Passage to the Dry Tortugas
S/V Mexicana
January 12-20, 2022
On Wednesday, January 12th at 10:15 am, Nicholay, his girlfriend, Sierra, and I departed from Island Harbor Marina in Dunedin for a passage to Garden Key/Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. This was to be a 9-day roundtrip voyage–plus or minus–depending on weather. We planned a route directly south from Clearwater Pass to Garden Key rather than following Florida’s west coast or taking the Intracoastal Waterway and then turning west to follow the Keys chain to the Tortugas. We did this both for time considerations, and because we wanted to experience an actual “passage”—offshore weather and wave conditions. The distance between Dunedin and Garden Key was 210 nautical miles, and we expected it to take anywhere from a day and a half to three days each way. (It ended up taking 53 hours on the way down and about 51 hours on the way home.) Weather forecasts were relatively favorable for the entire trip down: 1-5 foot seas with winds initially out of the east, then veering to the north, and finally northwest at anywhere from 5-25 knots for the upcoming three days.
We were taking Nicholay’s sailboat, a 1967, 34-foot Morgan sloop. He had purchased it six years before as nearly a derelict for $600 and had been restoring her ever since. The amount of blood, sweat, and tears he had put into this boat was truly remarkable. The boat was about 85% done, Nick having completed nearly the entire exterior and half of the interior. When we departed, he was mainly lacking some interior shelving, a new lithium electrical system, an autopilot, a bimini/dodger (a canvas roof and windshield), and some other odds and ends.
The “Dry” Tortugas are so called because they do not have any fresh water. So, we ensured that his 30-gallon freshwater tank was topped off and also brought along four 5-gallon Jerry cans of water which we lashed to the deck. We also had diesel fuel for about 60 hours of operation, which Nick deemed necessary for the trip since we planned to sail most of the time rather than motor.
Nick and Sierra had also brought a lot of great food for the trip—probably enough for five people for two weeks! They also brought three fishing poles with bait and lures, hoping to catch fresh fish for some of the meals. They both loved to cook, so we ate very well during the trip. At least, when the seas allowed.
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The trip started beautifully, with temperatures in the low ‘70s and winds about 8 knots out of the east, allowing us to sail the five miles or so down the Intracoastal Waterway from Dunedin to Clearwater Pass, where we transitioned “outside” to the Gulf of Mexico and set our course for 197 degrees true—straight for Garden Key.
Because Nick’s boat did not yet have an autopilot or wind vane (a mechanical autopilot which uses the force and direction of the wind to move the boat’s rudder), we were going to have to hand-steer the boat the entire time. While at first blush this didn’t seem like a big deal, it turned out to be a HUGE deal (and a deal-breaker for me on any future passages).
As we began heading south in the Gulf, winds were still out of the east and the seas were 1-2 feet. However, as the day progressed the winds eventually veered to the north- northwest and picked up speed. This was not supposed to have happened for another day, but weather forecasts haven’t really seemed to have improved their accuracy any since I started flying (and relying on them) almost 40 years ago. And, as the winds picked up, so did the seas. Eventually these turned into 4-6 foot swells topped with 2-3 foot waves coming from our starboard quarter (right rear). Winds were about 15-20 knots. The “following” seas required some very active steering inputs from whomever was at the helm.
Since the swells move much faster than any boat, they overtake a boat every few seconds. This condition causes whichever side of the boat the waves encounter first to rise up over the wave, followed by the rest of the boat in turn rising as the wave passes through. With a directly following sea, this would have resulted in the boat initially pitching down, then tettertottering to pitching up as each wave transitions along the boat hull.
But with a sea off the quarter (not directly behind) as in our case, it also caused a yawing motion to the boat each time a wave passed through. As the wave passed under the boat at an angle, it not only made the stern (back of the boat) rise, but tried to carry it along with itself; the stern would rise and get pushed forward and sideways, causing the boat to want to turn to starboard (right). At the same time, this caused the boat to heel (lean) to port (left). If this were not corrected by the helmsman by steering hard to port to keep the nose straight (and the boat level) as each wave passed under the stern, the boat would turn so far to the right that when the wave finally passed under the bow (front), it would tend to roll the boat to the right quite significantly (20 degrees or more). It was suddenly like the boat being sideways on a hillside of water.
Also, sailing requires the sails to remain at a specific angle to the winds in order to develop their thrust. Even though the seas were constantly changing under us, the winds weren’t, coming from the same compass direction. So, letting the boat yaw too much would rob the sails of the wind they needed, the boat would slow down significantly, lose momentum, and decrease our average speed.
