S/V Serendipity
Barry Calhoun & Gretchin Kvaal
December 28, 2022—January 11, 2023
The Dry Tortugas are a small group of islands located about 70 miles west of Key West, FL. Most of the islands are very small, and all fall within the Dry Tortugas National Park. In fact, most of them are bird or animal sanctuaries and are off limits to visitors.
There are two main islands: Loggerhead Key is a long, skinny island with a lighthouse and a good diving reef (into which multiple ships have wrecked, making for interesting diving). Day visits can be made by boat; visiting the island on foot (via dinghy) is allowed, but no night anchoring or mooring is permitted. Garden Key, which is the second largest and the main island in the archipelago, is about 3 miles east of Loggerhead Key.
It is covered mostly by the huge Fort Jefferson, a 19th century fort built from 6,000,000 bricks and one of the biggest forts of its kind in the US. The fort is a minor tourist destination, managed by the National Park Service. The islands have no food, electricity, or freshwater (hence the word “dry” in the name), but there are always a handful of park rangers living at the fort to manage the few dozen tourists arriving for a few hours on the island each day.
(Taken from my seaplane ride back from Key West. See below.)
The Dry Tortugas are located in what was a very strategic position in the 1800’s: at the intersection of the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Straits (the body of water between Cuba and Florida). And because Garden Key has a rare (for the Gulf of Mexico) deep-water anchorage, it was a perfect place to put a fort and to be able to anchor and resupply our Navy ships. While the fort saw no wartime action, it did act as a federal prison for a period of time around the Civil War.
The only way to visit Garden Key (and Fort Jefferson) is by sea or air. A seaplane company which operates out of Key West flies two amphibious planes into Garden Key several times a day.
There is also a high-speed catamaran ferry, the Yankee Freedom, that visits Garden Key from Key West once a day.
The only other way to visit the Dry Tortugas is by private boat, which is what we were going to do. Because these islands are so isolated, anyone visiting by private boat must ensure they have enough food and water to last the duration. (We would have enough of both to last a month if necessary.)
The isolated nature of these islands also means that the waters and reefs are more pristine than other parts of the Keys. Sharks were prevalent, as were Goliath grouper, which seem to like the shade under the boats that were at anchor and would hang out there for days at a time.
This would be my third time taking a boat to the Dry Tortugas. Back in 2007, when my sons were young, we took our Catalina 30 sailboat there on the way to the Keys. It was a lovely stop, but the lack of water and food storage on that size boat meant we could only stay for 3 days before needing to continue to the Keys for provisions.
The second trip was a year prior to this one (January of 2022) on my son, Nicholay’s, boat–a 1967 Morgan 34 sloop named Mexicana. He, and his girlfriend, Sierra, and I did a 9-day trip that year, which included a very sporting passage down. I have written a separate article (“Our First Passage”) about that voyage.
This year I would be taking my sailboat, a Shannon 38 ketch named Serendipity.
Although I had accomplished a 500-mile voyage from Titusville on the east coast of Florida around the Keys to St. Petersburg shortly after purchasing it back in July of 2021, we had motored almost the entire trip due to lack of winds and had pretty much hugged the coastline. Thus, I considered this Dry Tortugas trip my first real “offshore passage” in Serendipity since we would be sailing most of the time and would at times be 60-70 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. This was also going to be the first voyage since I had made many operational improvements to my boat over the last year and a half.
The idea for a taking trip to the Dry Tortugas at the end of December had been hatched by some people at Davis Island Yacht Club (DIYC) in Tampa (where I had my boat at the time) who thought it would be cool to spend New Year’s at Garden Key. Two DIYC boats (Shazaam!, captained by Sean Motta, and Island Time 2, captained by Mike Reiring) committed to going, and my son, Nicholay, with his boat Mexicana, also planned to go. Originally, I was going to crew for Nicholay on his boat like last year since he couldn’t find any other crew during the holidays.
However, after making these plans, a few months before the departure date I met my girlfriend at the time, Gretchin, who had never sailed, but who was very interested in learning. She came out on our recreational “Tuesday Cruise Days” a few times and seemed to enjoy sailing quite a bit. She also had a flexible schedule, so I thought she might be interested in sailing to the Dry Tortugas with Nicholay and me. I approached Nicholay first, and he was amenable to the idea. Gretchin was very excited about going on the trip and arranged her schedule accordingly. So, similar to the previous year, it was going to be Nicholay and I, and one of our girlfriends on the voyage!
Beforehand though, Nicholay and Sierra wanted to cruise Mexicana down to the Keys for a few weeks before she had to go back to school at the beginning of January. They departed around the beginning of December with the intention of sailing back to Tampa for Christmas. The plan then was for Nicholay, Gretchin, and I to sail Mexicana back down to the Dry Tortugas around the 28th of December–after Gretchin’s daughter visiting from New York had departed.
From August through November, my boat had been in a boat yard in Tarpon Springs, FL, getting a bottom job and many other things done to her (both by the yard and by me).
It was finally done at the end of November, when I then sailed her on a two-day voyage from Tarpon Springs to DIYC. After a total of a year and a half of work and tens of thousands of dollars in repairs and improvements and seeing how well all the enhancements I had made in the boatyard worked, I decided I really wanted to take Serendipity to the Dry Tortugas instead of crewing on Nicholay’s boat–as long as I had someone with me; I was not ready to single-hand this boat.
So, I confirmed with Gretchin that she would be comfortable sailing to the Tortugas on Serendipity with just me (little did she know what awaited her!!), then broached to topic with Nicholay (because this meant he would have to sail down single-handed). He actually thought that would be a good first opportunity to be single-handed on a long passage since he would have “buddy boats” either already there or going down with him. So, that became the revised plan. And that also meant that I had just a few weeks to not only get the boat and myself situated in our new home at DIYC, but also get ready for a 400-mile passage living 2-3 weeks off the grid.
As it turned out, it was good that we had changed plans because Nicholay and Sierra were unable to sail back from the Keys before Christmas due to unfavorable winds. Sierra ended up flying back to Tampa for Christmas while Nicholay and Mexicana remained in the Keys. Had Gretchin and I not decided to take Serendipity, we would not have been able to go at all.
The detailed plan was for Shazaam! and Island Time 2 to depart DIYC separately a day or so after Christmas, direct to Garden Key. At the same time, Nicholay would depart the Keys for the 70-mile trip west to the Dry Tortugas to meet them there. As mentioned, Gretchin and I wouldn’t be leaving until the 28th at the earliest because Gretchin’s daughter was visiting over Christmas. The other three boats would likely be there before we even departed. Although the other boats were planning to return shortly after New Year’s, Gretchin and I had almost three weeks available for the trip. Gretchin had actually quit her job to go on the trip; I had to be back by January 15th for a doctor’s appointment.
Knowing how incommunicado we would be in the Dry Tortugas, I decided to purchase a Garmin InReach for the trip.1 The other three captains had various similar technologies, and we made sure before we left that we could all communicate with each other when offshore and to/from the Dry Tortugas. Buying the InReach and taking the time to ensure we had “good comms” turned out to be critical later.
As we got closer to the departure date, Gretchin took charge of our food menu, while I took care of the other things. That meant getting things off the boat that I only use when living aboard in the marina (dehumidifier, air purifier, AC fans, some clothes, and other items that we wouldn’t need).
This would also free up space for Gretchin’s gear and other things that we’d be bringing, like an inflatable stand-up paddleboard, my 8’ inflatable dinghy and outboard 9.8 HP motor. It ended up requiring about two weeks of prep and numerous drives down to my storage unit 50 miles south in Bradenton. We also had work on the boat itself, including installing the staysail and getting its reefing lines all set up, reinstalling the solar panels, and various other tasks.
When it was finally time to leave on January 28th, we had a pretty favorable forecast with winds out of the NE to E, initially at about 8 knots, but building over the next two days to almost 20 knots. The seas were forecast to eventually be about 4 feet off the port beam, in line with the winds. That forecast meant a fairly quick passage (for a sailboat) of about 35 hours. (Last year with Nicholay in Mexicana, the same trip had taken us 52 hours.) It was a chilly, but sunny 48 degrees when we departed the dock around 8 am on the 28th. As we departed, we turned on the InReach tracking and sent the notification text with a link to our tracking map to the 30 or so people who wanted to follow our progress. After a half hour, we had stowed all the dock lines and fenders, secured the spare gas, diesel, and water Jerry cans on deck, and had raised all four of the ketch’s sails. With the winds about 6-8 knots out of the NE, we were sailing at about 4.5 knots and spent the next five hours or so on a pleasant broad reach, jibing occasionally down Tampa Bay to avoid ships or shallows.
After having to wait about 30 minutes for two large ships coming the opposite direction, we passed under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge around 1 pm. We continued west past Egmont Key, then turned to 188 degrees (south) to head straight for Garden Key.
