Wind, Rain, and Sharks

Two weeks ago we stocked up again and set off to explore a few more of the islands in Florida Bay. The weather forecast was for high winds from the east so we chose to anchor off Crab Keys for a few days until the weather settled. Once we had anchored and relaxed for the day a rather ugly looking thunderstorm began brewing to the north and we decided to head back to a small enclosed bay a couple of miles to the south to get some protection as we have learned the hard way about the wild winds around these Florida Bay storms. In short we didn't make it.

The storm caught up with us about half a mile from our destination but at least we were still far enough from land that we could ride it out without a lee shore adding to it. I dropped the genoa as the wind hit and Sharon spun the boat neatly into the wind so we could drop the main. The main has a bolt rope and needs to be hauled down by hand. I screwed up a bit by letting go of the halyard (which still had a few coils in it) as I was pulling the main down. The wind took the halyard out almost horizontal and if I pulled the main all the way down I would not be able to reach the halyard so I used the extendable boat hook and hanging off the back managed to hook the rope as it flailed around and got things back under control. Then the blinding rain and lots of lightning came; one bolt struck near us and gave Sharon a little jolt through the tiller bar! It was soon over and we could go in and anchor for the night.

The next day we decided to find better shelter from the wind which was now forecast to be quite strong for several days. We entered Little Basin off Islamorada and found a disused mooring post in about 2' of water and tied up there. We love the shallow draft on our Seawind 24, nobody else can take their boats into such shallow water so we had a big piece of the basin to ourselves. We had 7 days of wind and heavy rain, very unusual for this area. Solar cooking was out of the question and our solar charging system also became pretty weak so it turned into a test; stuck inside a small boat, very limited computer/internet due to lack of power, limited lighting at night, and dampness creeping into everything. We survived! The sun was really welcome but only lasted a couple of days before tropical storm Andrea started pumping line after line of thunderstorms over the Keys. Three more days of being shut inside! Eventually the sun came out and no big weather was forecast for the next few days, YAY!


Our Seawind 24 in Little Basin off Islamorada

 Little Basin is quite nice, the water is really clear as it gets changed with clean seawater with each tide. There are a lot of small sharks all around the mangroves and a piece of bait dropped in the water soon gets several of them hanging around the boat. I had my camera in the water photographing these little guys when Sharon made an expletive comment! I looked around just in time to see a really big shark go cruising by and head off. It must have been a nurse shark due to its size but we don't really know.... it went by really quick. We've noticed baby black tip sharks, lemon sharks, and nurse sharks in the area. We have also seen a number of dolphins here, including a mother and baby.

Baby lemon shark in Little Basin off Islamorada FL

For more wildlife photos from the Everglades and Florida Keys, please visit my website: http://alanbosse.com/Photography.html

Next: More sailing in Florida Bay and our hurricane plan for the 2013 season.

What's That Sound?

For some weeks now we have been hearing a weird sound - something like an owl hoot but this "boop-boop" call stayed with us even at sea so it was no owl. Besides, there isn't an owl that makes this particular call in this area. It was quite loud at times and eventually we could hear a response call too. After much searching and listening we decided it was coming from the dagger board well and the response was from the other side well. I started searching the internet for marine organisms that made noises and eventually found a recording of the exact sound - it was a gulf toad fish. These fish find a cavity of sorts, (this time obviously our seawind 24's dagger board wells) and then call for a mate. The amazing thing about this though is that we sailed around 200 miles to many different anchorages, through some quite rough water, and the fish just stayed with us.