Day #3 - Sunday: Long Key Viaduct, Long Pt. Key, and the Black Rope of Death

the guys take a break

      The wind is behind us as we sail thru Bowlegs Cut, another one of these narrow but well-marked thread-the-needle passages.  Occasionally, we must dodge crap pots, each marked with little round white balls. 

      Raising up Rainbows End's mainsail is fabulously easy with these electric winches.  Well, there is one small complication, and that's from those darn lazy jacks, which are great when lowering but a pain when raising.  Here is where my experience aboard the Charisma is so valuable:  the ONLY way to get the mainsail up without the battens snagging is to uncleat the lazy jacks, then reach up and pull them down BELOW the stack pack bag.  Works every time then.   Once the lazy jacks are out of the way, you just wrap the halyard around the winch, press the button, and "brrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzzt" up she goes!  Remember, that sail is EXTREMELY heavy.  I remember the tremendous amount of strength and effort it took to raise up the mainsail on the Charisma, and that one was much smaller than this one.

Fiesta Marina

      We need provisions, and according to the cruising guide, our best bet is Fiesta Marina, right ahead on small Fiesta Key.  But the cruising guide didn't say that they did not have room for a catamaran, a fact we quickly learned as we approached the marina.  So Tim, at the helm, holds Rainbows End stationary outside the breakwater as we dinghy into the marina.  It's just not as easy to find what you need here as it was in the BVIs. 

      After the necessary provisions (mainly beer and ice) are brought back aboard with the dinghy, we proceed on our way through the next narrow passage:  Grassy Key Banks.  The sailing conditions are awesome, with a nice strong tail wind.  Rainbows End doesn't want to run straight downwind, so I must do a series of broad-reaching tacks.  We're kicking butt at 6 knots.  But do know, dear reader, that each change of tack requires a gybe, and gybing a big boat like this is serious business.  You absolutely must pull in the mainsheet good and hard beforehand, else that gybing boom will really rock your world, and that's not a good way to treat your girl.  On these downwind runs, I move the traveler to leeward as extra insurance against an accidental gybe.   (I considered ways to possibly do a wing-and-wing with the jib, but I don't have a whisker pole, and there was no cleat in the right place to rig it with a jib preventer tied to its clew.)

      Having these teens and 20-somethings aboard is giving me the opportunity to learn much about that generation's culture and music.  All of them have their IPODs and Smart-phones loaded up with their personal music playlists, and I get to hear it all.  It included Jimmy Buffet, of course, and other classic artists.  But one song in particular, by some group I'd never heard of, kinda stuck out.  It was a rap song.  Mind you, I really don't get into rap, and I even hesitate to use the words "rap" and "music" in the same sentence.  Anyway, the title of the song was - and I apologize in advance for any offense to the reader here - the title was "I'm On a Boat, Bitch".  The lyrics, as I recall, included memorable phrases that went something like:  "@%#&   on a boat   &%+=?&*@   the ocean   $@#!**%    sailing   %$@#!=    blue water   @*&^=!%@#+* "  and on and on, something along those lines.   As it played, Mitch provided the lip-sync, choreography, and corresponding gestures.  I suppose you could say it was a tad vulgar, but yet, somehow entertaining. 

start of Long Key Viaduct

      We sail along the Long Key Viaduct, the first of a few bridges that seem to go on forever, and then through the next pair of narrow passages:  the Channel Key Bank, and the Grassy Key Bank.  And still dodging crab pots.  Our planned anchorage for the night, near Long Point Key, is just ahead.  It's still early afternoon; we made good time!  We lower sails and go to engine power.  But, there is an odd vibration.  By individually cutting thrust to each prop, we narrow its source to the starboard side.  Is perhaps something wrapped on the starboard prop?  We'll need to check it out once we're anchored.

huge house on Long Point Key

        At the end of the peninsula at the northern point of Long Point Key was a huge house, and what appeared to be a sandy beach.  We would later learn that this was all a private golf resort area, and the "beach" was just some sand laid upon an un-swimmable rocky point.  But we were in need of a good place to drop anchor, so I had the boys take off in the dinghy to scout out the area.  I told them to bring a snorkel mask so they could see what kind of bottom we had.  Minutes later they reported that the rest of the area was very shallow, and where we were was grassy.  So we anchored there, about a quarter of a mile out.  Then everyone jumped in the water.   It was about 6 feet deep, and crystal clear!  All the guys took turns jumping or diving from the top of cockpit roof.

Lindsey floating around

       Swimming around, I looked back at Rainbows End.  What a magnificent vessel it was!  I just couldn't believe that this majestic creation was all mine, for a whole week!  How lucky can a guy get?

       But enough spectator sports - we had to check out that starboard prop.  Tim dove down, then came up with a discouraged expression.  "We got problems", he said.  Evidently, a huge rope had entangled itself around the prop.  It was black, which didn't match any of our onboard ropes or lines, so it wasn't ours.  Most likely, we picked it up near one of those crab traps.  It was amazing that the starboard engine ran at all!

      So we got a sharp fillet knife from the galley, and Tim and Kat grabbed snorkels and took turns diving down, cutting, slicing, twisting, turning, pulling, trying to get the blasted thing off.   The hardest part was avoiding all the flesh-slicing barnacles growing on the hull.  At one point, it looked hopeless; we were ready to make a call on the VHF to see if any nearby dive boats in the area could help us.

Tim & Kat with the Black Rope of Death

      But they kept at it.  It took over a half-hour, but finally, Kat rose to the surface, victoriously holding the huge hunk of black polypro rope over her head.  It was thereupon dubbed the Black Rope of Death.  We would later learn that, yes, this is what the crab fisherman use to secure their pots, and this one was semi-coiled, so someone must have dropped it in the water.

      Later that evening we held a crew meeting to discuss the possibility of going all night withOUT the air conditioner and generator.  There were no bugs here, no rain in the forecast, and a pleasant and steady breeze was blowing.  The debate was at times quite spirited, but in the end, we decided to give it a try.  I put a cushion on the foredeck trampoline and grabbed a blanket and pillow.  Without that noisy generator rumbling nearby, it was quite comfortable and pleasant - far better than having to share the converted settee with Mitch!  But noisy Highway #1, about a mile away, reminded me all night long that I was not very far from civilization.

Swan dive

dinghy ride