Then the winds died.
For hours, we were only able to move at a scant 2-ish knots, despite the forecast saying we would have winds propelling us at around 6 knots. The GPS calculated at that speed, it would take us 60 hours to get to Garden Key! That meant, instead of only one night during the passage, it would be two full nights. This was disappointing, and we were tempted to start the motor to get our speed back, but held back, fairly confident—or at least hopeful–that the winds would increase.
The reason we were reluctant was not only to save fuel, but because sailing is so much more peaceful and enjoyable than motoring. All one hears is the wind and the water on the boat. Talking to each other (even across the length of the boat) is easy. And it just feels that you are one with nature, using the magic of the wind to move the boat along. So, we were reluctant to introduce the loudness, vibrations, and exhaust smell of the diesel engine if we could avoid it.
So, with Gretchin at the helm taking the first watch around 8 pm, I went below to catch some sleep. (It turned out to be the only real sleep I would get until we arrived at Garden Key.)
When I woke up around 10 pm to relieve Gretchin, the winds had indeed picked up to about 12 knots, and we were moving at about 6.5 knots. This gave us an ETA of about 8 pm the next evening in Garden Key. Much better!
Serendipity is a “cutter-rigged ketch”. The ketch part means that it has a second, smaller mast (called the mizzen) in addition to the main mast. The cutter part means that is has a small sail, called the staysail, in between the Genoa (the big, foremost sail) and the main mast.
Not having sailed much historically with the staysail, I had been experimenting with it while in Tampa Bay, seeing under which wind velocities and direction it would add to our speed, and under which it would interfere with the wind flow between the Genoa and the mainsail and thus decrease our speed. It seemed like the winds needed to be at least 10 knots and off the beam or further aft for the sail to be effective. So, when the winds got progressively lighter as we left Tampa Bay, we had taken it down. But that meant that when the winds picked up that evening, the staysail was still stowed. Because the winds had been light, I hadn’t really secured the sail properly (with sail straps and a cover) but had just wrapped the halyard around it to keep the sail from falling all over the foredeck.
As the night went on, the winds slowly increased, and the seas grew accordingly. By the time my watch was over at 12:30 am, we had about 15 knots just aft of abeam and seas of 3-4 feet, also from the port beam. So, the boat was rolling with each wave, and every couple of minutes, a bigger wave would cause us to roll quite a bit. Luckily, (and surprisingly) the 20-year- old autopilot was doing a decent job holding our course, even though about once a minute a large wind gust would round us up into the wind about 20 degrees before the autopilot would correct the heading.
I could tell by the way we were “rounding up”, coupled with the position of the rudder, that we had quite a bit of weather helm.2
There are several ways to reduce weather helm and better balance the boat. They all involve making the power from the rear sails (the main and mizzen) match the power from the forward sails (the Genoa and staysail.). If the rear sails have more power than the foresails, they pull the back half of the boat downwind, which turns the bow upwind (weather helm). The solution is to either de-power the aft sails or get more power in the foresails.
As mentioned, the staysail was still down, yet the windspeed and direction were such that setting it would hopefully add a bit to our speed while balancing the boat better. I was also getting uncomfortable with the staysail secured only with the halyard wrapped around it; it needed to either be set or secured completely with so it wouldn’t get loose in a gust and cause havoc.
However, doing either meant having to go up on the foredeck. (The staysail is the only sail on my boat that can’t be deployed from the cockpit.) At this point, the winds were probably 17 knots and the seas 4 feet abeam, meaning that the boat was rolling quite a bit, and we were sometimes getting water over the bow and sometimes even a bit of spray in the cockpit. Going forward in these conditions was hazardous and would require me to don a harness and tether to be constantly attached to the boat so I wouldn’t get thrown overboard or slip off. While I had all the appropriate gear, it was something I had not attempted before and so wouldn’t be comfortable with. Yet, it needed to be done to smooth out our ride, give us the best possible speed, and prevent the staysail from blowing free and flogging all over the place uncontrollably. So, when Gretchin came up for her watch around 1:00 am, I told her what I intended to do, then put on my harness and tether, and began crawling forward.
Normally, the crew tethering system on a sailboat involves three components: a jackline, a harness, and the tether itself. The jackline is a rope or strap that is typically laid along the length of the deck, strongly secured at both ends. The harness is worn by the sailor. (My inflatable lifejacket happened to have a harness incorporated into it). The tether is V-shaped, consisting of two straps (one long and one short) which are attached to the harness where they join each other; the other ends are attached to the jackline or other strongpoints on the boat. Having two straps allow “leapfrogging” from one strongpoint to another without ever becoming unattached from the boat. This system is intended to reduce the risk of the sailor slipping off the boat, being launched off the boat by violent motion, or being swept off the boat by a large wave.
Unfortunately, my boat does not lend itself to deploying a jackline; the deck layout just doesn’t have the clear space that it needs (and the deflated dinghy was lying upside down over most of the deck, covering any areas that might have worked for a jackline, anyway). This meant that I was going to have to find other strong points to clip the tether into. I hadn’t had the opportunity to experiment with this before, so it was going to be trial and error as I moved forward.
As I worked my way to the staysail, which was almost at the bow of the boat, I did find enough handholds and other satisfactory places to clip the tether straps onto. These included lifelines on the “high” (windward) side of the boat, handrails, and even the lines used to secure the dinghy to the deck. In worse conditions, where perhaps waves were breaking over the boat, the strongpoints I picked might not have been secure enough to withstand those forces. But in this case, I was mostly worried about losing my grip and sliding into the water when the boat rolled 25 degrees. As it was, with the winds, the slippery deck, and the rolling—all in the dark at 1:00 am—it was exciting and challenging enough for my first time!
In detail, it looked like this: I exited the relatively-secure cockpit to clip one of the ends of the tether to one of these strongpoints as far in front of me as I could reach, then timed the waves to scootch forward on my butt past where I had attached the first part of the tether as far as the attached end of the tether would allow me, then try to find another hard point. I would then attach the free end of the tether to that, detach the tether that was now behind me, time the waves, scootch forward to another hard point, and so on, in about 5-foot increments, all the way up to the bow of the boat. The aft end of a boat is always the most stable (which is one of the reasons why the cockpit is located there) and the bow the most unstable. So, the further forward I went, the more challenging this became.
After a couple of minutes, I found an attachment point on the main mast itself which allowed me to stretch forward to the middle of the staysail boom where I detached the staysail halyard that I had previously wrapped around it. Next, I had to attach that end of the halyard to the head (top) of the staysail so I could hoist it. This meant moving about six feet further forward. This reach proved difficult since even with the longer of the two harness straps attached to the mast—which was only 6 feet long–I couldn’t reach the head of the staysail while clipped onto the main mast. And I couldn’t see any hard points between the main mast until well forward of the staysail boom.
A few times each minute, a bigger wave than normal would hit us broadside, causing a significant roll. Being so far forward now, I was also subject to the bow rising and falling three or four feet with each wave (or more than five feet when a bigger wave would hit us). The bow is also much narrower than the rest of the boat. All this meant that in the most dangerous area of the boat—falling or being swept overboard-wise—I was discovering that there was a scarcity of strongpoints to clip into!
I suddenly noticed a large pad eye on the deck at the aft end of the staysail boom that I attached the tether to. This was not really a strongpoint—it would have pulled loose with any kind of force-but it was all that there was to clip into for about 8 feet. I detached the other strap of the tether from the mast, then hugging the staysail boom for dear life, scootched forward. I was eventually able to reach the head of the staysail and attach the halyard. Then I leapfrogged/scootched back to the mast, clipped into the strongpoint there, wrapped the loose end of the halyard around the winch, and was ready to begin cranking up the staysail.3
But first, the sheet—the line that controls a sail’s angle to the wind, in this case, by controlling the boom–needed to be loosened so that sail was free to point into the wind as it was being raised. Otherwise, there would be too much wind pressure against the side of the sail, making it very difficult to hoist. Once the sail was up, the sheet would be “trimmed” to bring the sail to the desired angle to the wind.
Because the staysail sheet is controlled from the cockpit, I had to yell back to Gretchin to loosen the staysail sheet. This took her longer to do than expected which I later found out was because she was in the process of puking over the side of the boat. (In the dark, I could barely see back into the cockpit.) But, after a few minutes, she managed to release the sheet, the staysail boom swung free, and I began hauling down on the halyard, raising the sail.
As the staysail came up, the wind grabbed it as expected, swinging its boom to face the wind, causing the sail to flog pretty violently (as was expected until we trimmed the sheet in again to the proper angle to the wind). I continued hoisting the sail, but suddenly, as the sail was only halfway up, despite my best efforts, even after wrapping the line around the winch and cranking, the sail wouldn’t go up any further. Something was wrong.
