042: Great Anchorage

On January 29th, after my visit over to Sol Maria at anchor just off the “oceanside” of Key Largo, we decided to dinghy into shore via one of the many channels for some Happy Hour cocktails.   Nancy and I swung by KatMat and picked up Kathy and Matt and the crew of Sol Maria took their dingy in.  

These channels are streets for boats for the 1%.  The least expensive home for sale that we passed on the water was $2.6M, with a few pushing $4.0M.    (I bought a lottery ticket while ashore.)  

 

We had a lovely Happy Hour, and then some, at a waterfront restaurant.   Gavin and Lica’s friend Pete regaled us with stories of being part of the British Team that won the Ultralight Flying World Championship which got them invited to a Garden Party to meet Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip.   He also has met Robert Knox-Johnston who was the first person to solo circumnavigate nonstop.  (Joshua Slocum was the first solo circumnavigator, but he didn’t do it nonstop.)   Pete was a hang glider “back in the day” and had flown in the same area of France where I tried my hand at paragliding in 1989.  (People like Pete could catch thermals and soar for hours, in my one day of it I just got to the “glide down the hill” stage.)

Checking out Pete's ultralight:

On the wall of the restaurant, a potential figurehead for Hygge:

Crew of Katmat and Sol Maria:

 

While having cocktails we saw the African Queen motor by.  Yes, the boat from the movie of the same name.  She gives boat rides around the channel, alas by outboard engine, not by steam engine. (I guess that screwdriver is still stuck in the boiler.)

 

The anchorage was great and even with a strong north wind, we were close enough to the land that we had a perfectly calm sea.   Just enough motion to “rock-a-by-baby gently to sleep.”   

The fleet at anchor:

The next day Sol Maria took everyone (Nancy, plus Kathy and Matt) out to Molasses Reef for snorkeling.  I went ashore to go to the hardware store/West Marine to get a bigger shackle for my anchor bridle, and some Dawn dishwashing detergent to put in the bilge.  Hygge has an electromagnetic bilge pump controller which I personally hate.    Their stated advantage over a traditional float switch (which I prefer) is that they have no float mechanism to get stuck and/or blocked.  The downside is that they are more complex and if any oily film coats them, it prevents the unit from being able to detect the electromagnetic changes caused by being submersed in water, or paradoxically, prevents it from detecting that the water has all been pumped out, causing it to run the bilge pump even when dry.  We had the latter problem.   As Scotty from Star Trek said, “The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.”   To prevent this from happening I always pour some Dawn in the bilge when I clean the boat.  Unfortunately, I had run out six weeks ago, and was just rinsing the bilge with water, not detergent.  I got complacent; lesson learned.

Back to Sol Maria and snorkeling.

Nancy in the water:

 

Matt and Gavin discussing something:

Gavin at rest:

When Sol Maria returned, I dinghied over and we watched the sunset over a few cocktails, which gave Pete and I more time to talk about ultralight flying (no medical test needed in the U.S., who knows, maybe I’ll scratch the flying itch with an ultralight one day!).

That night we had another calm sea.   The next morning, the three boats headed out to a reef where the Christ of the Abyss underwater statue resides. 

 https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/christ-of-the-abyss-florida

The water was a bit choppy for snorkeling, doable, but.  Kathy and Matt judged it too rough to snorkel, I had dived on it years ago so I wasn’t that keen to snorkel in the rough water, and Nancy was 50/50 on the conditions.  After about a half hour we decided, along with Katmat, to “bag it” and head for Johne Pennekamp State Park.   Sol Maria, ever the adventure-ish world travelors, stayed behind to “go for it.”   They then left for Pumpkin Key and we parted ways, for now.

The entrance to JPSP by water is via a narrow channel thru the mangroves.   This is us following KatMat through the channel.   We arrived at approx, 1:00 p.m, but not before a tour boat came screaming through this narrow, winding, "minimum wake" channel at full speed.  Florida boaters, just don't get it.  Tiny marina with a campground, more on that next time.

 

Side Note:  These two days “on the hook” represented the first use of the portable 200-watt solar panel that I purchased.   The boat came with a 165-watt fixed panel, which I upgraded to a 200-watt fixed panel.  I’d been advised that 200 watts of solar power would not keep up with the electrical demands of the refrigerator, wine cooler (used for produce) and the portable freezer we had running, so I bought a portable unit to put out while anchored or moored.   The extra power helped enough such that I only had to run the generator once per day for 45 minutes vs. twice per day. 

 

Dave

 

Odometer: 2,119 n/m