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The Adventures of Lynn and Les on "Cottonwood" |
Cottonwood and its crew arrived in Key West a
bit beat up, but with smiles all around. As we planned to anchor, we found that our anchor
chain was bound up and we couldn’t get the anchor down. So we slid over to the
closest marina and tied up at the Key West Bight Marina in Key West. It was very full but
they made room for us. We immediately went in for some USA food. Howard was in heaven
finding fresh Oysters on the half shell, and Lynn and I had fresh fish. In fact, Howard
had oysters so many times here we thought he was going to turn into one. Lynn and I do not
partake. Actually, Howard did get us to try sushi in Costa Rica, and it wasn’t bad.
However, without the Wasabi and Soy sauce, I don’t think it would be my cup of tea. We had learned just before leaving Isla Mujeres,
that our dinghy engine would not start. An electrical problem. So we spent several days in Key West waiting for
our engine to be fixed. We enjoyed a history tour on the tram, walking around site seeing,
and eating. This is an historic port where Key West became the richest town in America at
one time from salvage of ships cargo wrecked on the reefs.
It was a very enjoyable, although expensive, tourist area. We then planned to head up the Intra-Coastal
Waterway, ICW, to Marathon and Key Largo, to Miami. However, close examination of our
cruising guides and our charts noted that many places could be under 5 feet of water and
our boat draws close to 5 feet. So we decided on the Hawk Channel, which is an outside
channel which is still inside the reef system that covers most of the Keys from the open
ocean. This turned out to be a very pleasant passage. We met some fellow DeFever members
in Marathon and had dinner and swapped boating stories.
We got some help from the local boat yard to untangle our
anchor chain. This took them half the day and part of the next to do. It
turned out to be “a culmination of years of twist in the chain”, that
caused the problem. We had to get into deep water and let it all out,
let it untwist, before bringing it back into the chain locker. The
alternative was to wrestle 300feet of chain out on the dock, get a truck to tow
the chain for a long way until the twist came out, and all the expense, so we opted for
the deep water cure. We manage to get calm water just before Key Biscayne to accomplish
this. But then we ran into a new “twist”. After getting 300 feet of change
hanging down in 330 feet of water, the chain weight would not come back into the boat
with our wench. It kept slipping over the cogs in the wench. I had to
stand on the chain while we inched it back in. I noticed then that the
chain links didn’t quite fit the
notches in the wench, perplexed that I had never noticed this before.
About an hour later, we only had 50 feet of the chain in the locker,
when I noticed a chain patch link. And wouldn’t you know
it, after that the chain fit and went in just fine. The previous owner had a different
size of link for the first 50 feet! This makes this length unusable. Oh, well, just
another adventure. We then moved on to Key Largo and anchored for a
night and took the dinghy in for dinner, then went on to Miami. We found a cut into the
ICW just south of Key Biscayne which was deep enough for us to finally enter the ICW. We cruised on up the inside channel and went on to
anchor in one of the bays inside Miami. We only investigated a couple of restaurants here
before moving on up the coast to Ft. Lauderdale. We called and got a slip at Marina Bay marina,
which was up a canal from the ICW right through the center of Ft Lauderdale. We were
presented with another learning experience moving through these very narrow canals. We
were waiting on a bridge opening, and when open we proceeded through. Just as we got
through, a large 100’ yacht was approaching from the opposite blind side bend. There
was no way we could back up (We don’t have rear visibility from our pilot house) all
the way around the bend and back through the bridge. The larger yacht did stop and move
back to a wider area. I then moved forward, but before I was past, he started forward
again. There was room for both, but just as he got along side, his wake pushed us sideways
into a boat tied up along side the canal. We did a little damage to their anchor cradle,
and scratched our boat a little. We exchanged names and numbers and quickly moved on to
get out of possible further danger. From then on we got out our large round “canal
lock” fenders for use in these narrow passages. The rest of the way up the ICW to Daytona where
we were to visit Lynn’s sister, Dianne, was a series of twists and turns through long
river-like passages. The homes around north Ft. Lauderdale, and many miles north are
something to see. We expected a lot of boats and private docks as we were told, but the
expensive, HUGE, homes, not just a few, but hundreds, were astonishing. We are talking
10-20,000 square foot homes, with all the posh trimmings. Wow! Not something I would ever
aspire to, or want to live near, but very interesting. Ok, it was very good to be back in the U.S., and
Florida was great, but come on, it been 60 degrees for days and days. Where is the nice
weather! We been used to 80-90 degrees for 5 months, and now this. Oh, well, the end of
the warm weather, and the beginning of the cool part of the trip has begun. We now
won’t see warm weather for the rest of the Great Circle. Next, Georgia, and the trip North
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3-2004
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