The Florida Keys

 Position: 24.33.21N

                  81.36.86W 

Weather: 80 degrees N winds at 10-15kts

                  Seas 1-2 ft  Beautiful Sailing conditions!

Update: When and If is currently sailing at a lovely 7kts, broad-reaching down hawks channel. 

It is a beautiful day for sailing! 

   Our trip through the Keys so far has been a fun time. Our first day out of Ft. Lauderdale we made a good 60 miles and anchored off of Turtle Rocks in North Key Largo. It was a very rolly night as the wind was blowing on-shore and we only had a shallow reef to hide behind. A front passed through and kept us awake all night with lightning and thunder. It was high-time to leave in the morning as we motor-sailed 30 miles down the coast to the southern tip of Key Largo and anchored behind Rodriguez Key, a much nicer spot.  We spent the Thanksgiving holidays with Family and friends. Seychelle is from Key Largo. Her family was very happy to see us. *A huge thank you to Snappers Restaurant for letting us park our dinghy and use their dock.* (mm95 oceanside. great seafood ;) )

   We sailed on Saturday from Rodriguez Key straight down Hawks Channel to Bahia Honda Key. It was another 60 mile, beautiful day. 

   Hawks Channel is this deep water (10-30ft. deep for the keys) channel that runs the entire length of the Florida Keys from about 1 mile offshore to the inner edge of the reefs. The water is calm and the winds is constant. 

   There are only a hand full of places that we can anchor with a 9ft draft and still be moderately protected. Bahia Honda Key has got to my favorite. The entire key is a state park. There is camping, a nice beach, BBQ pits, and deep water.  To get to the anchorage you have to sail through a break in the ruins of Henry Flagler's railroad bridge. It is one of the only remaining segments of what once was a railway from Miami all the way to Key West over 100 years ago. It's a great spot and not well known by any other than locals because the break in the bridge is not shown on the charts. 

   I must go back to sailing now. We should be in Key West in 2 hours. 

   Until next time..

   Cheers!

 

A few photos

   Here's those shots I promised of the hauling and painting. All said and done, two new coats of Brightside on the topsides and a fresh slathering of anti-fouling on the bottom and we are ready to launch in seven days. Key West, here we come. 

River Bend Haul-out days 3, 4, 5 I think

    All is going very well at the River Bend Marine Center. I am pleased to report that we are ahead of schedule! Yes! That never happens. We have prepped and applied 2 coats of fresh, new, shiny black polyurethane paint to the topsides, both port and starboard. We feel very accomplished. It is quite a task for only two people, and not one that many yacht crews will take on. And only in 4 days. 

  Tomorrow  we will work on the boot stripe and the cove stripe, and the bottom gets painted Thursday. 

  I just figured out how to upload photos directly to the blog, but the connection is painfully slow. I will try again. You can still view the "Haul-out" album on facebook.

  

  Cheers!

River Bend Marine Center - Day 1- 2

 Location: River Bend Marine Center - Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Weather:  80 and sunny. 

Update: I sit here completely exhausted from a hard day's work, barely able to move my finger tips, it feels, or keep my eye-lids up. Here's how the day went. 

8:00 am - Safely maneuver When And If from our docking space to the lifting slip. Not an easy task with less than 80 ft of turning space and 6 people yelling different instructions at you, all of which think they know exactly how it is you are supposed to maneuver a 50 ton, full keeled schooner and none of which actually do. 

I know Seychelle and I look young, but we are professional yacht crew and we are good at what we do. Every once in a while we run into people who want to treat us like children and not professionals. This place is full of them. Needless to say, it was a frustrating morning.

10:00am - When And If  is blocked and snung in the Southeast corner of the yard.

We procure some scaffolding from the resident painter and spend the rest of the day building a platform to work from around the entire boat. Tough job, but it will pay off in the end to have all the prep work done right. 

Day 2 - Saturday - 

Decide to work through the weekend to take advantage of the good weather and the fact that the yard staff are not around. Make a Home Depot run for a few supplies and manage to sand the entire port side. Feels pretty good. 

Check out Facebook for a few photos of today and yesterday. I will keep posting them as work progresses.

