Defeated

We've had a change of plans, and as I begin typing we are underway southbound toward the Moser Channel under the Seven Mile Bridge, near Marathon. We had a miserable night and are both dog-tired, but we've been trading places to nap underway.

While we had a comfortable cruise yesterday, and we were fairly comfortable at anchor through dinner, with just a light chop, the forecast for light winds, less than five knots, overnight proved to be entirely wrong. Winds steadily picked up, and by the time I turned it it was blowing 15-20, and we were pounding over 2-3' seas at anchor; I had to run around the boat at midnight dogging things down as if for sea. We were still probably having a better night than the sailboat that arrived after dark and anchored just west of us, with likely less than a third our displacement.

In the dark, in heavy seas, and less than high tide, it was too late to change our decision and seek the shelter of the Little Shark River, and we had no choice but to tough it out. That kind of motion does not bother me or keep me from sleeping, but what did was anxiety -- the morning tide would be below zero, and with just 18" under the keel in that spot, I was worried we'd be slamming against the bottom. Fortunately, the winds dropped off, but not completely, before dawn.

With the tide at just three inches and falling, we weighed anchor just before civil twilight this morning to get back out to deeper water before it dropped another full foot. Once back in 8' soundings we made the turn northward to Marco Island, thankful to have the stabilizers working and making us at least a little comfortable.

Within the span of an hour we found ourselves bashing into 2'-3' head seas, with 15-20 knots of wind on the nose. There were whitecaps, and we were taking spray over the bow all the way to the pilothouse windows. This was definitely not the forecast, which was for light winds to five knots and seas of just one foot. Louise spent half of that hour combing through forecasts for any inkling of what was happening, but none was accurate.

While a little uncomfortable, we could have soldiered through those conditions all day. But we still had nine full hours to Marco Island, with no heavy-weather bail-out options in between. With the forecast completely wrong, we had no way to know whether the conditions would stay the same throughout those nine hours, or deteriorate further into something truly uncomfortable or which would make the shallow entrance at Marco Island, near sunset, a problem. If we continued much further, we'd be committed, too late to turn around and make safe harbor in the daylight.

The great U-turn.

We conceded defeat to the vagaries of mother nature and the inaccuracies of a forecast in a remote part of the state, and made a U-turn. As soon as I finished the turn, life got vastly better, because wind and seas that had been on the nose were now on the stern. The boat stopped pitching and bashing, and there was no more spray. It was just 7:30am.

It's now nearly 3pm and we've passed under the Seven Mile Bridge and made the eastward turn into the Hawk Channel. (Typing in these conditions is a slow process, interrupted by dodging pot floats and looking at charts to figure out just what we are doing). Conditions improved throughout the day, and it was downright pleasant for the last couple of hours before the bridge. We've both had naps.

We are now under the gun to make it into Biscayne Bay before the next system moves in. If we had stopped in Marathon we'd be pinned there for a week, so we're going to press on up the Keys until we run out of day, and tuck in someplace to anchor. Tomorrow we'll get an early start, and we should be in Key Biscayne early on Sunday.

We'd already started making plans to connect with friends on the west coast, and those will have to be rearranged. I still want to get there, and we'll have to decide whether to cross the lake to do it, or drop the boat someplace, rent a car, and make a week's road trip out of it. Even with the ~450-mile round trip in the boat, taking the boat is cheaper, but convenience and logistics will likely drive the decision. Stay tuned. It's at least five days before we even reach the fork in the road, at St. Lucie Inlet.