So, what all this meant was that the helmsman, as soon as he felt the stern begin to rise and the boat starting to heel to port, would need to immediately put in hard left helm to counter the yawing motion. How much and how hard to turn the helm to port would be determined by the height of the wave, and no two were the same. A strong wave would require a large amount (a 180-degree spin) of the wheel to port and a lot of force to hold the heading against the wave (no power steering here!), while a lesser wave might only require a 30-degree turn of the wheel with very little pressure required. Since he could not see behind himself to anticipate the size of each incoming wave, the helmsman had to make an initial guess at the force and amount of left steering, then fine tune it by the response of the boat. Then, as the wave passed the bow, the helmsman would have to quickly remove all the left rudder he had put in in order to keep the boat from yawing and heeling the opposite direction. This entire cycle would take around 10 seconds, and thus occurred over 300 times each hour!
In the cabin, this motion could soon lead to nausea. Seasickness is generally caused by the inner ear exeriencing motion that doesn’t match what the eyes are seeing. On deck, with the horizon, sun, moon, clouds, or stars visible, both senses experienced the same thing, so nausea was generally not an issue. However, “below” in the cave-like cabin when the eyes could see very little, if anything, outside the boat, but the inner ear was experiencing movement in three different axes at the same time (yaw, pitch, and roll), it only took a few seconds for seasickness to set in.
In addition to the nausea, there was the struggle to simply maintain one’s balance when there was no outside reference, and thus no anticipation of a wave affecting the boat. At least one handhold below was always required (often two) if a person didn’t want to end up with his face planted against a bulkhead or a broken arm after being slung across the cabin and into something unforgiving.
Thus, with the nausea and crazy gyrations, even something as simple as changing a pair of pants could be a challenging and unpleasant experience. In such seas, we avoided the cabin except for essentials such as using the head, getting water, or sleeping. Of course, that meant being exposed to the wind and cold as the temperatures dropped from the 70’s to the 50’s (with the wind chill even colder) during the night.
Nicholay decided that the watch rotation would be two hours on, four hours off. That meant that each person would take a two-hour turn at the helm, then have four hours off. The off-duty crew were expected to sleep and eat during their off-duty periods.
Before my first watch, I decided to go below to try to get some rest, if not sleep. My designated bed was the pilot berth, a small bunk located above and outboard of the settee (couch) on the port side of the cabin. It is called the pilot berth because it is narrow and located rather aft in the boat, which means a generally smoother ride, and secure since the narrow sides tend to hold one still in tossing seas. The idea is that a single-handed sailor could use it for naps during rough weather conditions, but it was not really big enough for everyday use.
I found that, although I began feeling quite nauseous just getting across the cabin and up into the bunk, once I laid down on my back, the nausea would go away. But any other position while in a seaway (underway in any seas other than smooth ones) was untenable. Not only did the motion of the boat cause my whole body to roll back and forth uncontrollably, preventing sleeping, it also tossed around my internal organs, including my stomach, which brought back the nausea. I found that by wedging my body against the downwind (downhill) side while on my back, the motion was acceptable and I could sleep. My problem was that I don’t typically sleep on my back very well, so much of my sleep was really just resting my body, waiting for my next watch.
The first night and the next day went on pretty much as described. We got what rest we could on our off-watch times, and struggled to keep the boat tracking straight during our watches. The first night was quite cloudy, hiding the stars and moon, so the only thing we had to reliably steer the boat by was the compass. The forces at the wheel that night required the helmsman to stand up the entire watch, but the compass was located about waist level in front of the wheel. Staring down at a squirrely compass, trying to maintain a heading in the cold, dark night, with the boat pitching and rolling and yawing made a 2-hour watch seem much longer, and by the time each of us were done, the only thing we had the strength to do was dive below into our berths, usually fully-clothed.
During the daylight things were easier, with it being warmer, more visual cues present, even some when below, through the small portholes. Although none of us were very much interested in food, Nick and Sierra would throw together a meal or two during the day, which we all ate ravenously despite not initially feeling hungry.
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However, since none of us were sleeping very well, we were all getting more and more fatigued.
We did see a lot of wildlife during the daytime, especially dolphins. Usually they came in two’s or three’s, but sometimes in much larger groups. For one hour-long period, we had a group of about 30 of them playing all around the boat. We also had a couple of fishing lines trolling behind the boat and got a couple of bites, but both of them got away.
