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DAY 5 - 8
Cruise Day 5, Thursday
May 26th
We left Key West at 9:30
am after packing up the boat, making sure everything was fastened
down properly and lunch was made before heading out (remember that
sea sick thing). Seas were a comfortable 1-2’ to 2-3’ light chop
and all was looking very good for a nice cruise as we watched the
dolphins and sea turtles pop up along the way. We passed the first
marker, then the next (Rebecca marker) and knew it wouldn’t be long
before we saw The Fort. It surely is a wonderful sight when you are
out in the middle of no where with no land in sight and there ahead
is a tiny island – The Dry Tortugas! As we approach, it is a little
disconcerting to think we will be out here with no place to dock or
get any kind of provisions. That comes from a first timer at
anchoring off and having to rely on whether you were smart enough to
bring everything you need. We arrived at 1:30 pm at the anchorage
area that is just south of Fort Jefferson and protected by Bush Key
– there’s “The Carey Ann”! This will be the first time we’ve
anchored the monster boat so I was more than a little nervous –
would it hold, would it slip or would we smack into someone else?
All went very well actually and we anchored beside the “Carey Ann”,
then started to get ready for another four days of relaxation! One
of the first things the Captain did was get the dingy out and blown
up so we could get into dry land which was not as crucial to us as
it was to Salty, for obvious reasons. It’s gorgeous here! The
water is an awesome crystal clear aqua and the thought of going
snorkeling here was high on our list. Mike and Carey arrived in
their dingy to say hi and invite us to dinner – ha, and I thought I
had to cook tonight! We tooled into land to scout out the
neighborhood and found that unlike a lot of beaches we’ve been on,
this beach is a National Park and Salty had to be leashed at all
times – bummer!We quickly found out that the burrs here are just
as bad as in the Bahamas and poor ole Salty was covered on the first
run around. We had a quick walk around the Fort with Salty and
found ourselves singing “Signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs” –
yup, there were signs everywhere telling you what NOT to do! We
went back and had a great dinner with Mike and Carey and then more
visitors arrived from a few of the sailboats for some drinks and to
watch the famous “Green Flash” that the sunset will make if you
watch closely as it makes it’s final descent below the horizon.
Some rather serious fishermen arrived beside us and proceeded to
pull the largest fish I have ever seen in my life onto the deck of
their boat, with the help of large nasty hooks. They tell me it was
a Goliath fish and with its mouth wide open, it looked as if it
could easily have swallowed a man. After sharing drinks and stories
we headed off to the boat to relax, have a Grand Marnier and think
of how “Life is good”. The first night “on hook” wasn’t as peaceful
as we would have liked and with it being the first night at anchor,
the Captain was constantly checking that the anchor was holding so
he was up and down a good part of the night. On one of his down
times around 4:00 am, the generator decided to quit so he had to
check that out….without it, we have no refrigeration or air
conditioning (tough life). There he was down in the engine room,
cleaning out the A/C filters, etc. and found that the generator
overheated because of the A/C filters. He put on the fans down
there to cool it off and was able to get all up and running within a
couple of hours. Well, we might as well get up and stay up now!
Anchor Day 6,
Friday May 27th
It truly is quite
beautiful here; idyllic really. Bush Key is a bird watchers Mecca
– several hundred species have been spotted here but two distinct
types of birds – the Sooty Tern and Brown Noddy get the island to
themselves, closing it off to visitors from February to September
during nesting season. There are literally thousands of birds
swarming around the island in unison – quite the sight and sound!
