Leaving Key West:
We had a nice sunrise as we departed our Stock Island (Key West) marina on National Day of Prayer (March 15).
After a month in Key West, we are headed north.
The constant high east winds that blew for the whole month showed no signs of letting up. Seas (waves) in Hawk Channel -- the Atlantic Ocean side of the Keys -- would be VERY uncomfortable. (We traveled Hawk Channel on our trip down to Key West.)
We chose to go around to the “back side” of Key West to head back east and then north through the Gulf of Mexico.
To prepare for this cruise -- through the Everglades National Park, Ray studied an online Boater Education Program and passed his test, now mandatory for nearly everyone operating a powerboat within the marine waters of the park.
Thankfully, the islands to the south and east made the Gulf of Mexico pretty tame for our cruise.
A Long Day to Get to Our First Anchorage: We were underway for over 11 hours to get to our first anchorage at Cape Sable -- part of Everglades National Park.
It took over 2 hours to cruise from Stock Island, around the bottom of Key West, and out between all the little keys and into the Gulf of Mexico -- another "first" for us!
This is what the westernmost part of Key West looks like when you're about 2 miles offshore. The red roof to the right of the oncoming boat is near Sunset Pier where we took some great sunset photos.
Here is what it looks like when you're about 7 miles offshore. Key West is barely visible on the left side of the horizon, as we are about to turn north into the Gulf of Mexico.
Geek Alert: Navionics is a common nautical charting software. Below is a screen shot of our travel, as we entered the Gulf of Mexico. This really makes you feel like a speck on the ocean!
On the left is the Gulf of Mexico.
In Red, our boat and heading (direction).
In Yellow, the Florida Keys are all of the yellow islands.
In Green, the reefs between the Keys and the Gulf.
What are all of those red and blue arrows? These are tide and current indicators.
At the time this screen was captured, the tide was about half-way between going out, or ebbing (red) in one area while still coming in, or flowing (blue) in the next!
Boaters need to be aware of ebb-tides, since they will cause the water depth to go down and cause "groundings" (when a boat runs aground).
Tidal flow can also create strong currents, which can make it difficult to navigate tight spaces, or can slow your travel if you are heading against the current.
Way Off Shore in the Gulf of Mexico! After 7 or 8 hours of cruising, we lost cell service. We were now about 16 miles off-shore! A little scary. And another "first" for us!
This must be where the phrase "blue water cruising" comes from.
First Stop - Cape Sable: We dropped anchor in Cape Sable just in time for sunset. This was an "exposed" anchorage right on the gulf and was only an option because of a light east wind that was blocked by the cape island.
Second (Last) Stop - Camp Lulu Key: We had a much shorter day of cruising toward the Okeechobee Waterway (which is how we plan to cross the state of Florida - west to east). Ray was enjoying his morning in the Everglades!
We had a small hitchhiker for a long portion of the trip from Cape Sable to the Ten Thousand Islands. We think he was tired of flying so far out into the gulf!
We anchored off of Camp Lulu Key -- part of the Ten Thousand Islands, and stayed for 3 nights. It was nice to be away from the crowds.
Our chart plotter shows our boat anchored within the Ten Thousand Islands.
Fresh-Caught Trout! A fisherman that was camping on Camp Lulu Key that week motored his boat over and offered us two speckled trout he had caught. Well, OK - sure!!
Ray cleaned the 2 fish and we fried them with some potatoes (pre-cooked in the instant pot earlier, to save battery power). Yum!
Mixing Business With Pleasure: Thankfully, we had a little bit of cell service, so we caught up on some home "business", and made some phone calls looking for marinas to stay for our isolation period for the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
Our near-future plans are rapidly changing by the day with the news reports and various business closings, etc. We will not go very far north or into the Chesapeake as originally planned this summer, since everything we were going there to see will likely be closed or otherwise inaccessible.
There are marinas here and there along the ICW also closing, so our options may be narrowing rather quickly. We got a 1-month reservation in Fort Myers (close to the Okeechobee Waterway), so we will head there next and hope to be able to continue our travel to the Atlantic soon. (Marinas are beginning to restrict entry for boaters who are not already there.)
Other than that, we just relaxed and enjoyed the peace and quiet. The most noise we heard was from the young ospreys nearby, the occasional respectful fishing boat.
Geek Alert #2: We have solar panels on top of the deckhouse (the black rectangles visible in the photo above). These can put out 1.4kW of power to charge our batteries in perfect sunny conditions. Typical conditions are normally much lower than that. The panels and controllers are split up into four "arrays" in order to help with varying sun angles and shading from the dinghy.
Below is a snapshot of the controllers' output history two days while we were anchored in the Ten Thousand Islands. It shows that we were able to produce 4.34 and 4.77 kWh of energy on those days using only the sun.
We consume about 3-4kWh per day with our embarassingly-large household fridge and depending on how much cooking we do. We cannot run the air conditioner or the hot water heater on our solar/batteries as they are very large power consumers.
Video: Don't miss this short drone video of our cruise across the Gulf of Mexico and into Everglades National Park!
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