As the second night began, the winds had picked up a bit and backed more to the northwest. We still had 4-6 foot rollers coming from the north/northwest (with a very occasional 10-foot roller), but now a bunch of confused waves were on top of them. The boat was moving in a very uncomfortable way, without any kind of pattern. Steering it required a lot of concentration and strength. Below, sleeping was very difficult. The V-berth (the “bedroom” in the nose of the boat) where Nick and Sierra has been sleeping, was now pitching so much that when Nick tried to sleep there after his first watch of the evening, he was thrown airborne regularly and had to abandon that berth. Instead, we slid out the settee to make a bed, just below the pilot berth and on the same downwind side. Whichever two people weren’t on watch slept in those berths.
At the same time the cabin also became a huge mess. When the seas were consistent, and the boat heeled mainly to port, everything could be stowed on that side of the boat, using gravity to hold it in place. This was very useful since Nick hadn’t finished the cabinetry on the starboard side of the boat yet, so there was no way to secure anything there. But now with the confused seas and the boat rolling as much to starboard as to port, all the clothing, charts, hats, foul-weather suits (“foulies”), bluetooth speakers, backpacks, and sundry other loose items found themselves all over the cabin floor, covering most of it. This only added to the challenges of navigating through the cabin to the head (bathroom) or one of the berths in the dark.
Relieving one’s self in these conditions was rather challenging. In fact, performing most functions on the boat at this point was pretty much impossible. Getting from one’s berth to the helm, spending two hours at the helm, then struggling back to the berth (with perhaps a stop at the head if it couldn’t be avoided) seemed to be our soul existence hour after hour.
As mentioned, at this point, sleep had also become difficult. No longer could I wedge myself in the downhill corner of the pilot berth since the boat would also now roll the other way, causing me to bounce or roll across the mattress. On the starboard side of the pilot berth was a “lee board”, a small vertical plank about 8” high designed to prevent the occupant from rolling off the bed. This worked well enough, but unfortunately, on the opposite side of this lee board we had strung a small food hammock that was full of fruit, including two huge papayas. As the boat rolled, these would swing away from the lee board and then slam back into it as the boat rolled the opposite direction. If I were wedged up against the lee board, each time the boat rolled, it would feel like someone was punching me in the back. And, I was too tired to get up to do something about them and not sure I could have done so without puking, anyway.
The irritation and physical stress on the body of being inside something which is constantly moving in unpredictable and erratic ways for an extended period of time was beginning to get to all of us. I remember coming off a watch at 8 pm exhausted, getting tossed around in the pilot berth for a few miserable hours, thinking only that I was going to have to get back up and stand up at the helm, manhandling the wheel in the cold for another two hours. Then repeat. Then repeat. I just didn’t think I had it in me physically to complete even my next watch. (I had also started the trip exhausted, which didn’t help.) Just four solid hours of sleep would have reset everything, but sleep wasn’t happening, and it was almost as fatiguing lying in the berth trying not to slam into things as it was up on deck at the helm. (The next morning Sierra said she felt like she had been in a washing machine all night, which describes it very accurately.) Extremely fatigued and frustrated, all I can remember thinking in the middle of that second night was, “Somebody please just make it stop!” I would have literally given anything I had to be anywhere but on that boat. But, there was no escape.
This was also right after I had just sold everything I owned except what would fit in a storage unit and moved full-time onto the sailboat I had purchased over the summer, intending to sail all over the world. I remember thinking, “What have I done?!?! This truly sucks and I absolutely hate it! None of the YouTube cruising channels mention anything about this! I have made a huge mistake!”
At this point, about 38 hours into our trip, we were close to being a truly debilitated crew. Yet, it was only midnight and wouldn’t be daylight for another seven hours. At this point Garden Key was only about 35 miles away, but at our speed of 3-4 knots, that meant another 10-15 hours which seemed like an eternity in our condition.
I was also noticing that Nick had acquired an unusual cough. He had been having a hard time sleeping since the beginning, mainly because he was in charge, this boat was his baby, he had never been in the open ocean before, and was just too excited and stressed. He’s always been quite healthy, so when I noticed him having this weird cough, it worried me. To me, it seemed to indicate extreme fatique rather than an illness.