We took Salty over to the island for a run, a swim and a walk around
the Fort but it really is unfortunate that he can’t run “loose” in
the sand and waves. We went snorkeling with Mike and Carey that
afternoon and that too was an awesome sight with beautiful coral and
tropical fish. On our way over to the snorkeling site, we came
across the little, and I mean little, boat that recently came on
shore with several Cubans aboard. It was a make-shift
nothing-of-a-boat and you have to wonder at the desperation one
would have to get in something like that and leave your Country by
water in search of freedom. Once back on the boat, we sat having
cocktails and watching the dinghies go from boat to boat, then saw a
ratty old fishing boat roll in and it too was going from boat to
boat. We had heard that this would happen, but it was fun to see
for the first time – they were asking to trade their shrimp or fish
for beer, booze or cigarettes! So, of course the Captain jumps in
the dingy and zips off to barter for the catch of the day. For a
half a bottle of rum and six cokes, he came home with about $75.00
worth of Grouper – now that’s my idea of fishing! We dined well
that night on butter-baked grouper, fresh veggies and chilled
Chardonnay with “cloth” napkins – my Lord, aren’t we civilized. So,
with a perfect evening finished, we had another 4:00 am wake-up call
to the generator’s “shudder, rumble, die” then silence routine –
what is going on with this? Once again, Barry checked the engine
room, checked the A/C filter, checked whatever he could to try and
get the dang thing running again. He turned the fans on down there
to cool things off and after about an hour or so, he started them up
and we were fine again – for now….
Anchor Day 7,
Saturday May 27th
With the night’s
excitement over, we settled in for another great day “on hook” with
our coffee sitting on the aft deck looking out over the beautiful
aqua water and watching the visitors either fly in or motor in on
the Key West catamaran. It was time for Mike and Carey to head off
back to the main land, so we said good-bye to them and off they went
but not without motoring by several of the other sailboats and
boaters they had made friends with over the week they had been
anchored there. After cooking omelets for brunch (good thing for
generators, right?) and decided we should tour the Fort. Well Fort
Jefferson “Gibraltar of the Gulf” proved to be quite an interesting
piece of history. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers originally
started construction in 1846 to protect the United States at this
strategic anchorage at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico. Nearly
thirty years in the making, they never did finish Fort Jefferson but
it was used extensively during that time and house warships while
the soldiers within marched and trained in the broiling sun. It was
then used as a prison mainly for Union deserters during the Civil
War. So, it looked to us that if you didn’t die in the Civil war,
you were packed off to Fort Jefferson to die of disease or some
other such nasty suffering. We walked out thinking how depressing
it must have been to be there in those times. It now is visited by
thousands of visitors, walking the walls and snapping pictures,
which is a much better outlook for “the Fort that wasn’t”. In our
walk around the Fort, we met up with Carl and Judie who were
anchored right beside us in a 47’ sailboat and they invited us over
for drinks and stories that evening at 7:30 – quite a sociable bunch
these “sail boaters”! We ate early (for us) roast pork, veggies,
etc and then dingied over to the Southern Cross to meet more people
and tour their boat. Carl and Judie live on this boat at Harborview
Marina in St. Petersburg. We had a fabulous time! At one point
Carl spied a dingy floating off into the blackness and said “hey,
anyone own that dingy”? Cripes, it’s Rick’s, who was on the
Southern Cross with us and so Barry and he jump into our dingy and
off they go on a mad chase to retrieve the runaway dingy. After
that bit of excitement, we all retreated to our own boats for a
final libation of Grand Marnier and to stare at the umbrella of
stars shining overhead. Off to bed for a warm summer’s night?
That’s right, at about the same time as last night, we were jolted
out of a nice sleep to the screaming sound of the “ozone” alarm,
first in the bedroom and then in the Salon. That either means the
batteries are low or we really are going to be poisoned – great
choice. Rather than try to mess around trying to figure out which
one it was, Barry decided to just turn off the generator and open
the hatches to try and catch a minor breeze until he could figure
out what was making the alarms go off – no point in poisoning
ourselves IF there were something wrong. I got up but couldn’t get
the side port holes open as they were probably stuck solid from
never having been opened at any time, so I just left them. Barry
was opening the large window at the very back of the aft cabin –
about a 3’ x 4’ window, so that will at least give us a little bit
of a breeze, hopefully. That it did because when the latches were
undone and the window pushed open, it fell right out into the water
– it wasn’t hinged! Needless to say, the Captain was none too
impressed, ran up to the swim platform that the window bounced off
with a flashlight in hand and nothing on but his birthday suit –
good thing it was dark out!
