After spending 3 days in Key West we did an overnight passage to Miami (about 157 miles). There are no good long term anchorages near the city so we decided to go into the city marina (Miamarina) on Bayside harbor. It was Memorial Day weekend and the harbor and adjacent mall had public events throughout the weekend featuring music bands that seemed to play day and night. Being in downtown Miami we had the opportunity to get an interesting view of the modern downtown while riding the public train cars above ground and in some cases through buildings.
We did not spend much time touring the city save for Sunday morning when we decided to take a bus to Miami Beach to walk around and eat lunch. The last time we had been to Miami Beach was on a return trip from Colombia in 1997 and we had good memories of this place. Unfortunately we were surprised at how Miami beach has turned into a noisy place, filled with a lot of people who were nearly naked, checking each other out. We had a difficult time finding a restaurant away from the honking and the whistling and where we would be comfortable.
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Key West was an exciting place, full of restaurants and shops. Kikuyu was docked in the Key West Bight Marina located in the middle of the harbor surrounded by many restaurant and places to "spend money." Again, as in other ports we had visited, we spent the first day or two finding the supermarket, doing laundry and doing general chores. Daniel was also busy with his schooling so we did not spend a lot of time in town. We did manage to walk on the main drag "Duval Street", visit the Hemingway, take pictures of some of the mansions the island boasts, and visit Sloppy Joes' restaurant where Hemingway is said to have visited every afternoon to have his drinks.
We had a lot of mixed feelings about being back specially in the difficult economic times the US is facing but it felt great to be back to the United States. It is taking us long to adjust to the fact that we are back and we continue to act as if we were in a foreign country. After all, Key West is not yet home.
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With our buddy boat s/v Beaudacious we talked long and hard about when to start the 370 mile passage from Puerto Morelos to Key West, across the Yucatan Peninsula, the Florida Straits and the Gulf Stream. Though we had done longer passages before, we were a bit concerned about this passage because the winds tend to come from the east or northeast, precisely from the direction we needed to sail. Additionally, we were going to be crossing the Gulf Stream which originates in the Yucatan Peninsula and carries north & east bound currents of 2-5 knots. While we can ride the Gold Stream current very nicely, if the wind comes from the north or east it can make the passage choppy and potentially dangerous. Additionally, weather reports were mixed with Chris Parker telling us that we should not leave on Saturday as we had to arrive by Sunday night or Monday morning. A low pressure system was expected to come down the coast of Florida, bringing a lot of squalls, winds in the 40-50 mph range and thunder & lightening, sailors' worst nightmare. On Friday night at about 8 PM we decided to make the passage, leaving the following day at 6 in the morning. We needed to have a fast passage in order to avoid this bad weather.
Overall we had a great passage given the weather conditions. Leaving Puerto Morelos, Mexico, we were pushed by the Yucatan Peninsula current which gave us an additional 1-2 knots of speed to our motor-sailing speed, making our first day fairly fast. By night and throughout the second day our speed was painfully slow (4-5.5 knots), even with our engine at higher-than-usual revolutions, as we bordered the coast of Cuba on a counter current of 1-2 knots. We could see the outline of the Cuban mountains on the horizon and lights from towns at night as we cruised just 15-20 miles from its coast. We kept on motoring until about 2 AM of day three when the wind changed direction to the SE at 10-15 knots giving us a wonderful beam reach. Also at this point, we were well into the Golf Stream current and we started flying! Kikuyu had sustained speeds of between 9 - 9.7 knots for about 4 hours, settling to high 7's to high 8 knots for most of the remainder of the trip. Because of this, we were then able to arrive to the channel entrance of Key West by 1:30 PM, just a few hours ahead of the storm.
However, on this beautiful, sunny and calm day we had a surprising failure awaiting us. There were almost no boats around and none in the channel as we headed up toward the town. All seemed perfect - we had beat the bad weather! Suddenly, we heard a strange sound and next we realized that Kikuyu was not moving forward though the engine seemed to be running alright. Quickly we decided to drop our anchor just a bit off the channel. Kim first thought that the prop had caught on something so he got his diving gear out and dove under the boat, coming out quickly to say that the prop was fine. He then went into the engine room and found the culprit - the engine shaft had come out of its coupler! An engine mounting defect, a pin was missing that would have prevented this from happening. Thankfully Kim was able to push it back in, secure the shaft with the other screws and we motored safely to the city marina in Key West.
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