I duly got up at midnight for my next two-hour watch after not sleeping a wink since my previous watch. The seas were still horrible. They weren’t monstrous, and I never felt in danger per se, but they were very confused, making steering extremely arduous. Comfort of any kind was non-existent. As I was steering, Nick had come up on deck and was sitting with his head in his hands. In my view, we as a crew had reached our physical limit. (I hadn’t seen Sierra directly for a few hours, and although she was a real trooper, I couldn’t believe that she wasn’t feeling the same way we were.)
Again I felt frustrated that we couldn’t get any relief—that we were trapped in this horrible condition until we either reached Garden Key, or the weather decided to change. There have only been a handful of times in my life when I’ve been as physically miserable. We were reaching the point of total apathy. If only we could make it stop.
I had seen this from the air when I was in the Coast Guard. More than once we’d been launched in bad weather to assist a sailboat that had called a mayday. We’d arrive on scene to find an intact sailboat in some rough seas, with nobody really manning anything. When we contacted the boat, we were told that everyone wanted to be hoisted off the boat.
Now, hoisting to a sailboat is extremely difficult and dangerous—especially in rough seas—because the mast and rigging just swing back and forth as the boat rolls in the waves, making delivering a rescue basket or sling virtually impossible without it getting all tangled in the boat’s rigging (endangering not only the sailboat crew, but the helicopter). So, 9 times out of 10, we’d have the people jump overboard, then retrieve them with a rescue swimmer. But this was for boats that were sinking or on fire—when the crew didn’t have a choice but to leave the boat–not for a perfectly good boat. Anytime we had to have someone jump into the water, there was always the risk we wouldn’t be able to retrieve them, so it was a last resort. In the cases described above, we would typically refuse to evacuate anyone because their lives would definitely be at risk if we had them jump overboard. The fact was that they were not in danger—just miserable–which would end when the weather calmed down. (We would tell them this, but also maintain a watch over them with either a helicopter or C-130 airplane until they were back on their feet.)
I finally understood what those people had been experiencing. I just wanted to be out of that situation, no matter what.
It was around this point that an idea popped into my head that should have come to me much earlier. There is a sailing technique called “heaving-to”. It was used all the time in the old days of sailing, but isn’t used very much anymore, mainly because newer-type sailboats designed for speed can’t do it was well as the older type of boat. Both Nick and I had read about it and had even attempted it once just for fun a few years ago in one of his previous, smaller, sailboats. But it came to my mind thanks to a book I was reading about a guy who sailed solo, non-stop around the world in the southern oceans. He had a very seaworthy boat designed for the trip and was very experienced, yet he would often heave-to when the weather got bad and just wait it out. When reading the book I was surprised at how often he hove-to.
This is how it works: You basically set up the sails to fight each other, which results in the boat going almost no where, but still being stable because the sails are up. (Taking down the sails makes sailboats rock like crazy, but if you have a constant pressure against the sails, it will drastically minimize rolling.). So, the mainsail and the rudder are configured to turn the boat into the wind, while the jib sail up front is set up to turn the boat downwind. The result, if done exactly right is that the boat will face 45-60 degrees off the wind and drift sideways (downwind) at 1 to 1.5 knots. It also leaves a very smooth surface behind it (on the windward and incoming wave side) which causes the waves to lay down before they hit the boat. This provides a relatively stable, smooth ride and is used in situations such as storms, or when wanting to cook, or just prior to entering a harbor or anchorage to get the boat all set up.
So, back to the cockpit with me at the wheel (an hour into my watch and fading fast), and Nicholay next to me with his head in his hands, occasionally coughing this weird cough. I said, “Nick, I honestly don’t think I can function much longer. There is an alternative to continuing this. We could try heaving to.”
Honestly, the last thing I expected him to do was seriously consider it. He is a hard-charger and wanted to be sure to get into Garden Key in the daylight, and he also wanted to beat another boat that we were meeting there. So, I was 90% sure that he was going to say, “No, we’re only 35 miles from Garden Key. We’ll stick it out,” in which case, I don’t know what I would have done. But, he was the captain, and I would have to do my best.
But, to my surprise (and relief), he thought for about 5 seconds, then said, “Yes. Let’s do it.” So, we configured the sails as best as the weather, our dulled brains, and our exhaustion would allow, came across the wind with the sails set to heave-to, waited for everything to settle down, and ended up about 80-degrees off the wind and moving forward at about 2 to 2.5 knots. Not exactly hove-to. (We were actually doing something called “forereaching”, another technique used in bad weather.) We could have tried to trim in the sails more to get it where it would have fit the definition more closely, but the motion on the boat was reduced by about 60%, and most importantly, it was now a regular motion. While we were moving perpendicular to the way we wanted to go, there was nothing in that direction for about 60 miles. So, after ascertaining all that, we decided good enough was good enough, and both instantly crashed into our bunks. I have rarely felt so much relief!
