Saturday, March 12, 2011

Key West II

 

P1000240

Anchored out behind Wisteria Island.  It gave good protection from the wind and a fantastic sunset.

The wind of course is forecast to be 18-20 again but from the North.  I was going to start heading North.  I'’ll just have to wait and see.  I should be able to go in the Atlantic side and stay close to shore.  I really want to go ahead and work my way up the Keys.  There is a big bad weather front due here tomorrow afternoon.  It’s the same one that came through Pensacola yesterday.  Mary Jo said that it was really bad. 

3-10

0600 Up and weather good.  Wind SSE at 8.  Under way by 0630.  At 0730 passes by the tourist attraction of the Southern most point in Florida.

P1000243

I have the landside picture from our 2007 RV trip.

The weatherman was putting the front getting to Marathon at around 1600 so I went my slow pace until about 1100.  I could see the edge of the front over Florida Bay side.  It is going to get here sooner rather than later.  I put her in high gear and headed to Marathon.  I almost made it.  I was 2.3 miles out when it hit.  And it hit with a furry.  Before you could say ol crap, I was in a blinding rain and the wind was howling.  I was trying to get a course to the channel marker but the rain was so hard that the radar could not “see” through the rain.  Luckily the GPS plotter did a good job and the buoy was right where it was suppose to be.  I was able to follow the buoy’s in one by on.  Good thing because outside the buoy line the water was only one foot deep.  The radio went wild with distress calls.  The Coast Guard put out that there were three people in the water at the bridge right where is was located.  Some other boats had busted off their mooring.anchor and were pushing aground.  I was glad when I was able to put a line around a post at the marina. 

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