Punta Gorda to The Bahamas Part 1 of 2

I hate wind.  North. South. East. West.  It doesn't matter.  For a "sailor" this can be a problem.  But the problem arises when the wind is blowing (1) in your face or (2) in your face.  This is what we experienced on our trip.  Not only was it blowing in our face, it was blowing HARD.  Don't get me wrong, I love a tropical breeze, but that only happens when we are sitting on our patio/at the beach consuming a fruity drink with a little umbrella in it. 

We left home on April 10, bound for Key West, Marathon and then The Bahamas.  We wanted to return home before the end of May, so we thought we had plenty of time. We were meeting our friends Larry & Pam Shelton on s/v Southern Girl in Key West.  They had left a week earlier.   We didn't leave a week earlier because our autopilot decided to break and the requisite parts had to be ordered.  It was a sign.  The second sign came the day before we left when Bob discovered that the A/C thru hull valve would not close.  The thru hull lets water into the boat to cool the A/C.  It's important that you can close it if necessary.  Since it is generally open, except to clean the filter, we decided that it would be OK to leave on our trip anyway.  We didn't get it fixed in Punta Gorda because this is not something that can be fixed at our dock.  More on that later.

We shoved off about noon.  Weather was clear and the wind was fairly favorable.  Until about dark.  The wind clocked around to our nose (of course!), the waves picked up and I became seasick for the first time on the boat.  Bob stayed awake all night and I slept some in the cockpit.  (I didn't go below for obvious reasons.)  Sunsets are still beautiful, even in seasickness and the wind.


By morning, we were getting closer to Key West.  But the wind was still OTN (reference our Gulf Crossing blog posts) and we were still getting bounced by waves. 

We have been to Key West several times, but this was the first time on our boat.  We followed the LONG channel in [Northwest Channel] which happens to go past the cruise ship dock.  Of course, a cruise ship was leaving which caused some nervous moments since we weren't exactly sure where the ship was going to go.  In any case, we eventually made it to the Garrison Bight mooring field.  Southern Girl was watching for us and we were able to secure a mooring near them.   Captain Larry brought Captain Bob a Red Stripe once our mooring was secure.  Then we slept and slept...

For the next day or so, we checked in at the office, lowered the dinghy and "recovered" from our trip.  On Sunday evening, we enjoyed a dinner on Water's Edge with Pam and Larry and celebrated with 2 bottles of bubbly (Thank you St Somewhere!). I must admit that the weather was spectacular most of the trip (except for The Wind).  We were pretty comfortable sleeping without the A/C while in the mooring field.  However, I have to say that our travel buddies are much better at cruising than we are.  Give me the comforts of A/C and having the dock next to my boat.  Sorry, but I'm a wimp.

On the way to KW, Bob continued to have concerns about the thru hull.  We moved the boat to the Galleon Marina for a few days.  There were some maintenance workers working on the dock.  We called one of them about the thru hull and ended up taking the boat to Robbie's Marina on Stock Island, had it pulled out, and the thru hull fixed.  What they say is true -- cruising is all about fixing your boat in exotic places. 

Mini haul out on Stock Island

Back to the marina!  Since The Wind was not letting us move on, Larry and Pam decided to go back to Houston for a week to take care of some things.  We moved back to the mooring field and kept an eye on Southern Girl.  While they were gone, we actually had a night or two of Little Wind, but it came back with a vengence as usual.

I actually enjoy sitting in the cockpit and reading (or playing Words) for hours on end.  Captain Bob, not so much...

More of our trip in Part 2 - more boat maintenance, Wind, Key West, Marathon, Key West, Wind and home...