I slept soundly, but was woken briefly about an hour later when I heard Sierra getting up and putting on her foulies, evidently thinking that she was late for her watch. (We hadn’t told her what we were doing because she was sleeping, and we didn’t want to wake her.) She told us later that as she stood up and looked out into the cockpit, she freaked out because there was nobody there. (In the dark, she couldn’t see us sleeping in the cabin.) She told us that the last thing she remembered before falling asleep up was Nick and I in the cockpit doing a bunch of stuff with the sails, and the boat turning into the wind and things quieting down, then she fell back asleep. Now she woke up to find us both missing!
Of course, I had no idea of any of her thoughts, but just said, “Hey Sierra, you can go back to sleep. We’ve hove-to and are just going to sleep for a few hours.” She told us later how relieved she was to hear my words, not only because she didn’t have to pull her watch, but also because it meant Nick and I hadn’t been washed overboard!
I went back to sleep till about 6 am. What woke me was the movement of the boat; the winds and seas had shifted, and the ride was getting uncomfortable again. I broke out my iPad to see where we were in relation to our original course and Garden Key and discovered that we were now moving east about 4 to 4.5 knots! We still had many miles of running room, but we were going perpendicular to our desired course as fast as we had been going to it! After mulling this over for awhile, I went to the cockpit to look things over. There I found Sierra sleeping (because Nick and I were occupying the two cabin berths, and the V-berth was once again unihabitable), daylight was breaking, and the boat was not really set up very well to the new winds and seas. The motion was getting close to what it had been prior to heaving-to. I realized we would have to do something else since sleep was getting difficult again, and we were going the wrong way at a relatively high rate of speed. I was less fatigued than before, but Nick was still out cold, and I knew that he needed his sleep. Nevertheless, when I did some calculations, I realized that if we didn’t continue to Garden Key soon, we wouldn’t make it there before nightfall. And arriving in a strange anchorage in the dark is not very desirable, especially in a boat that doesn’t have a depth sounder (as Nick’s didn’t yet)!
So, after waiting awhile to give Nick as much sleep as possible, I went below to the V- berth to wake him up and tell him my concerns. At this point, the cabin movement was probably the worst it had been, and it was a struggle to hold it together long enough to communicate with a half-awake Nicholay what my thoughts were. He actually woke up pretty quickly, said he felt much better, agreed that we should get underway again, and started to get dressed. This conversation took all of about 30 seconds.
As I left him to go back to the cockpit, an overpowering wave of nausea came over me, and I realized I needed to get my head over the side of the boat quickly. Puking is always done on the downwind side of the boat (for obvious reasons), but that’s also where Sierra was sleeping. I had no time to do anything other than lay across her and puke over the side of the boat. As I was doing my business, I felt her stroking my leg in a comforting manner, which I thought was very touching. Did I mention that Nick and I had the same color foulies? When I finally pulled my head back into the boat, and she saw that it was me and not Nicholay, she got very embarrassed about stroking my leg. I just laughed and told her that I thought it was sweet!
A few seconds later, Nicholay came up and did the same thing I had just done! It was the only time either of us threw up on the trip. Sierra never did.
We quickly discussed the plan for getting the boat from the heave-to configuration to running downwind towards the Tortugas, and were soon underway south again at 4-5 knots. The GPS said at that speed we would arrive at the Garden Key anchorage at around 3:00 pm, which would give us plenty of time to anchor before nightfall.
The ride was initially still quite uncomfortable and a challenge at the helm, but at least it was daylight. And, as the morning turned into the afternoon, the seas got less confused and the wind died down a bit. It turned out to be another beautiful day, we saw some more dolphins, and Nick caught his first fish.
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We were able to fix a decent lunch, which was much welcome, and eventually “raised” the massive Fort Jefferson (on Garden Key) in the early afternoon.
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A couple of hours later, right on time, we sailed into the wonderfully smooth waters of the Garden Key anchorage where five other sailboats and a seaplane were there to welcome us.
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When we finally got the anchor set, we all breathed a huge sigh of relief, threw together a charcuterie plate, broke out a celebratory bottle of wine and, and toasted our safe arrival.
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