"It's as good a day as any" I said as I burned my mouth on a cup of percolated coffee, I was ready to make the last leg of our trip and return to Boot Key. Thunderstorms boomed in the distance as I studied the weather underground radar and plotted out a way to weave through the mess. I knew one thing, the crew didn't need to go through what we did a couple days prior. The plan originally was to take the inside route on the gulf side all the way and then under the 7 mile bridge back to Boot Key, however after studying the wind, waves and weather I decided to go on the outside and run up the Atlantic. We detached from the mooring ball and made the almost 5 mile trip to just get out of the harbor. Up over Flemming key, down past the anchorages and Mallory square. We were in the channel on our way out when we saw the massive cruise ship making it's way in.
It looked as though we would have time to clear the corner and get out of the channel before the cruise ship got to close, but it was going to be sketchy. I pointed out the two boats buzzing around the cruise ship and told Jess "I think those are gunboats" nobody believed me until one of them bee lined right for our boat with the .50 caliber cannon pointed right at our bow. I grabbed the radio and gave them my intentions, they radioed back with an ok and told us quite clearly to hold our current heading and do not deviate. "No problem Capt, thank you" was all I had to say as I stared down the barrel.
We made our way out into Hawks Channel and up the coast, the wind shifted throughout the day and we motored, sailed, motor sailed, sailed and finally ended up with no wind and motoring. This is the bad thing about sailing anywhere on a deadline, otherwise we could wait until we had favorable winds. We spent the day doing shifts on the bow with a VHF navigating the plethora of lobster pots that littered the otherwise beautiful water. The day was uneventful and we watched several storms in the distance that would have been right on top of us had we taken the gulf, not to mention the lobster pots on that side are even worse. Sometimes so thick you can't find a route between them.
Everyone had a smile on their face as we spotted the marker for Boot Key channel, knowing we would be seeing our friends and sleeping well attached to our mooring ball. It was an amazing trip on many levels. The final blog post about this trip I will address the things we did right, did wrong and overall what we learned. Just as we slipped into the entrance a storm raged on the horizon and the radar showed it bearing down on us as we raced to get into the protection of the harbor.
We got hooked up to the mooring ball and a couple dinghies motored up to welcome us back and invite us to wing night at the Hurricane restaurant. .25 hot wings sounded like a plan! We launched the dinghy, put on the motor and enjoyed a night retelling our adventure to friends over wings and cheap draft beer. Who could ask for more? Life is good.
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