Thursday January 28, 2016
Thursday was not one of our favorite days on our trip! It was just a little too exciting/scary at times!
We had just entered the NorthWest channel that runs down to Key West when a whiteout squall hit. We could not see anything, just water falling out of the sky. We put out a securitie call on the Vhf radio, to alert other boats of our location. Then we saw on our chartplotter that a huge catamaran ferry was coming towards us in the channel. Agh! We can see other boats with AIS, but they cannot see us. Fortunately the rain let up, and we could see the ferry as he passed us at a safe distance.
About 30 minutes later, when we were at the southern end of the Northwest channel, I ran over a crab pot line. We both saw it too late. Crab pots are the bane of our existence in Florida waters. Yes, I love stone crabs. But I hate crab pots!
I cut off the engine, and Jim let down the anchor in the middle of the channel. Nothing else we could do. Jim put on his wet suit and went diving for the 2nd time in 48 hours. The line was easy to remove once Jim got down to the propeller. The float was attached to a floating line. The line had been cut, no cage attached, but we were tangled in 50 feet of line. While Jim was in the water, a big red shrimp boat with arms extended was heading right for us. I got on the radio and told the shrimp boat to stay clear as we were anchored with a fouled prop. Finally they veered off! Later in the day, I heard the coast guard hailing the big red shrimp boat. Good! I hope they heard my hails from earlier.
Once we were on our way again, we headed north thru the Key West harbor. We were on our way to the Garrison Bight marina when another squall hit. We saw it coming, and we had anchored, temporarily, just off a Navy small boat dock.
Once the winds had calmed down, we thought it was safe to go to our marina. But, just before we reached our assigned slip, the winds picked up again. On our second attempt to come into our slip, we ended up perpendicular to the slip. We managed to turn the boat and slide into our slip with about 4 guys helping plus another guy pulling our stern around using his dinghy. Not one of our best landings, but we made it! Quiet night just a few slips down from our previous slip, right across from US Rt 1. Love the location! Long walk (1.5 miles) to downtown, or take the bus.