Tuesday 7 April 2020
The city lights made getting
underway at 0530 a bit more illuminating than our run of the mill anchorages
out in the wilds. As we turned down the
main shipping channel where all the cruise ship moor, we spotted a police
patrol boat with blue lights flashing. I
made our intentions to go to sea known on channel 16 but got response. However, the patrol boat immediately raced
from his position at about the middle of the line of five giant cruise ships to
a position 100 yards to our rear and to the starboard side (that’s starboard
quarter for you lubbers), as the ships were moored in a line on the starboard
side of the channel, the patrol boat was in a good position to accelerate and
intercept us had we turned in that direction.
I dunno, would some corona virus infected passenger hatch a plan to jump
for it and be rescued by a friend, or would somebody want to drive a bomb into
a ship? Next up in the dark was figuring
out what was coming at us in the channel – turned out to be a ferry boat, but
they NEVER answer the radio – what is it about those guys? The is a single turn in the channel about a
mile out, and as we came clear of the intervening spit of land I beheld a
moving mountain of lights headed in the channel and as luck would have it we
were looking like meeting at the bend, not cool. It turned out to be the Celebration-something
cruise ship, and the pilot agree to pass port-to-port while I nervously hugged
my side of the channel all the while with seas picking up and bouncing us
about. Mary took this somewhat expected
bouncing around for about two hours before retiring to the sofa in the salon
well aft in the boat where the ride and sleeping was better. Later on the seas subsided a bit as we got
into the Hawk Channel where the outlying reefs stop a lot of the Atlantic’s boisterousness. For the ride down the outside of the Keys we
were treated to emerald green and clear water through which we could see the
bottom in the mostly 15-foot depths. At
1630, we turned from our southwestward course to a northwest route up Channel
Five and very cautiously felt our way out of the Atlantic and into Florida
Bay. We had finally turned the corner
headed in a northerly direction toward home!
We anchored a short distance away from Channel Five in 10 feet of water
in a wide bay called Jewfish Hole off Long Key. We saw several other vessels out on the water
including one very large and powerful sailboat under full sail which overhauled
us from astern – oh, the shame of it.
However, overall the numbers were skimpy. I watched the four lane bridge at Channel Five
for a while at 4 PM and saw very few vehicles.
It is just a bit eerie.
Mary "standing" watch in heavy seas.
Mary "standing" watch in heavy seas.
