As promised, AJ arrived and replaced my battery charger. If you're ever in the Key Largo area and need some marine electronic work done, AJ Manzanilla at Keys Mobile Marine is your man. He showed up when he said he would and did everything he promised.

I now have a "beefier" house battery charger (40 amps instead of 30). I'm already noticing a difference in performance. I now suspect that I should have upgraded chargers when I upgraded my house batteries in '08. Oh well, live and learn. An expensive lesson to be sure!

Anyway, I was up early Wednesday and left Key Largo after topping off the diesel. It was forcast to be windy and rough and it was a bit. Unfortunately, the 25 knots of wind were right on my nose which made for a day of motoring, along with lots of bashing into the swells and salt spray covering the boat.

When I was finally able to turn into The Cape Florida Channel it felt good to put the swells on the stern. The shallow passage around Cape Florida into Biscayne Bay was very rough as the wind and swells were coming in hard against a receding tide. It was very bouncy for a while but it was nice when I got into the lee of the island and into deeper and sheltered water.

I entered "No Name Harbor" and found room to anchor. I pointed the bow into the wind, locked the helm, put it in neutral and went forward to drop the anchor when the boat came to a stop....... Arrgh! The anchor windlass was jammed and I couldn't get the anchor to release. OK.... grab some tools and try to free it.... nope! Spin the boat around and try again... nope. Finally I was able to take the windlass apart and free the anchor chain and lower it by hand. After about an hour of sweating and cursing and circling....

Anyway, I got the anchor down and set and was finally able to appreciate the beauty of the sun setting over Biscayne Bay from No Name Harbor. It really is a nice place and a great sheltered anchorage. Now, if I can just get things to stop BREAKING!!

Here's a pic of the aforementioned sunset.

Ps... Once you call a place "No Name Harbor" (its really called that on the charts), its no longer nameless..... Just sayin'