Trip to Key West

Friday morning, Jan 25th, we woke to a rather choppy anchorage. The wind had shifted to the northeast and there was plenty of fetch from that direction for the waves to build. The weather forecast called for it to calm down by late morning, so we decided to wait a while before weighing anchor. By 11:00 it was still blowing 20 knots and we were anxious to be on our way, so we went ahead and started the anchor drill. The temperature was about 65 degrees, but it was so windy I nearly froze up on the bow getting the anchor up. It was quite an exercise getting the anchor up with the boat pitching as much as it was. Nothing like a good challenge to start the day off. Charlotte Harbor was choppy, but when we entered the channel leading out, it got downright rough. The tide was coming in and the wind was opposing it, but the channel is not very long and soon enough we were in open water and things settled down.

The forecasts had called for north to northeast 5 to 10 knot winds and that's more or less what we found when we first got out into open water. It made for very pleasant sailing and we kept the engine running to keep our speed up and ensure a daylight arrival at Key West. I fired up the stereo and we listened to some tunes and ate dinner in the cockpit while enjoying our most pleasant sail yet. Towards evening, the wind veered to the east and started increasing in force, but never got above 20 knots. For some reason I have yet to fully understand, though, we had one of our most unpleasant nights underway yet. The waves built to only about 4 feet high on average, with the occassional batch of 5 to 6 footers coming through. They were also rather regular waves, not the angry, confused type we saw from Petit Bois to Port St. Joe. I swear I have seen scarier waves in the bathtub. We rolled like crazy, though. I tried all kinds of sail combinations and sail trimming to settle the motion down but nothing seemed to work. I seriously considered altering course so we weren't taking the waves directly on the beam, but I'm kind of stubborn about holding course. We're going to Key West and no puny little waves are going to make us deviate from our course. We were making great time, sailing at just over 7 knots for several hours, and over 5.5 knots for the whole trip.

We arrived at the northwest channel to Key West around 10:00 Saturday morning and got anchored about 1:40 in the afternoon. The anchorage is very crowded, so I'm a little worried about swinging into other boats as our boat swings around on its anchor chain. It has been very calm since we anchored, so I'm also anxious about the anchor dragging if the wind picks up. I'm never confident the anchor is set well until after I've seen it hold during a nice blow and chop. It is nice and warm here in Key West and we are so happy to be able to shed our winter clothes. We are both a little exhausted and may not leave the boat at all until Monday.