 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vineyard-Haven-MA/SV-When-And-If/24782432236?ref=ts

I hope the link works. 

:)

Ft. Lauderdale

Location: Ft. Lauderdale, Fl

Weather: Sunny, cool, Northwest breeze. Very pleasant. :)

Update: We had a lovely sail today down the south Florida Coast. Condos as far as the eye can see and fishing boats everywhere. The water is deep right up to the beach so you can actually sail so close that you can see the people swimming on the beach.  Much more fun than the South Carolina coast.  It was blowing about 15 knots out of the West. Perfect for a beam reach with no fetch or wind chop that close to shore.  

   Now I have to say, Ft. Lauderdale is wild! It is "The Venice of America." Narrow, deep rivers and canals extending throughout the entire city. We managed to navigate our way a few miles down the New River to our destination, The River Bend Marina. There are so many canals and sharp snake turns in the river and no channel markers past the first mile, it is easy to make a wrong turn. Heaven forbid if you do, there is definately not enough space to turn around. Then you have the worry about meeting the Jungle Queen, a huge river cruise passenger ferry that takes up the entire channel and doesn't slow down. Oh, and there are 5 lift bridges to go under as well and the charted depth is only 6 ft. in places. (we never saw less than 10, phew!) This all makes for a very exciting afternoon. 

   The best was the bridge tenders. Although they were very quick to open for you, they all use different, far from standard operating procedure for radio communication. My personal favorite... 

"SE 3rd St. Bridge, SE 3rd St. Bridge, this is the Schooner When And If approaching. requesting a lift. over"

"keep a' comin"  

uhhh... and just as I was going to call back, because I thought it couldn't have possibly been the bridge responding, we look up and see the lift start to open. Amazing ... radio skills that is. 

   Viewing the houses that are on this river is quite an experience. Multimillion dollar homes with pool, patio, jungle gym, lawn decorations, fountains, huge trees, private canals, docks, and your very own yacht parked outside. 

 So, we are all set to haul at 8:00am tomorrow morning. I'll post pictures and keep you updated as to how it goes. 

 Cheers!

Savannah, GA to Fernandina Beach, FL

11/2  1400

Position: 31.40.01N

                  80.50.12W

Weather: Winds NW 15kts Seas 2-4 ft partly cloudy 70 degrees

                   Absolutely gorgeous sailing  conditions!!

 

Update: 20NM east of the Georgia coast and life couldn’t be better right now.  We are sailing at 7-8 kts.  Just finished a champion’s lunch of chicken soup and black olives out of the can. (Seychelle’s secret favorite) The sun is shining, the dolphins are jumping, and the Lonely Island’s “I’m on a boat” is blaring.  Like I said, it couldn’t be better.

   We plan on pulling in just North Blackbeard Island and finding a spot to anchor for the night.  Savannah was fun. Old-world elegant.  Colonial houses and everywhere you look large oak trees covered in spanish moss. We especially enjoyed the haunted pub-crawl. Savannah is apparently the second-most haunted city in the United States.

   Next Port-of-call is Fernandina Beach, Florida where we will re-provision, re-fuel, and hopefully pick up some crew for the trip to Ft. Lauderdale.

 

11/3   1600

Position: 130.48.89N

                  81.15.63W

Weather: Winds N 20kts Seas 4-6ft Sunny 70 degrees

 

Update: Currently making for St. Mary’s Entrance. (also the entrance for Fernandina Beach). Surfing along at a nice 8 kts.  We will make it by nightfall.  Exhausted and sun burnt, but thankful for the last two days of sailing. I think we needed this.  It’s nice to disconnect every once in a while for a couple of days, anchor far away from everyone and watch a beautiful sunset.

   Last night was fun getting in. We had to head up quite a bit to make it through this narrow, poorly marked channel fraught with shoals. Our speed shot up to 9.5 knots as we caught the flood in to the sound.  We healed her over and thought, “here we go.”  It must have looked quite incredible, When And If flying in to this channel in all her glory, everything up. But, there was not a soul in sight to witness our feat. (okay, so I admit, I’m a little vain.)  ;)