MIDORI ADVENTURES

D0700 A4:20
62 nm
Thursday, Dec. 19

The morning starts off cool (53 F), but it soon warms up. We depart the anchorage with the mainsail up and shortly have the jib sail up. The motors are already moving at 3700 RPM's and we are doing 7.0 knots. Good start. The crab pot watch begins!

For the first few hours, the winds are as predicted - northeast at 9 - 13 knots. Until we round Cape Sable. We actually get wind up to 21 knots for awhile. Not sustained, but enough to make us wonder if we should reef in. (At times, MIDORI achieves speeds of 10 knots!) We are now in Florida Bay and the only other traffic is one or two crab boats up ahead and a sailboat miles behind us. And the crab pots are everyhere! Some in a parallel line to the boat, some strings diagonal and some in clumps. Different colours - green, black, yellow, white. It is close to noon and the sun is almost directly overhead, the seas are a bit confused and it is really difficult to spot those little bobbing balls. And so, our journey continues for another three hours watching and dodging, watching and dodging, getting off our course, and working at getting back on, but the winds have subsided to a more reasonable 18 knots.

At around 3:00 p.m. we see the Seven Mile Bridge on the horizon. What a nice familiar sight! It takes another hour to get to the bridge and we continue to dodge stray crab pots in the channel. Once on the other side of the bridge, we are traveling dead into the wind and our motors slow right down. It takes 30 minutes to reach the harbour. We contact the marina and are assigned mooring ball Q10.

The sailboat that has been way behind us, has finally caught up and it is LIVING WELL! It turns out that diesel issues kept them on the dock when we left the boatyard, and when they finally got away, they decided to go out at Boca Grande Pass and sail the rum line from there to Bullard's Pass (near Marathon). Somewhere during the night, they ran into heavy seas and turned in towards Pavillion Key an anchored. Unknown to us, they were within a mile or two. There is no cell coverage in the waters along the Ten Thousand Islands and the Everglades, so we had no idea where they were. They are assigned mooring ball Q9.

And here we will remain for the Christmas and likely the New Year's season until the winds are favourable for travelling to the Bahamas.

We want to take this time to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.



FIRST MATE LYNN and CAPTAIN BRIAN