Hawk Channel, the winds were far enough east of south that we were able to fly all plain sail and let LoveBot steer. We weren’t going lightning speeds but we were free and clear of both the noise and the dragging emotional weight of motoring. As we were passed by stickboat after stickboat (a boat with a mast that has no sails deployed) and an eye-popping procession of powerboats (mostly sport fishers aka water game hunters and trawlers aka condos on the water), we savored the feeling that we were doing what we wanted to do, the way we wanted to do it.

Port Tack with all the laundry flying

A beat turned into a reach and the eastern coral reef absorbed the offshore waves and suddenly we were in our comfort zone. Sailing in the North Atlantic part of the Earth’s great Ocean and heading just a little more West of South.

Once the Die-Sell was switched in the “Off” position, the sailing kitty Cats-Up and gets his sail on.

Hiding from Infernal Combustion

About six hours later we pulled up to Old Rhodes Key and buried the hook in eleven feet of soft Florida sand thinly covered in turtle grass. And there we were, anchored in the wide open Ocean on brilliant orange glass.

Just after sunset

We ate lightly and slept like babies. It’s truly amazing how well I (James) sleep after a full day’s sail!

Silence is the sound of the perfect engine.

The next morning, we sailed off the hook in a fair easterly breeze that bellowed like the breathing of the world all the live long day. We sailed our little vessel on every part of that port tack, eeking every bit of velocity we could and, to our bemused and disciplined enjoyment, it proved to be our slowest ever. We sailed 25 nautical mile in nine hours and seven minutes, making our average speed 2.79 knots.

Hey, this is living under sail and sometimes it’s a meditation on patience with only the periodic punctuation of pain and excitement.

…and that’s okay.

Easing slowly by the massed hordes of weekenders on the north and east sides of Rodriguez Key (where the guides tell you to anchor), we chose the more open flats off the southwest bit because it would give us a good setup for sailing off the anchor when we left. The whole day had turned into the focused living-out of the philosophy that, when on a sailboat, sail that boat! We had sailed off the hook off Old Rhodes Key and we set the hook under sail off Rodriguez. Buzzing with the slow-moving excitement of a pure sailing day, we woofed down our arepas and settled into the still night.

Southing once again

Yeah, Lake Sylvia in Fk. Lauderdale, Fl.

It’s almost as if Lyle Hess designed the Fatty Knees 8 to plug into the Baba 30! I can’t believe how perfectly this boat fits into our fore triangle!

The sail from Fk. Lauderdale to Key Biscayne was an absolute pleasure in a cool fresh breeze on all points of a starboard tack. It was a perfect opportunity to test the sailing dynamic of the boat with Tursiops on the bow.

Our natural state!

31.7 nautical miles in 8 hours and 4 minutes making an average speed of 3.95 knots with a max speed of 6.9 knots. We pulled and shook both reefs throughout the day. Like I (James) said…

Perfect!