Holding on tightly and looking up the mast, I could see that somehow the part of the staysail halyard that went from the sail up to the block on the mast had gotten caught in the mainmast spreaders (arms that stick out perpendicular to the mast which hold the shrouds out). Evidently, when the halyard had slack in it while I was attaching it to the head of the staysail, the wind had caused it to thrash about and get stuck in a place that was 30 feet up on the mast with no way to get to it in the existing conditions.
And it appeared to be jammed tight. I already learned that I couldn’t pull up the sail using the end of the halyard that had come over the top of the block and back down to the winch; in fact trying to pull it harder would likely jam it further. I realized that I would have to go forward again to pull down on the sail, which would pull the halyard the other way and hopefully free it.
In the meantime, the sail was still flogging violently. If this continued too long, the sail would beat itself to death. So, again leapfrogging the tethers from strongpoint to strongpoint and hugging the staysail boom to prevent being thrown about, I scootched up to the front of the staysail boom, grabbed the front of the sail and tried to pull it down. But it still wouldn’t budge! Suddenly, this was a serious issue. If I couldn’t figure a way to get the halyard unjammed, I would at a minimum lose the sail. In the meantime, I realized that I was beginning to overheat from all the exertion. (Due to the cool night temperature and the winds, I had bundled up in fleece under my rain gear.) Despite the time-critical nature of what was happening, I knew I needed to slow down a bit to not over-exert myself.
At this point, pretty much at a loss of knowing what to try next, I decided to go back to the mast, loosen up the halyard so there was a bunch of slack between the block on the mast and the spreader below it, then tighten it up quickly so that the force of the loop of the slack tightening would be directed outboard of the spreader. Hopefully, if I caused it to whip back and forth, that would be enough to unjam it. Finally, after about five hard yanks, it broke free. I quickly took all the slack out of it so it wouldn’t jam again and continued hoisting up the staysail as quickly as possible.
This time the sail went about three-quarters of the way up, but then, once again, the same thing happened—the sail wouldn’t go any further. Something else had jammed it. I couldn’t see any issues with the halyard this time, so I knew it must be something at the front of the sail. I secured the halyard, then once again scootched/leapfrogged all the way forward to the front of the staysail to see what was going on.
Sure enough, the staysail reefing line (used when depowering the sail, but slack when not in use), had caught around one of the windlasses on the foredeck and was holding the front of the sail down. It was seemingly a simple fix: Pull it free from the windlass which would then allow the sail to continue up. But I now had so much tension on the sail because I had secured the halyard, that it didn’t appear that I would be able to free the reefing line unless I put some slack in it (which would require me to go back to the mast to do that, then back to the front of the staysail to free-up the reefing line, then back to the mast to hoist the sail!).
At this point, now being about 30 minutes into trying to get this sail up in these exhausting conditions, I couldn’t accept having to do that. I just didn’t want to have to go back and forth again. Instead, I decided to try to get my leg muscles into the action. So, instead of going back to the main mast, I moved even further forward on my belly past where the reefing line was jammed in the windlass. This required me to go partially up on the bowsprit. Lying on my stomach, holding on to the pulpit railings with my hands so I wouldn’t get thrown overboard, I looked back, placed the sole of my foot against the reefing line where it was pressed against the windlass and pushed hard, hoping to be able to lift it back and over the windlass. It moved, but not quite far enough. I tried again, but still didn’t move it enough. In an act of sheer desperation, accompanied by an involuntary yell, I put every bit of energy I had left into my leg and gave one last big push. This finally unwrapped the line from around the windlass, freeing up the staysail. After crawling back to the mast, I was able to finally hoist the staysail all the way up. Then I called back to Gretchin to trim in the sheet, the sail finally stopped flogging, and began providing some drive to the boat. All this had taken about 40 minutes! I crawled back to the cabin, overheated and exhausted.
After the boat settled into a groove with all four sails now set, the staysail did noticeably reduce our weather helm, so it had been worth all the effort (although it didn’t increase our speed any appreciable amount). And, I had learned a lot from that experience! (That I hate sailing?) 🙂
The boat was still rolling quite a bit, although we were now cruising more than 7 knots, often 8 and occasionally in the low 9’s, which was great! I really didn’t think my boat could go that fast! So, while it wasn’t the most comfortable ride, we were making good time.
And by uncomfortable, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the trip in Nicholay’s boat had been the previous year. That had been in a smaller, more “tender” boat (meaning it heels over more readily). And, while the waves were only slightly bigger then, they were “confused” seas, meaning that the winds and the seas didn’t agree, so that the waves and rollers were coming from multiple directions). We also did not have an autopilot on that trip. Mine was a heavier boat, the waves more regular, and we had an autopilot. But it was still impossible for either of us to go below for any period of time without getting nauseous.
In these conditions, at now 2:00 am, it wouldn’t have been fair to turn the watch over to Gretchin, who had almost no sailing experience. Besides, she was feeling pretty sick. So, I parked myself for the rest of the night in front of the helm, monitoring the autopilot and our heading. I found a way to prop myself in position sideways with my back to the wind where I could catch 3-minute catnaps until one of the bigger waves would roll us quite a bit more or a gust would “round us up”, which would wake me up. I’d then check the boat’s heading, ensure the autopilot was doing its job, then drift off again. This is how the next five hours went.
Through the night, the winds and seas gradually increased until they were about 18 knots and 4 to 5-foot seas. At daylight, it was more obvious how much rounding up we were back to doing with each gust—sometimes as much as 30 degrees to windward before the autopilot would correct.
With the increase in wind speed, we were back with too much weather helm again. We had powered up the foresails as much as possible, so the next step would be to depower the aft sails. I decided to start by reefing the mainsail since it was almost two and a half times as large as the mizzen.4
Reefing the main on my boat required crawling out to the main mast, but now instead of just scootching, I had to be standing up to reach the sail and pull it down to the reefing point. This ended up taking a while since I was having to use both hands most of the time to just hold on, then quickly free up one hand to pull down the sail in between waves. Had we been able to turn into the wind to do this, the sail would have come down largely on its own due to gravity. We initially tried to come into the wind, but that meant also pointing directly into the 4 to 5-foot seas, and that made the boat pitch too drastically to be able to safely do anything on deck. But out of the wind, the sail was pinned against the shrouds by the wind causing a lot of friction which had to be overcome by muscle power. It took longer than normal, but after about 15 minutes, we had it reefed. Once done, this did succeed in reducing the weather helm quite a bit, which smoothed out the ride (by reducing the heel of the boat) and making the rounding up into the wind during the gusts less drastic. Reefing the main also didn’t slow us down at all; the reduced sail area was compensated for by a more balanced (efficient) boat.
As the day progressed, knowing that the forecast called for the winds to increase even more, I realized that we needed to do more to reduce what would be increasing weather helm again. The choice at this point was to reduce either the mizzen or the main. We could put a second reef in the mainsail or douse it completely or do the same with the mizzen. I elected to just douse the mainsail completely since it would be hard to do so (or put in a second reef) if the winds picked up. The mizzen, being much smaller to begin with, would be easier to manage when the winds increased. (This turned out later to be a fortunate decision.) So, back up to the mast I went mid-morning to douse the main. This process was like reefing except that I just pulled it all the way down and secured it in its StackPack (a bag integrated into the top of the boom). We were now sailing with only the Genoa, the staysail, and the mizzen, and our speed was still in the 7 to 8 knot range.
By around 1 pm, we were seeing speeds in the 8’s and 9’s and I even saw a brief flash of 10.0 knots on the GPS one time. Seas were 4-5 feet and winds about 20 knots. Our ETA into Garden Key was still showing 8:00 pm–about an hour after dark. I knew that soon I’d need to text our fellow boat captains at Garden Key to get some “intel” about the anchorage (e.g., how full of boats it was, where they recommended we anchor, etc.) since trying to figure that out in the dark can be challenging.
I had to use my phone to send these texts (bluetoothed to the InReach), but I noticed that it needed charging, so I went below to plug it in. However, while doing so, I made a huge mistake. Another boating mantra is “One hand for you, one hand for the boat.” In other words, you should always be hanging on to something with at least one hand. For some reason, as I was plugging the charging cable into my phone, I forgot this most important of rules and used both hands to do so. Without warning, one of the bigger waves hit us broadside, quickly rolled the boat, and sent me airborne across the cabin and into the stove, which I hit with my right side.
