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American Spirit II - Day 3; Here Come's the Gale!; January 6, 2014



We spent a pleasant night at anchor Sunday night/Monday morning; and got a lot accomplished during the daytime hours waiting at anchor in the Dry Tortugas for the gale to arrive.

Once the sun got up a ways, it got warm quickly. Actually, it was hot. This IS Florida. The cabin out of the sun was actually cooler than being outside in the sun with no wind. The proverbial calm before the storm.

The fun part of the day began at 3:40 PM, when we got our first taste of what was to come. A light rain and a few low clouds started to form. That all changed abruptly at 4:00 PM, when the full fury of the gale hit us. It's onset was very quick, and in no time it was blowing over 30 knots. The highest speed we saw on our instruments was 36 knots, but it was much higher than that in the gusts. Certainly over 40. Very hard to see with the blowing, horizontal rain. Visibility got down to less than 100 feet, but the wind did not abate in the heavy rain, like it often does in Florida thunderstorms.

We found out in short order that the anchor we had set, a Spade with 300 feet of chain, was inappropriate for the sandy bottom with a hard pan under it. Oops. Yes, we DID drag anchor into the shallows. However, we knew our surroundings well, in that we were surrounded by sand and not coral. We tried resetting the Spade anchor a few more times, with a negative outcome. Remember the definition of crazy? Trying to do the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. We finally switched to a Danforth High Tensile anchor with a rope rode ; and and after that life was a lot less exciting. In 15 minutes we were secure. Thank God! During this whole process, Joel was on the bow dropping and raising and resetting the anchor; Darlene was stationed amidships relaying words form Joel to Brian and Brian to Joel; and I was on the helm. It was almost impossible to hear someone more than 20 fee away. A couple of professional fishing boats were tied up to a buoy just astern, and were kind enough to offer us a line attached to their stern should our anchor not hold. They already had one other fishing boat tied up along side them. (We'll have to spot them a 6 pack of beer on our way out of the anchorage if they're still here when we leave). Inside the anchorage with us was one other sail boat and 6 professional fishing boats. Outside of the anchorage 6 large shrimp boats were anchored. That was surprising as they were exposed to the waves. But because the water in the Dry Tortugas is shallower than the surrounding sea, must be fine for them. We also found out that our Anchor Sail, which we put up to keep the boat from swinging back and worth while anchored, works good in up to 20 knots, but doesn't work good at 30 - 40 knots. Another lesson learned. The windage of its even limited size made maneuvering more difficult than it needed to be. Lastly, our Bimini tried to fly away, but Joel was able to find the appropriate tool (Allen wrench) and re secure it.

The only casualty of the late afternoon event was that the small, red bag holding our Anchor Sail decided to abandon ship. Oh well. We'll order a new one in Panama.

Lights out was 10 PM. Not an especially perfect night for sleeping, as the boat kept swinging back and forth; and bouncing up and down. We're sure glad it's a protected anchorage! As you'd expect, the wind howled all night. Very noisy. As I'm writing this log entry today (Tuesday), the boat is still bouncing, swinging and it's still howling. However, that's a log for a different day.

Brian Fox

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