IMAGE collage of Dry Tortugas

Sunday 29 –The Dry Tortugas are a group of small keys and reefs approx 70 miles west from Key West. The whole group is about 11 miles long and 6 mile wide. The keys are low and irregular, covered with thin mangrove – thankfully there are good deep channels between the islands and shoals.

Our sail to the Dry Tortugas was a rough and bouncy sail. 15 knots north, north easterly as we set off and through the night we had up to 28knots gusting to 30knots northerly as the forecasted front passed through. A dark night, with just 8% moon and lots of cloud.

We could see the Fort Jefferson and Dry Tortugas light and radar target about 12 miles out. Our 1st key arrival waypoint into Garden Key arrived and it was still dark at 6am – so our passage plan had worked well. The morning light came up as we passed in through the marked channel up into Fort Jefferson. It started to rain lightly just as we were anchoring at 7.30am, and we noticed that there was a red flag flying from the fort, notifying that a small craft warning was currently in force for the surrounding sea area.

There were 2 yachts and 1 fishing boat already in the anchorage. We had a coffee in the cockpit, feeling relieved to be here, with the front passing through and feeling safe in the protected anchorage in amazing and unique surroundings – we really did feel like we were in the middle of nowhere.

The nearby Bush Key, just east of Garden Key is a designated bird reserve for Noddy and Sooty Terns, with limited human access during breeding season from April to September. The jet black, huge but graceful frigate birds roamed the skies and the keen eyed pelicans are well feed in these waters.

After a few hours morning sleep James cooked Sunday breakfast and looking out noticed that 2 other smaller yachts had arrived after us – they must have had a wet ride from wherever they came from.

The tourist ferry from Key West arrived about 10am and left at 2.30pm – sadly these tourists had a cloudy, cold and wet day here. Slowly in the afternoon the weather cleared up and the rain stopped – it was a calm and quite evening.

Monday 30 – tourist day in Fort Jefferson. Fort Jefferson is a historic national monument. A hexagonal structure with walls 425 feet long rising from a surrounding moat. The fortress was once a military prison, and is now a government reservation administered by the National Park Service.
From high up on the fort ramparts we could clearly see Loggerhead Key lighthouse- 151 miles above sea level– just 2.5miles to the west.

A seaplane from Key West landed right through the anchorage between the yachts! Amazing.

We launched the dingy and used the small engine for the short ride and beach landing. We had a walk around the perimeter of the fort and spoke to a couple who were there camping for a few days – they enjoyed the experience – but it was a very basic campground. The tourist ferry arrived about 10.30am and another seaplane – so the amazing Fort Jefferson was now full of tourists. We took the opportunity to join a 1 hour tour of the fort run by the ferry company for its passengers– very informative. We spoke with 2 couples who came on the seaplane – just 30 mins from Key West on the plane – a 3 hour tour in total for something we are taking 3 days to do – how the other half live!

Touristing over – back to the boat from lunch and to get ready to go sailing. We would have liked to stay longer here – but needed to make the most of the weather window to get south to Mexico. We left the anchorage after the tourist ferry had left – about 4pm – the plan was to get out to sea and settled into our passage to Mexico before dark – approx 300 miles to go.

We tried to listen to the USA National Weather Service automated weather forecast on the SSB– and after listening for over an hour still couldn’t get any info for our location.

The seas were rough at 1st until we got into deep water – then full sails out, but making slow progress due to the gulf stream against us. After dinner we did 3 hour shifts overnight – all OK, a lovely starry night and a little more moon for light. Making slow progress due to the counter-current. The towing log worked well putting in 3 amps constantly throughout the night – so running the autopilot, AIS and lights was no problem. A few ships during the night –but no problems as they and ‘see’ us on the AIS and we can clearly ‘see’ them and watch their progress on our cockpit chartplotter.

Tuesday 31 – on passage to Mexico. Couldn’t hear Chris Parker for weather very well at 8.30 SSB this morning – don’t know if its him or us – or general propagation issues.

Warm, sunny day – lots of blue sky and light fluffy clouds. After breakfast together we put the spinnaker up – hopefully to get some actual miles throughout the day. The spinnaker went up and came down a few times over the day and night – finally the sheet broke due to chafe during the dark on my 8 to 11 night shift – all OK as we had little wind and James could get everything under control.

Starry, starry night and a little light from the moon. With little wind for sailing we motored for the 5 to 8am shift –good chance to top up the batteries and get some hot water, charge computers etc, etc. We could see a faint glow from the direction of Cuba during the night.

FEBRUARY
Wednesday 1st – on passage to Mexico. The wind came around to a more easterly direction in the morning – so no more goose-winging – now making OK progress – approx. 120miles to go. Our through the water speed is very good – but our ACTUAL speed and progress is slow due to the current against us. For the 8.30am SSB weather we could hear Chris Parker very clearly – thank goodness, lets hope it stays that way! He forecast settled conditions and steady easterly winds – we just love these easterly trades. James spent some hours repairing the spinnaker line from lasts nights failure and I did Isla Mujeres re-reading on computer and Pilot book. Clear, sunny and warm day – all blue skies – a beautiful day for ocean sailing.

Thursday 2nd – James 60th birthday. Not a great start to the day – we shredded our spinnaker at about 4am in a 22knot gust that came of nowhere. We were doing so well clocking down the miles through the night, safely sailing with the spinnaker up.

As we arrived into Isla Mujeres in the early afternoon we could clearly see all the high-rise hotels on the mainland in Cancun– thankfully we here heading for the smaller and quieter island. We were both tired, but happy with the progress throughout this sail against the current most of the way.

It was too late in the day to start our check-in – so just chilled out checking out our new surroundings in this busy anchorage. There are about 20 boars in the anchorage and looks like lots of ‘jolly’ tour boat activity out on the water.

It was lovely to take a swim off the back of the boat – the 1st time for ages and ages. We had an early night - it could be a long, hot day tomorrow dealing with Mexican officials.