It happened so fast there wasn’t time to do anything protective. I ended up crumpled on the cabin floor, howling uncontrollably in severe pain. It was so intense that I couldn’t move. I knew immediately that I had at least broken some ribs. (I’ve broken ribs before.) In response to my howls, Gretchin came down to render assistance. At first, I couldn’t–and didn’t want to–move at all, waiting for the level-9 pain to decrease at least a bit. It was difficult to even talk. After a few moments, I felt like I might be able to move a bit and asked Gretchin to help me back up to the cockpit, where I knew I needed to get ASAP in case, after the adrenaline stopped, I wouldn’t be able to move at all. I needed to be up there to at least see what was going on so I could coach Gretchin what to do. With much difficulty (and a lot more yelling in pain on my part), she got me up to where I could drape myself over one of the cockpit benches—the only position that provided any pain relief. I then asked her to retrieve some hydrocodone (narcotics) from my first aid kit.5
At this point I was quite worried about a bunch of things: our immediate outcome (getting safely to the anchorage at Garden Key); the success of the entire trip (i.e., what was going to happen to me, and how would I continue to captain my boat); what was really wrong with me.
I had broken ribs before and knew what that felt like, which is why I was certain I had broken at least a couple this time. But there seemed to be more going on here; I could feel things shifting and moving around inside where the injury was. I envisioned loose, shattered ribs moving around and cutting up internal organs or puncturing lungs, and so tried to minimize my movements as much as possible. I could easily envision needing to be air evac-ed from Garden Key to get surgery, and my boat either stuck in Garden Key or someone else having to retrieve it, Gretchin’s vacation ruined, etc. I was very frustrated and disappointed.
And, initially, I didn’t want to text our other boats at Garden Key to let them know what had happened because I was worried they’d go off the deep end and start arranging for helicopters, the Coast Guard, and who knows what else. The truth is, I was reluctant to ask for help. But, after thinking about it while letting the narcotics take effect, I realized that–if only for Gretchin’s sake–I had to let others know of the severely-reduced capabilities of our crew. I was pretty much incapacitated, and Gretchin was green and was not capable of doing a lot of what needed to be done (or at least, I was not going to subject her to the dangers of doing what needed to be done—especially after my experience on the foredeck the previous day). Luckily, our sail plan was balanced, the autopilot was working well, and we were heading in the right direction. But we were still seven hours out, things could change at any time, we would eventually have to douse the sails when arriving at the anchorage, and it was going to be dark. Also, Gretchin had never set an anchor and could not do that by herself. We would need help.
So, I used the InReach to text the guys in Garden Key to tell them what had happened, what our status was, our ETA, and the assistance we would require. As I predicted, they immediately got the Dry Tortugas National Park rangers involved, and connected with Olivia, a doctor and fellow sailor at DIYC to get medical advice (“Move as little as possible to limit internal damage”) and arranged a number of medevac options. It made me feel incompetent and impotent knowing that I was going to need all that assistance, but deep down I was also very appreciative that the help was there.
Meanwhile, on Serendipity, we had to prepare. Luckily, we had doused the mainsail earlier. Had we not done that, Gretchin would have had to go out on deck and try to hang on to the main mast while pulling the mainsail down. With her 4’11” height, this would have been difficult, if not impossible. Also dangerous. So, I was very thankful that we didn’t have to deal with that. That left three sails up that would eventually have to come down: the Genoa, the mizzen, and the staysail. The staysail would require Gretchin going all the way to the foredeck in the rolling, pitching boat. After experiencing how challenging that was in the conditions the night before—which were less severe than than they were presently–I was not going to subject Gretchin to that; the staysail would have to stay up until we got into the anchorage. Luckily, this was the smallest of all the sails, and so we would just be letting the sheet run free and the sail flog when we got to the anchorage—so it wouldn’t affect boat handling—until someone could douse it after we got in calm water.
That left the Genoa and mizzen. The Genoa was roller-reefing, which is done from the cockpit, so that would be relatively easy. The mizzen was also hoisted and set from the cockpit. But, like the main, it would not usually drop all the way into the bag by itself but had to be helped down. This was especially true since we couldn’t turn into the wind. This would require climbing up the mizzen mast about 8 feet, another thing I was not going to have Gretchin do in such conditions as the few times I had to do that earlier in the trip, it took all my upper body strength to hold onto the mast when we would roll in the bigger waves. So, we decided we would just loosen the mizzen halyard when we came into the anchorage and let it fall where and how much it would. We’d square it away later.
As 6 pm and darkness approached, we furled the Genoa. This was our main driving sail, and our speed immediately dropped to about 4 knots. But this was fine since I wanted to motor about two hours to charge up the batteries anyway. So, we cranked up the engine and motor-sailed at about 6.5 knots the rest of the way in on just the staysail and the mizzen. Before starting the engine, we had sailed 152 NM in the previous 24 hours.
The guys on the other boats had come up with a plan in the meantime: They had requested the rangers take two of them out in the park’s large RHIB (rigid hull inflatable boat) to rendezvous with us at an auxiliary anchorage that was just outside the channel entrance and in the lee of Fort Jefferson, so there would be relatively little wind. We would turn into the wind, unsheet the staysail and douse the mizzen. They would then board us, help douse the staysail, take us to the main anchorage, and help us anchor safely. It was a good plan.
We arrived right on time at 8 pm, and everything went pretty much as planned except that the ranger driving the RHIB didn’t really know what he was doing, and it took a long time to get the guys aboard. They were surprised to see me driving the boat, but standing was actually the least-painful position for me by then. With the hydrocodone in effect, I could operate the engine and steer the boat without too much difficulty. (This was lucky because Gretchin had only occasionally steered the boat, and that was always under sail. Keeping the boat heading into the wind to keep the sails depowered in a small area surrounded by shallows at night required some quick gear shifting and steering inputs which she would not have had the experience to do.)
Anyway, Nicholay and Sean eventually made it aboard and quickly doused the sails as I turned toward the channel that led to the main anchorage on the southeast side of the fort. Sean did a great job coaching me into the anchorage, then Nicholay deployed the anchor right behind Mexican and attached the bridle while I backed us down into place and solidly set the anchor. On this side of the fort, the winds were still blowing 20 knots, but at least the water (and thus the boat) were smooth. It was 8:30 by the time we set anchor, and I was very relieved to be safe and in the hands of friends and family!
Before we had arrived, Sean had discussed medevac possibilities with the rangers. We all agreed that I need to get x-rays soon to see what was going on inside me. The options were an emergency medevac that night (via helicopter air ambulance) or taking one of the tourist seaplanes out in the morning.6 I didn’t feel I needed the immediacy to be medevaced that night, so opted for the seaplane ride in the morning.
After a surprisingly decent night of sleep (we were exhausted and for me, the hydrocodone was doing its job), we woke up, had coffee, then took a dinghy ride with Sean and Nicholay into shore to meet the 8:30 seaplane flight out. So, it was just me and the pilot in the 1962 DeHavilland Otter flight to Key West.
It was fun being in the air again, and by 9:15 we landed at Key West Intl Airport where I took a taxi to the Key West Medical Center. 7
Although I was signed-in by 10:15 am, I had to wait five hours in the ER before being seen! X-rays confirmed that I indeed had two broken ribs, but that they were fortunately still “in alignment”, and I had no other damage.
That was a huge relief since it meant that I just needed to go back to the boat and heal as much as possible before making a passage back home. We had intended to just sit at anchor relaxiat Garden Key for a week or so anyway, so hopefully nothing much would need to change.
I found out later that the other captains from our little DIYC “flotilla” were glad, too, because while I was in Key West, they had been coming up with plans about what to do with my boat if I were unable to sail her back. These plans involved everything from setting up a temporary mooring for my boat at Garden Key until I could get back to her, to one of them sailing her to a Key West marina then flying back to their own boat, and a few other ideas. Thankfully, none of those was needed now, and I was very glad that likely—as long as we could find a two-day weather window with calm seas—Gretchin and I would be able to bring the boat back ourselves.
Meanwhile, in true sailor-hospitality custom, they had made Gretchin feel very welcome in my absence, inviting her to meals on their boats (and one on the beach), taking her with them on a snorkel trip to Loggerhead Key, and giving her a dinghy ride to Garden Key so she could explore the fort. I joked with her later that people would pay thousands of dollars to have their own, personal, floating Airbnb for a couple days in Garden Key!
Back in Key West, due to the long wait, I missed by 10 minutes the chance to deadhead back to Garden Key on the last seaplane flight of the day and so had to get a hotel for the night. This was now December 30th, the day before New Year’s Eve, so Key West was packed with tourists! I got the last room in one of the few hotels with any vacancy. The Hampton Inn basic room I ended up with would have cost me $460 for the night, but luckily, I had just enough Hilton Honor points leftover from my job to pay for the room.
And, since it was only 5:00 pm and there was so much excited energy around because of New Years, I decided I would go downtown to party and drink heavily (instead of taking narcotics). Luckily, the hotel had a shuttle that went downtown, so I hopped on that to hit Duval Street. Coincidentally, the only other people on the shuttle were two couples my age from Tampa. We talked a lot on the way downtown. They seemed fun, and as we got out, they asked if I wanted to come drinking with them. Perfect! So, we bar-hopped for a few hours, having a very good time, but as midnight approached, it was evident that alcohol wasn’t enough for the pain, and I departed company with them and took the shuttle back to the hotel.
