Update From Marquesas Keys

Today is our third day anchored off the west side of the Marquesas Keys. We were only going to spend the night here before continuing on to Dry Tortugas, but the wind has been blowing like crazy. It's been a pretty steady 18 to 20 knots from the east with gusts as high as 30 knots. That's actually pretty good wind for sailing, but I'm thinking I don't want to be anchored in Dry Tortugas in that much wind. Rob has mentioned that Dry Tortugas isn't a good anchorage in rough conditions. We looked
at the chart and there doesn't seem to be much protection from the east, so we have been waiting for the wind to abate a few knots before leaving here. This anchorage is still a little choppy with this much wind, but we have good holding and the Marquesas, which are small mangrove islands on a coral atoll, are directly east of us, so the waves don't have much room to build between the shore and our position.

We had a very nice sail from Key West to here. The wind was mostly around 15 knots from the north, becoming northeast as the day progressed. It was so nice to leave Key West. We both like Key West, but only for brief visits. While Nancy was in Nebraska visiting her mother, I stripped and varnished the cockpit coaming (the coaming is the built-up periphery of the cockpit, you could think of it as the backrest if you were sitting in the cockpit, ours is capped with teak). It was quite a bit of
work, but it looks so much better. The previous owner had used a type of varnish that was really muddy-looking and pretty much hid the grain of the teak. The stuff I used is much clearer and the wood grain shows up beautifully now. I still have a lot more topside teak to strip and varnish, but I'll do it in stages.

I started studying celestial navigation yesterday and I am duly impressed with the navigators of yore. First I had to adjust my sextant and I think I did a reasonably good job of it. There are two mirrors that have to be perfectly aligned with each other and the frame of the sextant. The book I'm using says when it is properly adjusted, the index error should be 2 minutes of arc or less. I think I got it within 1 minute of arc. I pre computed the position of a few bright stars and planets so
I could take some sights right after sunset. Shooting the stars was not too challenging, but I don't think my sights were very accurate, but I'm sure they'll improve over time with practice. What was the most challenging was reducing the sights and plotting the lines of position. I probably spent 30 or 40 minutes pre computing the positions, 15 or 20 minutes taking the sights, and about 4 hours trying to reduce and plot just one of the sights. After I have done a few, I should be able to get
that 4 hours down to about 15 minutes or less (I hope). Anyway, I only got one of the sights I took reduced last night, so I'm going to do the rest of them today.

We brought a lot of games aboard to keep us occupied when we aren't working on the boat, sailing, snorkeling, or sight-seeing. The last few evenings we have been playing Mah Jong, or I should say we have been figuring out how to play Mah Jong. We've really enjoyed it. We are hoping we'll meet some other cruisers who know how to play and can teach us the more subtle aspects of the game.

Our plan is to stay here at Marquesas at least through today and head to Dry Tortugas when the wind dies down to the 15 knot range, which we are hoping will be tomorrow. We plan to stay in Dry Tortugas for at least one day to visit the fort and maybe do a little snorkeling, and then head to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. It will take 2 or 3 days to get to Isla Mujeres, so we are hoping to be there by May 9th at the latest. Heddy and Jamie are going to visit us there and they arrive on the 14th. We want
to be there at least several days ahead of them.