EC2011 - Day 4

Tuesday morning dawned and we slowly dragged ourselves out of our sleeping bags.  We got a chance to see just how beautiful Panther Key is, I would love to come back some time and take my time sailing and camping in the area.

 

We got packed up and underway, heading towards Indian Key Pass.  Shortly after leaving, we passed SandyBottom in her kayak, we waved, and kept sailing.  Our timing with the tide was decent, when we arrived, the current was fairly light.  The wind was from the east, so we were able to sail up the pass, but needed to tack.  Keeping a careful eye on the depths on my GPS, I held each tack as long as I could.  The wind was moderate, and I had the sail fully unfurled.  In these conditions, the boat tacked beautifully, tacking very close to 90degrees:

 

Throughout this, SandyBottom continued to follow us, occasionally popping up her Flat Earth Kayak Sail.  She finally caught us in Chocoloskee Bay when I tacked, hit a mud bank, and lost all my momentum.  It is interesting to notice on the track above, that my tacks got a lot worse in the Bay.  In the more open bay, the wind was stronger, and I furled the sail a bit... when I did this, I lost pointing ability... interesting...

I hopped out of the boat, and pulled it the last few yards into the NPS boat launch.  Also there were SandyBottom and AhMaChamee.

 

We all chatted for a while, enjoyed some ice cream, and took advantage of real bathrooms.  We were planning to camp at one of the National Park campsites, so I went to the ranger station to get a backcountry permit.  I ended up in line with AhMaChamee, and we decided to share a permit for a site on Highland Beach.  SandyBottom warned us about getting stuck there at low tide (200 yds of mud!) and we all hopped in our boats and headed to CP2.  We arrived at CP2, Emily signed the logbook, and I refilled our water.  (Or so I thought... more to come on that in the next segment...)  A few minutes later, we left and sailed towards Rabbit Key Pass with AhMaChamee.

 

I followed the route through Rabbit Key Pass that I had plotted in my GPS and we were separated when AhMaChamee took a slightly different route.  We assumed we would meet up again at Highland Beach.  Unfortunately, we would not see each other again until Key Largo.  The tide was coming in through the pass, and with the wind was also against us, we struggled our way out towards the Gulf.  Shortly after tacking near Rabbit Key, the wind quickly grew in strength.  I furled the sail a bit and started to experience the same pointing issues I had in Chocoloskee Bay.  In addition, there appeared to be storm clouds approaching from the east.  The wind and waves were building, we were having difficulty making headway, and it was getting dark, so we decided to beach the boat.  We landed in the lee of a random unnamed key and got out to stretch.  I walked back to the end of island and looked out at the water.  It appeared a bit calmer, so we tried to sail again.  It turned out about the same as before, and since we were pretty tired, we decided to just head back to our beach and camp for the night.  We headed back to where we were and made some dinner.  Unsure if we could legally camp on the island, we decided to sleep in the boat.  This ended up working wonderfully.  I rearranged our stuff a bit, and we slept Emily in the bow, me in the stern, with our feet towards the middle of the boat.  With the cover closed over us, it was fairly warm, we just used our "woobies" for a bit of extra warmth.  The only thing we wished for was a closed cell foam pad for a bit of cushion and insulation from the cold water.  We quickly fell asleep, hoping for a better day tomorrow.