The pain was getting substantial, but I knew that I couldn’t combine narcotics with alcohol so just laid still in bed to minimize the pain and eventually fell asleep. But, when I woke up in the morning, the pain was so severe that it took me almost 30 minutes to get out of bed! When I finally was able to get up, I quickly gulped down some narcotics and waited for them to take effect. Then it was shower, dress, checkout, and head downtown again to run some necessary errands.
The main thing I had to do was get the hospital’s prescriptions for hydrocodone and stool softener filled. (I didn’t want to dip into my hydrocodone stash any more than necessary, and the stool softener was because narcs tend to constipate—more on that later!).
I also wanted an alternative to the narcotics. The ER doc said she could by law only prescribe me 5 days’-worth of hydrocodone but recommended getting my primary care doctor to prescribe me another 30 days’-worth! This was a problem for me for a couple reasons: 1) I had no desire to be on narcotics for 30 days; and 2) I wasn’t going to see my primary care for at least another two weeks! So, I wanted to find another pain-management solution. After doing some research, quality CBD seemed to hold the best promise for pain relief, and there was some significant, recent research that CBD can also help bones heal. So, I found a place with a good reputation on Duval Street and planned to hit that, as well as a pharmacy.
However, filling the prescriptions turned out to be more difficult than I expected. The first CVS I went to didn’t have a pharmacy; the second one did, but it was closed (this was now Saturday, the 31st), and the third place I walked to didn’t have enough hydrocodone in the strength the doctor had prescribed! It finally all got worked out (the pharmacist stole some from another patient’s bottle!), and I found the CBD place and spent $140 for a bottle of tincture to put under my tongue twice a day. All this had required walking about two miles! Then, I had lunch, took the shuttle back to the hotel to retrieve my luggage, then headed for the airport to catch the seaplane back to my boat, Gretchin, and Garden Key. But instead of just me and the pilot this time, for some reason there were other people and a ton of supplies heading to Garden Key.
I had been in contact with the others while I was in Key West.8 They had been telling me about how dozens of Cuban migrants had been showing up in homemade boats over the last few days, and how there were already almost 200 of them at Garden Key, overwhelming the 3 rangers who lived at the fort. The rangers had requested assistance, food, and water until the Coast Guard could retrieve the migrants, which was why the seaplanes were full. I had another scenic 40-minute flight back in the seaplane, was met onshore by Nicholay and Sean, and then everyone spent New Year’s Eve having a nice dinner on the biggest of our four boats, Island Time 2. There were 10 people altogether from our four boats at dinner. It was nice even though I was pretty much out of it. The next day, Island Time 2 departed Garden Key for home via a stop in Key West.
Mexicana was anchored right next to us, and Nicholay would stop by for breakfast and other times throughout the day to check on me. It was great hanging out with him!
The following night, we had Nicholay, and from Shazaam!, Sean & Amanda Motta, and their crewmember, Clay Morris, over for a spaghetti dinner that I had prepared before we left Tampa. It was fun hosting a dinner on my boat and to see that six people could eat comfortably at the salon table. I finally felt like I was actually experiencing the cruising lifestyle!
The next day Shazaam! departed for DIYC direct (and with him went our Starlink internet connection). Nicholay stayed another day during which he helped us set up our dinghy and motor. The dinghy had been stored on the main deck for the passage down, and I was in no shape to try to muscle it over the side to deploy it, so Nicholay and Gretchin did that. Even though we had completely serviced the motor prior to putting it in storage a year ago, it wouldn’t run right after Nick had installed it on the dinghy. Nick did some quick troubleshooting and determined that the carburetor float needed to be replaced. Luckily, I had a spare, and in 10 minutes he had it replaced, and the engine ran great! (I’m certainly going to miss his skills once he goes out cruising for good. I wouldn’t have had a clue what the issue was!)
Nicholay had dinner with us that night on Serendipity before his departure the next morning. It was so great cruising with him, even if we overlapped for only a few days. I felt so proud of him. He’d worked so hard for over the previous six years taking Mexicana from pretty much a hulk to a boat ready to cruise the world and has learned so much during that time that he is truly considered the resident expert on boats and sailing. Even sailors with years of experience seek his advice. But even more than that, people just like being around him. I knew I would be sad to see him go the next morning.
Throughout this time, more Cuban migrants kept showing up. They’d arrive in “chugs”, homemade boats, typically with diesel car or truck engines stuck in them, very crude (like huge bathtubs), packed with as many people as could fit.
And by “packed” I mean both inside and hanging off the sides! They’d depart Cuba and head north, hoping to hit Florida which was 90 or more miles away. If they were interdicted by U.S. law enforcement at sea, they would be repatriated back to Cuba. But, if they touched U.S. soil before being interdicted, they would earn the right to at least a political-asylum hearing.
(You can hear the Cubans already ashore cheering the new arrivals.)
It was very emotional watching them approach the island, then jump out and wade ashore, shouting and hugging each other. The Cubans, who were already on the island, would be whistling and cheering them the whole time. Over the next few days, we saw probably 8 or 9 such boats come ashore. More came at night which we didn’t witness. After making it ashore, the migrants would eventually make their way to the fort, or sometimes, if the boat looked like it was going to get hung up on a reef (or would actually get hung up on a reef), the rangers would take one of their boats out and retrieve the migrants.
We witnessed one dicey situation where a chug ran aground on a reef that was about 1⁄2 mile from the fort. The migrants just jumped out, holding their meager possessions above their heads and began wading toward the fort. They didn’t realize that in front of them a few dozen feet, the water dropped to a 30-foot depth all the way to the fort. Seeing the situation, two ranger boats launched immediately and managed to pull all the migrants out of the water before there was any loss of life. It made us wonder how bad it must be in Cuba for people to risk their lives (and the lives of their children) in such a way. (There were women and children aboard many of the boats we saw.). The number of migrants camped out in the fort kept growing until it reached a final count of 279!
On January 3rd, Nicholay and Mexicana departed for Tampa. This would be his longest single-handed passage yet, and the furthest offshore, going direct back to DIYC. I was worried about him and said a prayer as I watched him sail out of sight. (He ended up having almost perfect sailing weather the entire way back and had a good experience.)
Meanwhile, later that day, Gretchin decided to take the paddleboard to the fort for some sightseeing. (I was still not able to do much.) However, at the beach she was turned away by one of the rangers who told her that because there were so many migrants now, the park was closed. We could stay anchored but could not touch land. Not a huge deal, but it caught us a bit off guard. After the other half-dozen boats anchored there got the news, they all departed. But because I had to heal, we just stayed there and had the entire anchorage to ourselves for what turned out to be about five days. It was the first time the park had been closed in almost 30 years.
During those five days, it got very interesting at Garden Key. Migrants kept coming, and the rangers were struggling to provide sanitation facilities, food, water, etc., to them. The seaplanes would occasionally show up bringing in supplies–and sometimes people to help. A small ship owned by the National Park Service, the Fort Jefferson, showed up to assist, as did a Florida Wildlife Commission (FWC) small boat, and later a much larger gun-boat-looking FWC vessel. Three Coast Guard cutters anchored on the other side of the fort at various times over the next few days sending in their small boats to evacuate the migrants. We also saw U.S. Customs and Coast Guard helicopters making multiple landings, Coast Guard C-130s and Falcon jets overflying the island, and lots of other things. It provided great entertainment while we bobbed at anchor for days!
The nights during the trip were very special. Once we escaped the light pollution on land, the stars just “popped”. We could see probably 20 times more stars than we could from shore! The Milky Way was plainly visible. There are typically no lights on Garden Key either, so the stars were just as brilliant there. There was one night when we saw Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn with our naked eyes! Pretty awesome.
After my injury, Gretchin found herself getting much more than she bargained for on this trip! She had to immediately step up and learn tasks she was totally unfamiliar with and had never seen done before, but she performed them all flawlessly. She was a real trooper, never complaining, but always finding ways to help. I hate to think how the trip down would have turned out without her help.
During all this time at Garden Key, Gretchin had also been taking great care of me. I was taking muscle relaxants, narcotics, and the CBD. I was also taking the stool softener which the ER doctor had prescribed since most narcotics cause constipation. I was able to walk around fairly easily, and after everyone else had left we even took a couple of short dinghy rides around the anchorage to break up the monotony. (I was able to steer the dinghy, but Gretchin had to pull-start the motor each time.) But I could only sleep on my back due to the pain. Although I able to engage in token work, Gretchin was forced to do most of the real daily chores on the boat, which she did with her typical enthusiasm.