Anchor Day 8,
Sunday May 28th
He was beside himself at
the thought of his window at the bottom of the ocean (we were in
about 20’ of water) so needless to say, there was no sleep that
night either.
The generators were
turned on in the morning after he figured out that he had left the
fans on all day and night in the engine room from the night before,
which caused the batteries to be low enough to sound the alarms.
With that problem solved, now how do we retrieve the window out of
the water and if we can’t find it, what do we do with the gaping
hole in the back of the boat? Luckily, the Captain had borrowed an
oxygen tank from our friend (and Broker) Tom Pierce and if need be,
he would go down himself to look for it. I suggested asking the
Park Ranger if he knew of any divers and so that was an option as
well. He did bring the tank out and put it on the swim platform,
but found he didn’t bring his weight belt and without that to hold
you down, getting to the bottom of the water would be very tricky.
As it turned out, the Ranger said he was a master diver and would be
happy to dive for the window after he got off work at 4:00 pm but
anyone who knows Barry, knows he is not a patient man and waiting
for hours would just about kill him. As luck would have it, Greg
Valentine (the Marine Merchant we met the first night) swam over to
the boat to see what was happening. So, we figure, if any one can
dive, it has to be a Marine Merchant, right? Not quite and even
though he said he did dive, he didn’t dive often. However, he did
believe he had some dive gear on his boat, so off he goes (swimming)
to get his weight belt and whatever else Barry would need to see if
they could find the window. He returned in his dingy with his
weights but it seems he had forgotten his belt, so now here they
were with weights and nothing to put them in. Not to worry, Greg is
a handy kind of guy and he strings the weights together with some
line and offers to go down to see what he could find. Barry wasn’t
about to pass that offer up and was quite happy to stay up on the
swim platform and not swim around the bottom with the monster fish
that we knew were lumbering about down there. He found it! It
probably only took him about 10 minutes before he came up with
window in hand saying it had been completely covered in sand but he
was able to spot the 6 black latches sticking up – thank God! His
reward was a couple of beers and then he went off to get his wife,
Mari(sol) who is also a Merchant Marine and they sat on the bridge
with us having some cocktails and entertaining us with countless
stories of their adventures at sea, as well as, buying Real Estate.
We then ventured off to take Salty into shore and to let the Park
Ranger know he didn’t have to dive for the window. I think he was
quite disappointed but Barry made up for it by giving him some beers
(scarce out there in the middle of nowhere) and even though they
were “Micholob Ultra” low-carb beer, he was quite appreciative. So,
it appeared that the trip into shore was beneficial, not only to the
Park Ranger, but to the Boy scouts who were camping at the Park all
weekend. Their Scout Masters had two boats but no dingys! They
would dock at the Fort’s very meager dockage for a couple of hours,
just long enough for the boys to get off with all their gear. Then
they would idle as close to shore as possible and the boys would
have to swim out to the boats. Well, it’s a small world after all
and one of the Scout Masters was the Lawyer who took care of the
“Shipyard Villa” transaction that Barry was involved in (having
bought two units) and they even had lunch together a few months
back. Ok, ok, so here we are with a dingy and there are those tired
young boys not wanting to swim out to the boats with gear in tow.
Good ole Captain Barry made several trips with the boys back and
forth and must have gathered up many a merit point for being a good
Samaritan. Once back at the boat and relaxing on the aft deck, we
noticed the Law Enforcement boats going from, what seemed to be,
boat to boat. They were actually going to the boats with all the
fishing gear or who looked like they may be out there fishing for
more than they were entitled to. They actually would get on the
boats and check out their coolers and there were more than a couple
of tickets written up – obviously, we didn’t look like a threat and
probably the lack of fishing gear anywhere in site would have tipped
them off. Needless to say, our feast of blackened “bartered fish”
that night seemed even more tasty than ever! So, you’re wondering
if we made it through the night without the generator dying, right?
Wonder no more, of course we didn’t make it through the night – that
would have been too easy! Same thing…same time…same place. This is
getting really old.
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