Boating with Jack and Julie Davis

We rendezvoused with Jack and Julie Davis just south of Miami (they flew into MIA) at the very lovely Dinner Key Marina, when they arrived we took a shore leave and went into famous Coconut Grove for dinner, then out to the boat .  The trip out to the boat was a bit of a challenge, because of the number of people and the luggage it required two trips, each a total of a 1 mile row, with the outbound leg requiring some strong arms.  The wind had piped up to about 15 knots, so Geoff's arms were a wee bit tired after two round trips, the dinghy loaded to the gunwales for both trips.

We left the next morning from Dinner Key and after a few hours on the water stopped for the night at a wonderful Florida State Park called Boca Chita.  It is accessible only by boat, and since it was a weekday there were only a couple of boats there with us, so we had a great time snorkeling, swimming and strolling around the island.    The photo above was shot by Jack Davis during our stay.  We missed the tour of the light house, so we will have to go back on our trek north in a month.

The next two days we puttered south, stopping along the way to explore and anchor for the night.  The Davis's treated us to a great dinner on Tuesday night at a wonderful waterfront restaurant, Wednesday we spent the night on the anchor at Lignumvitae Key, off the ICW.

Although Patty and I were starting to get the hang of most of the routine duties aboard our lovely trawler, we were still finding anchoring somewhat hit or miss.  The boat came equipped with a very nice looking all stainless steel, 35 lb hinged plow anchor, often called a CQR, plus a second lighter 22# Danforth anchor.  I replaced the original main rode (the rode is the anchor chain or rope, or combination of the two that connects the anchor to the boat) with 75 meters of brand new 10 mm chain, which works well with our electric windlass allowing us to effortlessly raise and lower the anchor with minimum fuss, at least in theory.  After several dozen different attempts at anchoring with the plow with different bottom materials (sand, mud, weeds ,and coral) I was less than impressed with the anchor.  With such an anchor, I should be able to set the anchor and then test it by engaging reverse gear for several minutes, during which time the anchor should sink deeper into the seabed due to the pull exerted by the engine.  However, with this particular anchor, in most cases reversing on the anchor resulted in the anchor dragging across the bottom, the signal to me that our anchor was not prepared to hold us against any strong winds that might arise during the night.

We tried different techniques, different bottoms, we switched anchors, one time I even snorkeled over the anchor while Patty engaged reverse gear, I watched the anchor but still could not determine why it was unable to sink into the seabed.  I talked with the broker who sold us the boat, and others who knew the boat but could not see the problem.

Thursday night we had another lovely evening, we anchored just off the shoreline of Grassy Key in anticipation of an evening ashore for Valentines Day dinner.  But during our anchor drill we failed to achieve a solid set ( I attributed that in part to the poor character of the bottom, a thin layer of sand over old coral, which allows the anchor a light set in the sand but because of the underlying hard coral, the anchor can never achieve deep penetration).  Patty and I stayed with the boat during the afternoon and Jack and Julie headed to shore, when they returned Patty and I took our dinner break ashore.  We all started heading to bed early, but luckily Jack and I were still up talking when things went wild.  Jack had just finished saying, "what a lovely evening this had been", when the wind went from 8 knots from the southwest to 35 knots out of the North.  Before we could even start to think about the consequences of the sudden and violent wind, the force of the wind had wrenched the front of the Bimini top completely free from it moorings and had it flailing about our heads.  We did the only thing that seemed logical at that moment in time, we grabbed the Bimini in an effort to keep the wind from wrenching it completely from the boat.  Within 15 seconds it was obvious that something more sinister was afoot than a wrecked Bimini, the anchor had let go without a whimper and we were well on our way to shore, and at a rapid clip.  Luckily the entire crew had there collective wits about them, Jack and Julie continued to wrestle the Bimini while Patty took the helm, engine racing, and steered us towards deeper water.  I struggled with the anchor, trying to wrestle it aboard while Patty fought the violent wind, trying to keep the bow headed into the wind.  I managed to get almost all of the anchor chain aboard, but to my consternation the retrieval came to a sudden halt before the anchor came into view..............the anchor had been trailing the boat during the wild ride away from the beach, and now it was caught on the boat itself.  I was unable to retrieve it any further until Patty slackened the throttle and brought the boat to a stop, allowing the anchor to drop free of the boat once I loosened the chain.

So here we were, clawing our way slowly off a lee shore, the wind HOWLING away, the Bimini flailing overhead, blindly maneuvering in a sea of crab pots (if we picked up a float line with our prop things would have gone quiet very suddenly, and we would have been in a real pickle), with our main anchor hooked to the underside of the boat.  My main worry was straightforward, if in an effort to retrieve the anchor, the chain or anchor hit the prop, or snagged the rudder, we would be in big trouble, so I elected to continue motoring at minimum power, just keeping on enough forward speed to hold the bow on course.  After over an hour of Patty's steady hand at the helm, we were away from our lee shore by over a mile, I rigged and dropped our back-up anchor in sand and had Patty bring the boat to a stop.

Our luck held, because the back-up anchor held perfectly, and once the boat was stopped and I slackened the main anchor rode, the  plow anchor dropped free of the boat and I had it aboard in a jiffy.  We finished the night in comparative comfort and safety, but the rain and wind continued to pelt us until sunup.

We gratefully limped into Marathon, where we picked up a mooring ball at the City Marina and celebrated our good luck with a trip to solid ground for another FABULOUS dinner with Jack and Julie.