A few days after returning to Garden Key from Key West, it dawned on me that I hadn’t pooped since leaving my hotel there. That was over three days prior! I had been eating normally all this time. It appeared that the narcotics had put my excretory system to sleep! I didn’t feel constipated, but it was evident that things were simply not moving. This concerned me. I could see a situation developing where the partially digested food would start backing up, causing major problems and pain and perhaps another issue requiring a medevac. I was NOT going to let that happen again! Yet, I couldn’t stop the narcotics due to the pain level, so I opted to just stop eating. (This wasn’t a big deal to me as I have fasted more than once for over a week.) I planned to just drink clear liquids until I could get off the narcotics (when hopefully my excretory system would wake back up).
In the middle of all this, a few days after Nicholay had left, the weather forecast called for a powerful cold front coming through, including strong winds coming from the direction opposite to which we had anchored. This meant that it was possible the anchor would come loose as the wind pushed us to the other side of it. So, we decided that we would re-anchor facing the direction of the expected winds before they arrived.
We had also been having to run the engine about an hour each day to charge the batteries. (It turned out that my lead-acid batteries are pretty much shot.) Unfortunately, diesels engines don’t like being operated without a load, so I wanted to take the boat out and motor around awhile under load to clean out any coking on the cylinders, etc. Instead of just tooling around in circles though, we decided to go visit Loggerhead Key, a pretty island about three miles away with a light house, and more importantly, a mooring ball installed right by a big windjammer sailboat wreck from the 1800s. I wasn’t in any kind of condition to go snorkeling, but we thought it would just be nice to tie up to the mooring ball and have lunch, then come back and re-anchor in the new direction, killing three birds with one stone, as it were.
But it turned out to be a day when everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. We should have just stayed put!
To depart the anchorage to take the trip to Loggerhead Key, we, of course, had to weigh anchor. Serendipity has about 180’ of anchor chain. We had about 100’ of this deployed. Anchor chain provides a very strong connection between the boat and the anchor, provides protection from sharp rocks or coral, and its weight helps keep the anchor set. But chains don’t “give” like anchor line (rope) does. If the winds or swells get strong, damage can occur to the connection point of the chain on the boat. For this reason, wise sailors connect either a bridle (Y-shaped to connect to two points on the boat) or a snubber (single line) between the chain and the boat–both made from nylon line which stretches about 15%. The snubber or bridle is connected to the chain after the anchor is set in such a way that it takes the anchor load instead of the chain being connected directly to the boat.9
Serendipity uses a bridle to get the extra benefit of these sometimes-strong loads being divided between two cleats on the bow instead of just one, as with a snubber. It connects to the chain with a built-in stainless steel “jaw” which clamps on any of the chain links and is then held in place with an elastic strap which wraps around the chain link and re-attaches to the jaw.
The trickiest part of connecting or disconnecting the bridle is the little elastic strap on the jaw because it is very tight and can only be reached from a very awkward position way up front in the boat while leaning over the pulpit. Because Gretchin had never weighed anchor before, she was having trouble getting the rubber strap off the jaws to disconnect the bridle from the chain. So, I went forward to demonstrate. As I was leaning over the pulpit of the boat trying to reach the bridle jaws, my brand-new pair of $150 Maui Jim sunglasses, which had been hanging in my shirt, fell into the water. Had I not had two broken ribs, I would have simply jumped in after them. Gretchin has a strong aversion to big fish in the water with her, and we had had two Goliath groupers hanging around under our boat for days, so she wasn’t willing to go in after them, either. So all we could do was just watch them sink to the bottom. Bummer.
Eventually, we got the bridle disconnected and the anchor up, turned our InReach tracking on again in case anyone was still interested (we had turned it off upon our arrival at Garden Key), and headed to Loggerhead Key, towing the dinghy behind us. The weather was beautiful—just a slight wind out of the SE and gently rolling 1-ft seas. The mooring ball was on the far, northwest side of Loggerhead Key, which would be about an hour trip.
As we were motoring alongside the southeast side of the island before circling around it to the mooring ball, we saw what appeared to be a very small sailboat about a mile ahead of us. It appeared so small that we weren’t sure what it was, initially. Then we both simultaneously realized that it was one of the Cuban migrant boats—a chug! And we were heading right for it!
A lot of questions immediately surged through my mind: Would it be legal to offer assistance? What if they were in dire straits and needed off the boat; was I prepared to try to take a dozen or more migrants onto my 38-ft sailboat? Would I be allowed to bring them to shore? Or would I be stuck with them until other help arrived (with a cold front only a few hours away)? Should we just turn around and act like we never saw it? Should we turn around and call it in to the Coast Guard?
I decided we needed more information and so asked Gretchin to get the binoculars. One glance through it brought immediate relief. I could make out orange spray paint on the sail and no visible people. Spray painting orange on a boat was something that we did in the Coast Guard to let everyone know that it had already been searched (that is, if we were unable to sink it, which was always the first choice so it wouldn’t present a hazard to navigation). It was obvious to me that anyone who had been on that boat had already been removed. So, we proceeded straight on, passed by the now empty boat,
circled around the end of the island, and continued to the mooring ball.10 And this is where the “fun” truly began!
After making a slow pass by the mooring ball on the non-windjammer side to see how it was set up, we could see that the mooring ball had been placed very close to the windjammer wreck which was so big that a couple pieces of the wreck were sticking above the water. It was obvious that we would have to stay on the opposite side of the ball from the wreck if we didn’t want to risk hitting it. Because we already had the anchor bridle set up, we decided to use this to attach to the mooring ball as it would be quick and the most secure. Gretchin detached the jaw piece from the end of the bridle and replaced it with special mooring ball carabiner. Then I approached the pendant while Gretchin fished it out of the water with a boat hook and snapped the carabiner to it. Easy, peasy.
Except that something wasn’t quite right; instead of the wind gently pushing us downwind of the mooring ball, we were instead approaching it. It was evident that a current was acting counter to the wind. I needed to reverse the boat to keep from getting tangled in the mooring ball and pendant. But I also realized that about 20 feet of the dinghy’s painter (the line that’s attached to the bow of the dinghy for towing or securing the dinghy to a dock) was hanging underwater since it was slack behind us. That could easily get caught in Serendipity’s propeller as we backed up, so I called to Gretchin to quickly come aft and pull the dinghy’s painter out of the water while I backed up, which she did.
That got the boat clear of the mooring ball and it appeared it would stay that way, so I shut off the engine, and we contemplated having lunch. The problem was, since the current and the winds weren’t in agreement, we were experiencing a rather uncomfortable rolling of the boat. We both went below to take a break and decide whether to bother with lunch in the rolly conditions. But no sooner had we sat down when we heard something bumping up against the boat. I assumed it would be the dinghy, but when I went up on deck to check, I could see, to my alarm, that it was the mooring ball…on the completely wrong side of the boat! Somehow the current had managed to swing us around the ball in the matter of a minute or two so that its pendant and our bridle were wrapped completely under the keel of the boat and rudder–and the current was holding us there! This wouldn’t do because we now couldn’t start the boat (with the lines lying near the propeller), which meant we couldn’t leave!
We grabbed the longest boat hook we had to try to push the pendant/bridle down far enough so that it would pass below the keel and release us, but the pole wasn’t long enough. The simple solution would be to simply dive under the boat and unclip the carabiner from the mooring ball pendant, which would immediately release us. But I was in no condition to do that with my broken ribs. We had been observing two large sharks swimming directly beneath us since we had gotten there,
so I knew there was no chance Gretchin was going to get into the water (and I’m not sure I would have, either!), so that option was out. Of course, waiting until the tide changed would reverse the current, which would release us, but that was hours away—long after the cold front was due to pass—and I DID NOT want to be in our current situation having to deal with 35-knot winds.
After sitting back a few minutes and analyzing the situation, I thought there might be a way to use the dinghy to tow the boat backward enough to release the tension the current was causing. It was the only solution I could think of, so we decided to try it. I rigged up a tow line, Gretchin climbed into the dinghy to start the motor, then we switched places, I hooked onto the tow line, and began pulling the boat backward.
Initially, it didn’t seem like it was going to work because the dinghy was very hard to control; when I’d apply power to the motor, the back end of the dinghy would just plow into the water, threatening to swamp it, and I couldn’t really control the heading because of all the tension on the tow line. But the attempts evidently did enough, because suddenly the boat was free! I drove back over to the boat, jumped back aboard while Gretchin was fishing the pendant out of the water with the boat hook, and as I started the boat’s engine, she disconnected us from the mooring ball. Neither of us needed to discuss the obvious: We were just getting the hell away from that thing and going back to Garden Key! We motored around the north side of the island and about an hour later entered the channel back to the Garden Key anchorage. Then we briefed what the new anchoring plan would be.
Because the winds hadn’t yet shifted (the front was still some hours away), setting the anchor was going to be a bit unusual. Normally, you just drive the boat into the wind until you reach the point where you want to drop the anchor, stop, drop the anchor, and then let the wind drive you back downwind as you pay out the chain until enough is out. Then attach the bridle, and motor backwards to set the anchor securely.
