Thanksgiving Day

We spent a lovely day just hanging out. I actually got in the water...COLD COLD COLD.  Explored the fort, and went hiking around the island where it shoaled in 10-15 years ago.

Later that evening I took a turkey breast that had thawed out and cut it into filets for Tim to throw on the grill.  Roasted some potatoes and made some stuffing. VOILA!  Thanksgiving dinner.

After dinner we were hanging out in the cockpit and big yacht decides to have a fireworks show.  SO SO GLAD we were upwind from him.  Everybody starts sounding off with horns and airhorns. 

Five seconds later, Ranger Simon comes over the VHF. Boat in the anchorage. CUT IT OUT.

Whoops.  Five more seconds later, HONK, BOOM.

And out come the flashing lights of the Ranger Patrol boat.  Uh. oh.  I better get more wine and watch this.

NOBODY FESSED UP.  It was awesome. He came over to us, recognized us as dumbass dinghy people and said, hey, can you do me a solid?  If it starts up again, get on the radio and tell them it's Thanksgiving.  Give the ranger a break.  Sure.

I really wanted to get a picture of him leaving our boat with the lights still flashing, but I didn't want to test his good humor with us.  We might need to have him pick us up from the middle of the ocean if we take our dinghy back out.

Without a motor, yeah, pretty much all its good for.  A bird perch.
Early Thanksgiving morning.

Standing on Garden Key pointing toward Grassy Key.  This area is shoaled in pretty well now.
You can see our dinghy nicely upwind of Elysium. 

On Thanksgiving, I strolled on my private beach. What did you do?

If you expand, all the birds you see above the island are frigate birds.

Conch sculpture.

Reanchoring--with more windlass fun

After our difficulties with rowing the big rubber ducky from our current anchoring position we decided to move to a position that we'd be closer to the beach and easier to dinghy back to.  (with more wind protection.)  We cleared it with the ranger the day before.

So, off we move up to our new spot.  Once again, crazy ass windlass and I accidently jammed it because I thought we had 200 ft of chain, but we only had 100 feet before it turned into this crazy gnarled up join with regular nylon rode, and hold up! The rode isn't attached to the BOAT! Seriously, you would have thought we checked that before.  it's nicely coiled up and hanging, so if it had got ripped loose, just a snarled mess of rode would have jammed the windlass, but crap!

(And this is why we are doing our sailing off shore in baby steps)


So, with some careful planning an manuevering (thankfully, we DID have more wind protection) we got the windlass unjammed and plans for either repainting our chain or just getting a longer chain rode.

Once set (again) our sojourn to land was much easier.  We were just off what I started calling Dry Tortugas International Airport because of the seaplanes, but I just love watching them. Not a problem.  They had plenty of room, and absolutely no qualms about taking off between boats.

Some info about Dry Tortugas (and PICTURES)

This is for people who want to visit the Tortugas/Fort Jeff on their own, either by their own boat, or bareboat charter (and yes, there is a company that will let you do it-surprised me, too)

Upon arrival by boat to the Tortugas you will need to check in.  Usually you can find the park ranger who will walk you through the process, but if not, there is an area at the ferry dock where you can check yourself in.  Super simple process.

You will pay your park fee which is $10/pp for up to 7 days.  That has its own drop box. You keep a portion of the envelope as your receipt.

Boaters will have to fill out a boat permit.  This is free. As the park ranger explained to us, it's like a float plan for while you are in the Dry Tortugas.  How long will you be here?  Where will you be? (Loggerhead Key, Garden Key, etc.)  how many people.

Also, they will post a daily weather report including marine weather. (which was nice, because our Delorme weather report lied to us.)

So, if you don't do that, the Park Ranger will either hail you on VHF or come out with the forms.  They make it very easy to do.

While the ferry is at the fort, the only restrooms will be closed and you will have to go to the ferry. Evidently an agreement they have.

Long time ago there used to be restrooms at the ferry dock, but they turned those to changing rooms and they have self composting toilets.

Once you spend your ten minutes checking in, the park is open.

Or, if you have no motor on your dinghy you spend the next 20 minutes carrying your dinghy to an upwind position from your boat.

But, when you get that done?  Oh, que magnifique!

Oh, what a pretty girl.

Ding dong dinghy it.

After we established that we were holding fine, Tim started prepping the dinghy and the Torqeedo.  I got our bag ready with anything we would need to check in with the ranger.  We discussed the VHF, both agreed to put it in the bag.  (It didn't wind up in the bag--dual brain fart.)

So, I come up and I get. "We got a problem."  Seriously? Why do you do this to me, Tim?

Evidently while hooking up the Torqeedo and simultaneously bouncing off the stern of Elysium, one of the plugs didn't get aligned right and ZPPPPFFFT!  Torqeedo hath been shorted out.  Well, f*ck a duck.

Me--the eternal optimist (hah! blaming the scopalamine).  Well, baby. We gots oars.  After all, we've got years of experience not killing ourselves on the rivers of the Ozarks.  Oh, and a crazy kayak trip in Hawai'i that we. were. not. in. shape. for.

So, OFF goes the Torqeedo, into the dinghy I jump with the bag. Oh, did I mention? We forgot the VHF.

So, below pic perfectly shows our goal (ignore plane), nice dinghy beach.  It also shows the old coal dock pilings.  The first of which was constructed around 1861, yes, kids, when KANSAS BECAME A STATE!  The majority constructed around 1898 as a supply stop for the US Navy.

Beach or pilings? Beach or pilings?

So, as lovely as the water looks. We start rowing our little selves to the beach.  But not really, because we are now in a floating balloon in 17 kt winds broadside.  We are actually heading to Loggerhead Key, or Cuba, or Cayman Islands. Who knows?

So, the following motivational speech came forth:
"ROW KIM, ROW, ROW! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? ROW"

Reply:
"I AM M******F******"

For some reason, I thought if I sat inside the dinghy instead of on the tube that it would be okay. Not really, you don't get ample enough thrust off your oar if you don't have it at the right angle.

So, at this point, I said, Head for the pilings, young man!  What? You mean the partially submerged, wooden stakes poking out of the water?  YES. And there's also rusted iron, hope you have your tetanus shot.

So, we crash landed in the century+ old pilings, grabbed one and regrouped. So from there we would frantically oar from one to another, some having old line attached was awesome.  We finally got to the point where we had some wind protection and we could paddle like hell to the beach.  And we made it!

So, as we pulled the dinghy up on land, Mr. Park Ranger. (Ranger Simons, thankyouverymuch) a young guy, ex-military, said, hey! Was wondering if you were going to make it or not.  Yeah, us also, sir.  And....one of the first questions asked?  Did you bring your VHF?  To which we did some kicking of sand and said, we forgot it.  Hmmmmm.

Finally, I wanted to get off the "What were you dumbshits thinking" questioning, so I asked, hey, do we talk to you about checking in and paying our park fees?

He was very nice, and gave us a full tour of what we need to do, of course if you make yourself memorable and be polite, you'll be voted least likely to be arrested/ticketed on Thanksgiving day.  (story up shortly.)