Hellooooo Blog. Its been a while, sorry about that, but its been quite on the sailing and prep front. However now it’s finally time to head to Key West! Where we will begin the final preparation before continuing on to the Bahamas after New Years.

The good ole girl waiting for her passage.

Anyways, here we are heading to Key West, FINALLY. I mean I haven’t really been in a rush to go anywhere (like Sascha), it is still nice to be going somewhere other than off the island. To be on the ocean sailing again is so refreshing, its so relaxing. It’s like sitting at the beach without the bugs, haha. Leaving Marco, the winds were not in our favor, but now about 3 hrs in its much better. We had a squall running with us that was messing with the east wind that we wanted.

Head sail (genoa) and main full, moving at around 6.5 knots.

Now we are trudging along and it’s just majestic. Papa bought a tablet which we are running Navionics, a great navigation app giving exact location, speed, course mapping, among many other tools. Our previous navigation system, just slightly outdated with shifting shoals, depths, wrecks, etc. In addition, it was on our ollllldddd computer which was about to give out for sure, but makes a great backup. But anyway this little gadget is super convenient with telling us how much farther and how much longer and all that.

My watch was from 2:30 to whenever we sailed in. It was a little difficult to stay alert but the starry sky made it much easier. We had put a reef (made the sail smaller) in the main sail early on in the trip, while we had lighter winds, so that when the winds did pick up we would only need to roll in the head sail a little bit. This wind increase happened around the start of my shift, so my dad and I finished that up and he was able to head to bed. During my shift, every once in a while I would take a looksie outside to make sure all was safe.

Sunrise as we get closer to the Key West Channel.

At one point we started to lose speed and I sheeted in the head sail a little bit. My dad thought that something was wrong and came running out, don’t worry papa I got it all under control!…Hours passed and we started reaching up (heading towards) to the channel markers. The wind had clocked around enough for us to be able to sail right into the North channel and onto Key West. By that time we were all up and ready to drop the anchor, even with a quick, easy trip, those few hours on watch getcha. No bumps along the way for once.

Once we got a little closer to shore, we started up the engine to motor in, and took down the sails. Once the sails were down I made a little snack for us, an egg/grilled cheese, to hold us over until breakfast time. The last little bit was the easy part, by the time we reached the anchorage the sun was up and some of the other sailors were waving hello. We found our spot, dropped anchor, and I made some coffee. But I guess everyone was tired, because by the time I finished Sascha and Papa were both knocked out on the couch. So we decided it was nap time.

Waking up to a call from my mom is what finally got us up, and then it was time to get the big dingy off the foredeck (front of the boat) and in the water.

Our trusty stead, inflated and ready to go!

But before that, Sascha decided that it was time for some coconuts, which we had stocked up on before we left the house. And let me tell you our coconut bounty was plentiful, we had at least 50.