But today, we weren’t going to be setting it into the existing wind, but toward where we knew the strong wind would be blowing from later that night. Thus, instead of having the wind blow us backwards away from the anchor, we would have to back away using the engine. This would be awkward because my boat doesn’t reverse straight backwards. It “prop walks” to the left, as many boats with inboard engines do. This has to do with the way the propeller interacts with the water when spinning backwards; it basically makes the stern pull to the left (port). So, this was another factor we’d have to compensate for when choosing the initial heading when dropping the anchor.
The other considerations were to ensure we dropped the anchor in shallow enough water that we wouldn’t have to deploy hundreds of feet of chain and line, but far enough away from shoal waters that we wouldn’t go aground if/when the wind shifted.
As we entered the anchorage, I was trying to calculate all these variables in my mind as I chose the location and direction to drop the anchor. Eventually, I choose the spot, and upon coasting to a stop there, called out to Gretchin to drop the anchor. After she confirmed that it was on the bottom, I put the boat in reverse and began backing up as Gretchin gradually paid out chain.
After about 30 seconds of this, the engine suddenly quit. It had never done this before. Puzzled, I looked around and noticed the dinghy pulled up very tight against the stern of the boat. It took about a half a second for me to realize that I had made a huge mistake: I had forgotten to pull the slack dinghy painter out of the water before backing down. The painter had wrapped itself around and around the propeller shaft until it pulled the dinghy as close as it could, then stopped the propeller (and hence engine) cold.
At that point I was glad for at least two things: That the anchor was down so we wouldn’t drift aground, and that we were still the only ones in the anchorage so nobody else was witness to my folly (and there were no other boats to drift into)!
There was only one solution to this, and that was to dive under the boat, cut away the painter, and to see if there was any damage to the prop shaft. I was worried about trying to do this with two broken ribs, but because it was my mistake, I would be the one fixing it. And anyway, with the Goliath grouper in the area, I knew that Gretchin wouldn’t be comfortable doing it. There were also only about 30 minutes until dark, so there was no time to waste. I secured the dinghy to the boat with another line (so it wouldn’t drift away when I cut off the original painter), stripped down to my shorts, donned my snorkel gear, grabbed a knife, and lowered myself into the water.
The water was cool, but not cold, so that was nice. Yet, it became immediately apparent that the water pressure against my ribs was going to be causing me a lot of pain. Since there was nothing to be done about that, I sucked it up and dove down to survey the situation. Sure enough, a bunch of painter was wrapped very tightly around the prop shaft. Using the knife to cut away parts of the line while spinning the prop forward—and after coming up for air four or five times–I was finally able to clear away all the painter. There didn’t appear to be any damage to the prop shaft, which was a relief. I climbed back into the boat, dried off, and started the engine without an issue. We then completed the anchoring without any more problems just before sundown.
All in all, a day we both would have rather forgotten! (And the cold front turned out to be a non-event in the end!)
A couple of days later, I woke up and felt like something had changed with my body. I opted to forgo the narcotics and switch to Tylenol, and never went back the rest of the trip. And, sure enough, within a few hours, my digestive system woke back up and things started flowing normally again. And that meant that I could resume eating! (I only had only had to fast three days.)
Finally, a few days after that, they opened the park back up. The only way we knew they had done so was because both seaplanes showed up at 8:30—their usual first tourist flights— and deposited a bunch of visitors on the beach. Hurray! And later, the ferry showed up right on time, too!
As mentioned, the Yankee Freedom brings tourists each day from Key West to Garden Key. It is about a 3-hour trip, arriving at Garden Key around 10:30 am and departing about 2:30 pm each day. Although Garden Key itself has no facilities (food, water, electricity, etc.), the ferry does, and because of the contract it has with the Dry Tortugas National Park, when docked there, it is required to provide restrooms, bar, and food service to anyone visiting the island. At 1:30 pm each day, the ferry would open its bar up to everyone and provide some relatively inexpensive drinks ($6 for a frozen margarita or pina colada). We would take advantage of this to grab a drink, then go up on the ferry’s sun deck and mingle with the Key West tourists or other boaters anchored off the fort. It even had ice cream, which was a treat after living “on the hook” for a couple of weeks!
So, that morning we took the dinghy ashore, toured Fort Jefferson and the beaches, and then, since I was now off narcotics, had a drink on the ferry to celebrate things being almost back to normal.
At this point we had already been at Garden Key for 10 days—almost 5 of them by ourselves. Now that it was evident I was healing fairly quickly, it was time to start thinking about how we were going to get home. What we were looking for was a weather “window” of 2-3 days which would provide us with calm seas, even if it meant motoring all the way back home. What we didn’t want was any rough weather that could toss me around again. Using the InReach, we downloaded some offshore forecasts, but also texted Sean back in Tampa to request he act as our personal weather forecaster since he was very good at interpreting the weather reports. Together, we found what looked like it would be a decent window in a couple days and so planned our departure for then.
In the meantime, other boats started arriving at Garden Key now that the park had reopened. One of them was a small, racing trimaran which we watched come right up to the beach in front of the fort and anchor.
We eventually met the two sailors, Alan and Jim, who, it turns out, happened to be the commodore and vice-commodore at a yacht club north of Orlando. They had been in a race from Ft. Lauderdale to Key West a few days earlier and had decided to continue to the Dry Tortugas for a couple of days. The cabin of this 28-foot boat was quite small— barely enough for two people to sit–and so they had been living on backpacking food the entire trip. We felt bad for them, so invited them over to Serendipity for dinner and drinks that night and had a very good time. The next day we met them again for drinks on the ferry and exchanged numbers and emails.
Then we went back to our boat and began prepping for the next morning’s departure. This mainly involved deflating and securing the stand-up paddle board and dinghy and ensuring everything inside was as secure as possible. (One of the many things we had learned on the way down was that things needed to be better secured in the cabin.)
The next morning, January 10th, we were up at dawn, had some tea and coffee, weighed anchor (uneventfully this time), and motored out of the anchorage, remembering to turn on the InReach tracking and send another departure message to our friends and relatives. The forecast called for winds out of the NE at 12 knots and seas 3-4’ for the first day, then calming down significantly after midnight the first day for the rest of the trip. While for comfort reasons we wanted conditions that would require us to motor (i.e., low winds and low seas), I was worried that we might not have enough fuel to motor all the way back.
Historically, at a cruise setting of 2200 RPM, Serendipity’s 42-year-old engine burned about 3⁄4 of a gallon of diesel per hour, which provided a speed of about 5.5 knots. If that held true, we had enough fuel with a comfortable reserve. But, if it burned more per hour, or we weren’t going that fast (due to the sea state) there might not be enough to get us all the way to DIYC. I had originally brought enough fuel to easily motor the entire 211 miles, if necessary, but failed to consider the fact that we had to run the engine every day for 60-90 minutes to recharge the batteries. So, I dipped the tank (my fuel gauge doesn’t work) to measure the fuel before we departed, intending to check it again about 24 hours later to get an accurate burn rate.
The weather ended up being very close to the forecast. Our direct course back home was about 010 degrees (just east of north), and the initial winds were about 030 at 12 knots with 3-4’ seas. Because we were heading into the waves, and every third or fourth wave was big enough to slow us down momentarily, instead of 5.5 knots, we were averaging only about 4 knots. While a knot and a half may not seem like much, that’s 28% slower, which meant the difference between getting back in 52 hours at 4 knots compared to 38 hours at 5.5 knots! That’s an additional 14 hours—another complete night—and an additional 10 gallons of fuel that we didn’t have. So, I elected to motor-sail, which meant hoisting some sails while motoring. This would help us power through the waves and increase our speed while stabilizing the boat. However, in our case, it also meant having to turn about 20 degrees further away from the wind since we couldn’t sail directly into it. We set the Genoa and mizzen (both from the cockpit—I wasn’t willing to set any sails that required anyone to go up on deck) and turned to 355 degrees (just west of north)—the closest we could get to the wind. Our speed picked up to 6.5 knots even as I was able to throttle back to 2000 RPM to save a bit of fuel. Although we were not heading direct, I felt confident that the increase in speed made the slight off-course heading worth it.
As the morning turned to afternoon, the winds decreased in speed and backed more toward north, requiring us to slowly change our course even more westward, or out toward the middle of the Gulf, to be able to continue to motor sail. At a certain point, it no longer became worth going so far off course, so we doused the sails, turned back direct to the entrance to Tampa Bay, and increased engine RPM back to 2200. The seas had abated a bit by then, giving us about 5 knots. As the day progressed, the winds and seas continued to dissipate until by the next morning, we had about 1-foot seas and a cruising speed of 6.5 knots at the same RPM.
