Rough Day on the Water; At Key West Bight Marina through Jan. 3

Last night, after dinner on Bum's Rest, Chuck noticed our mast light was out. He paddled back to Sheet Music and raised our Davis light from our flag line. When we get a calm day at the marina, he'll replace it with a better LED. The bulb that blew was a Dr. LED bulb and they ended up being lousy bulbs. One went out last week in the aft cabin. Luckily, we don't have too many of those on the boat.


We had a lazy morning and left Sugarloaf Key Anchorage around 11:30 a.m. or so and sailed in Hawks Channel. Both sails were reefed. Winds were 16-20 knots with higher gusts and we were heeling way over, and had to reef again. Seas were 2-3 feet and were following at the start, but later were over our beam. Our SOG was 6.5 knots, then went down to 5.2 knots with about 1/3 of both sails out. It was very choppy and rough and I was feeling a little queasy.

I heard one of the wine glasses that hangs on the side wall crash to the floor (that's why there's no glass on the boat...it survived). The wind was directly over our beam. I noticed the paddle on the dinghy was dragging in the water. It came out of the holder, but still was attached with a pivoting pin.

Winds increased to 20-23 with gusts to 27. We were motorsailing at 7.3 knots at 2800 rpms. At 1:10 p.m. it proved to be too much and I cranked in the main sail. We were still doing 6.5 knots with only 2/3 of our jib out. Ten minutes later, I noticed the paddle had flipped back into the dinghy.

We were heading to an anchorage, but it was not sheltered and didn't look like a very appealing area to be. We saw this eagle's nest atop a pole on our way into the anchorage. While exploring, between markers 5B and 7B, Bum's Rest had a grounding when the high winds blew them onto a shoal. Wayne jumped in the water with his anchor and quickly pulled himself out. He called the marina where we had reservations beginning tomorrow and asked them if we could come in a day early. They had slips available, so we are at Key West Bight Marina until Jan. 3.

There are no finger piers here, so it's a challenge climbing off the bow of the boat onto the dock. Especially with the high winds!

On our way to the marina, we saw parasailers. They went close to Bum's Rest and I snapped this photo.

As we were coming into the harbor, we saw two cruise ships docked: Holland America's Ryndam and Carnival's Freedom.

Winds were 25-27 knots going past the cruise ships and seas were choppy. We were dunking the anchor! The skipper was getting wet as the waves were splashing over the sides. The dodger protected us from getting totally drenched, but as you can see he was bundled up trying to protect himself.

I cooked dinner tonight...shrimp and grouper dredged in flour, egg and panko bread crumbs and pan-fried; fresh zucchini and baked potatoes.

Some of the many beautiful sailboats here.