Rodriguez Key to Boot Key - Day 2

The wind gods were fickle and sent us a bit of extra breeze overnight. We awoke about 2 am to the sound of slapping halyards. The winds shifted north and blew hard the rest of the night. We were in a protected anchorage and the waves were minimal. We have a 125 pound plow anchor that held firmly all night. The way you know it is the right size anchor is when other boaters on the dock make fun of you because they think your anchor is too big. The other 30 boats in our anchorage seemed to fare just fine as well. We did not hear any yelling or see any boats dragging. That is the result of anchoring with other cruising boats that know what they are doing. This is in contrast to our experience anchoring in Chicago for the Air and Water show. Hundreds if not thousands of weekend boaters try to anchor their boats one time per year. I am always amazed at how small the anchors are on these large boats. The larger the boat the smaller the anchor and they have no idea how much anchor line to let out. Some of them drop the anchor straight down and wonder why it is not holding. We always arrive early and drop our oversized anchor. We back down the anchor to make sure it is secure. Then we put out fenders on both sides of our boat and have boat hooks on the ready. It is inevitable that over the course of the afternoon several boats full of drunken people drag into us.

Their usual reaction is to yell at us for dragging into them. We attempt to explain that it is impossible for us to drag forward into the wind. It is a concept that is lost on them.

This is where we spent the first night of our adventure. We are the red triangle.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunrise on our first morning on anchor.

This is a screen shot of our anchor alarm. This app tracks the location of our boat while at anchor. You can see the wind shifted north and we bounced around a bit. However the anchor did not drag outside the zone.

The good news is the winds are continuing to blow 15 - 20 mph from the NW. The sails are up and we are nicely making way over crystal clear blue water to Boot Key on Marathon Key which is our next port of call. Todays cruise is only 50 miles. A much more reasonable distance for a day sail compared to 80 miles yesterday.

We are nicely making way.

Lynn in her happy place.

Captain Ken at the helm of Bistari

John enjoying the view from the stern seats aka Priscilla seats.

We are experiencing many “firsts” on Bistari. Yesterday was her first cruise to an overnight destination and her first night on anchor. All systems are working. We have a generator, solar panels and a water maker. We could live off the grid for a long time. Hoisting up the anchor went well. She has a salt water wash down hose. As the anchor chain is raised on the windless the mud and sand can be washed off before the chain goes back into the chain locker.

The wind is free but the diesel fuel is not. Yesterday Bistari took on $770 of diesel fuel.