The seas were also calm enough for us enjoy being down below in the cabin while cruising, cook food, and take turns sleeping in the bunks instead of out in the cockpit throughout the night, all of which was much appreciated!
When I dipped the tank the next morning, I was shocked and disappointed to see that instead of burning 3/4 gallons per hour, we had burned almost 1 gallon per hour over the previous 24 hours. This was inexplicable, especially since we had reduced the throttle to 2000 RPMs for about 4 hours the previous morning when motor-sailing. Nonetheless, quick calculations showed that we were right on the brink of not having enough fuel to make it to DIYC, all depending on what cruise speed we were able to maintain. And this was a function of the sea state and currents. Luckily, the seas continued to decrease to virtually smooth and the currents were in our favor. In any case, there were no favorable refueling spots on the way in—diverting to even the nearest ones would have delayed us too long. (We didn’t have much room for delays as another very strong front was due to hit the next day.) So, we gambled that we’d at least be able to make it into upper Tampa Bay, and if we ran out of gas there, Nicholay would be able to run some fuel out to us from DIYC in his dinghy (or so we hoped).11 So, we pressed on.
Eventually, we closed the coast and reacquired cell phone service, which we hadn’t had since Shazaam! had departed on January 2nd. It was nice getting caught up on the texts and emails from loved ones. By this point, the seas were completely, almost freakishly smooth, with winds less than 2 knots. It was exactly what we had hoped for. And minimal winds are always welcome when trying to get into my slip at DIYC (which is never easy).
The rest of the afternoon was very easy and smooth, just chugging up Tampa Bay. Surprisingly, for such a calm, beautiful day, there was hardly any other boat traffic, although we did see many dolphins and some sea turtles.
As we passed St. Petersburg, we heard ourselves being hailed on the VHF radio. It turned out to be Sean, moving another DIYC member’s boat, Scorpion, from Salt Creek Marina in St. Petersburg back to DIYC. He had been tracking us via our InReach, saw that we were close, and so called. They were about 10 minutes behind us!
We experienced a truly incredible sunset over the Sunshine Skyway as we continued north to DIYC.
We arrived there a bit after dark—about 7 pm—to relatively calm winds. Nicholay was there to help with our lines, and after getting them set and the shore power hooked up, Gretchin and I each grabbed a quick shower at the club, then took Nicholay and Sean (who had since arrived in Scorpion) out to dinner as a thank you for all the help they had given us. There were lots of sea stories over that meal!
It ended up being a 15-day trip with about 450 miles traveled.
While it didn’t play out exactly the way we had originally envisioned, it was a very interesting and memorable trip, and an incredible learning experience. We learned a lot about the boat (both at anchor and during the passage), and I feel it was my first true “cruise”. And, despite the injuries and the park being closed for a large part of our visit, it was a success, and has given me a lot more confidence in Serendipity’s readiness to cruise. Oh, and at 4:00 am that morning, I woke up from a dead sleep, remembering we had forgotten to send the “arrived safe” message to our friends and relatives on the InReach, so did that, turned off the InReach tracking, and went back to some much-needed sleep.
- This is a handheld GPS tracking device which also has text capabilities (and an SOS function). Basically, it uses satellite technology that would allow us to: declare a mayday; send and receive texts (for a fee); receive local and marine offshore forecasts (again for a fee); and to let designated friends and relatives track our progress on a web page map. (We ended up having 30 friends and relatives tracking us during the trip.) It was about $450 and has a $25/mo. base subscription fee, but I knew that it would be good to have because once outside of cell coverage (which would occur during the first day of sailing), we would have no other way to contact anyone or get weather updates ↩︎
- Weather helm is the tendency of the boat to turn into the wind when the wind increases (like in a gust). Some weather helm is desirable since it make the boat easier to steer, and safer because turning into the wind depowers the sails, which allows the boat to slow down a bit. This is much safer than “lee helm”, where the boat will turn downwind in a gust, which powers up the sails and exacerbates the problem, putting the boat in a very-difficult- to-control situation. But too much weather helm is not good, either, because the rudder is having to be deflected too much from center to keep the boat from turning into the wind. This is hard on the helmsman (or autopilot) and increases drag because the rudder is always out to the side somewhat. So the perfect balance is to have just a touch of weather helm. We had too much. ↩︎
- The halyard goes from where it is attached to the head of the sail up to a block (pulley) about 2/3 of the way up on the front of the main mast, then down to the base of the main mast where a number of winches are located. ↩︎
- Reefing a sail means to reduce its size. This is necessary to do when the wind increases since a doubling of wind speed quadruples the force on the sail. In other words, if five knots of wind is putting 500 lbs. of force on a sail, 10 knots of wind will put 2,000 lbs. of force on the sail! A given sailboat can only go so fast regardless of how much force is on the sails (called its “hull speed”). Once the force needed to reach that speed is exceeded, the rig is strained, the boat will heel excessively, there will be tremendous weather helm, and eventually the boat will be uncontrollable, or the sails will shred. Therefore, as the wind increases, the sail area must be reduced. And this is called reefing.
For some sails, reefing is very easy. Roller-reefing sails wrap and unwrap around the stay (a steel wire in front of the mast that helps hold it up) or the mast they are mounted to, so reefing just entails partially rolling them up.
But other sails, like my mizzen and main, don’t roll up; they are lowered or raised. To reef these sails, special lines need to be incorporated into the sails to hold the sail partially down on the boom. The process involves lowering the sail to a certain point where the reefing lines are installed, pulling those tight (in effect, creating a new bottom to the sail), then tightening everything back up again so the sail has a good shape. The excess (loose) bottom of the sail is either captured in an integrated “bag” attached to the boom, or if no bag is installed, tied to the boom to keep it from flopping around and catching wind (or waves).
The process of reefing can be involved and challenging if the winds are strong (which is why one of the sailing mantras is “Reef before you think you need to.” Luckily, when Serendipity was in the boatyard, one of my projects was installing a new reefing system on both the mizzen and mainsails, and Gretchin and I had practiced reefing both on a practice sail before our trip. That training was soon to prove helpful. ↩︎ - Fortunately, over the last couple of years, I’d been hoarding narcotics for just for such an occasion. Back in the day, when cruisers were getting ready to head out to sail the world, their doctors would prescribe them a whole litany of emergency drugs to be used while at sea, often weeks from any medical facility. However, these days, with the opioid epidemic, while doctors will still prescribe antibiotics and other drugs, they are unwilling to prescribe narcotics. So, after surgeries in the family the last couple of years, I would keep any leftover narcotics to put in my boat first aid kit. This proved crucial as two hydrocodone’s were the only thing that were able to mitigate the pain at all and at least allow me to move about in a limited fashion in the cockpit, and eventually stand up to man the helm for short periods of time. ↩︎
- The first seaplane flight of the day is full of passengers, but they have no one to take back, so the rangers have a contract to “deadhead” on those flights, which includes anyone who might need out for medical reasons. ↩︎
- I took my iPhone, my Apple Watch, and my iPad with me to the hospital. One of main text notification sounds is a rooster crowing. As I was sitting in the emergency room, my text sound went off. I took out my phone and looked at it, but there was not text. Thinking it had come from my iPad, I took it out to see, but nothing. Hmmmm. Looked around the waiting room to see if it might have come from one of the other patients’ phones, but everyone was just sitting there. This happened twice more over the next hour before it finally dawned on me. (Check out the emergency room photo closely.) 🙂 ↩︎
- Shazaam! had the new Starlink system (high speed satellite Wi-Fi) installed, and so we could video chat. ↩︎
- Simply put, after the anchor is set, the bridle or snubber is attached to the chain and then to the boat, and the chain is run out until the load is on the bridle or snubber, and the boat-side of the chain is limp. Then, when any strong winds or swells come up, the nylon line(s) are what takes the load; they stretch a bit to absorb shock, but the chain is still providing all its benefits, too. Best of both worlds. ↩︎
- A mooring ball is a large, floating sphere that is anchored very strongly into the seabed. It is designed to replace the need for a boat to deploy its own anchor. This is sometimes for simple convenience (it’s quicker, easier, and more secure than an anchor), sometimes used to space boats out efficiently in a tight anchorage, or, as in our case, to protect the seabed and corral in a place where people would be likely to anchor often (e.g., near the windjammer wreck). In fact, around many of the reefs in the Keys, anchoring is prohibited; boats must tie off to the provided mooring balls set up alongside the reefs.
Attached to the top of the floating mooring ball is a “pendant”. This is a large, 10-foot, floating rope with a loop on the end that the boater must grab and tie off to. Typically, once that is done, the boat just settles nicely downwind of the mooring ball—quick and easy. When it’s time to leave, you just detach the boat’s line from the pendant and sail away. ↩︎ - A few days after we got back, I topped off the 40-gallon diesel tank with Jerry cans. It took 40 gallons! So, we must have been running on fumes when we pulled into DIYC! ↩︎