Sailing the Florida Keys

[Music] I'm getting ready to head out on my trip to the keys it's about six o'clock so we'll be hiding in darkness soon it's worthwhile to make sure every time the boat is put away which is it's a or do and you live on your your sailboat just can't looking for things that might fall over see it'll be a problem in fact this thing right close enough all the hatches and making sure that was tight all right everything's batten down AI ready to race I need two motors running good pumping lots of water now take a ready to push off it's very windy we're gonna make pretty good time down there though I'm just going off the motor cuz I ran pretty hard straight up when to get out of the channel alright drive time I just finished up pretty well I found this little choco hand rolling around the deck just now I hope it wasn't it's not too big so I don't think it was anything like her show but hopefully nothing breaks nothing that yeah we'll see fifteen to 20 knots wave went over the side of the boat it's got me soaking wet so I'm putting the bibs on now I made it out of Charlotte Harbor or about three miles outside of the pass I finally felt comfortable coming down below for a little bit it's pretty wet out there I've got quite a few waves coming over the side in the back I think this cockpit is actually it might be wetter than the Swedish Fish it's just really loco means I might want to add some leather cloths for one on that seat and I I'm not even beating in the winter we're going pretty much we've got the wind maybe our quarter so it has to wet right I guess but I both handling it pretty well I would really like to have that third week but it I think right now the winds are getting at the 30 at some times it's it's probably averaging 23 24 knots and I just I don't know if I really want to go up there and fiddle around with that right now it's doing good enough and I don't think it's gonna get too much worse tonight and we're going downwind so it's not like if we're going up when I'd definitely be putting that third reason so I think I've kind of kind of bunch of stuff over on this bunk which is the low bunk so I think I'm gonna put my Lee cloth up over here which I'm good to test it out and just kind of rest for a little bit it's about I know we're getting close to midnight right now I'm getting a little bit tired I'll be still sticking up my head I'm still close enough for sure by this entire trip kind of looking at for boats and stuff the the leak lost I work in a real good bunch just kind of slid out when a big wave came in I'm not any dad but some pins in it so I can pin it in place if the leak loss works so good my last ones were so bad it's amazing I'm gonna either pinch it little changes to make my attention thanks game that I ran into something a lot it's a new morning I 75 miles last night which they can make a really good time the wind lightened up a little so I'm gonna go ahead and take out the rest set out the rest of the gym and maybe but unreasoning which is really nice looking South down which telling which makes filming line sale what's for do home nice crowd Telltale's the wind mates been doing her job I had to hang a piece of the tiller because it's the kind that swings up and the control lines would kind of pull the the chiller up and they would slack it so this just keeps them nice and tight last night was a little rough but today looking like a real good day I got a boat set up just right how I like it I just lay here and you don't just of course a little bit I just pull this line or this line I could even trim the sail just laying here and racking up the miles we just crossed the halfway point so about 75 more miles to go and these mirrors turned out to be a great idea we can see what's in front of you with I have to swing my head around I'm just up in the window hold up like this for one more day knock on wood plenty of that around here time to knock out some projects while you're underway everything takes a little longer but you got time so why not I've got some extra pad ice in here and I'm gonna make a like a dedicated a point for my tether I just move to buy back winning the jib I did that so I could put the mainsail all the way up easily and that took advantage of the commotion and put some cleaned up the boat a little bit so now I'm ready to go sailing again lightened up a little bit I got the fishing line out though so what cut the fish up a good speed control we're just about to come up on a hundred miles I feel like this is just kind of like the Hawaii trip all over again once you get close to 100 miles the wind just becomes non-existent but it's not it's not quite there yeah there's a fishing boat and seen any other boats on this trip yeah looks like it's time to put the sails down wind has gone out of our sails literally it's kind of hot so this might be a good time to go for a swim yeah let's do that and then maybe edit some videos I'm just kind of Bob around the size of the waves are pretty small so it's not rocking us around too much I just finished up going for a swim they're still not really any wind that's kind of Rolly cuz I put the sails down I gave the boat a little bit of a scrub think I might do more once I get find a better Anchorage now the water is really nice and blue clearing blue it's nice to swim and you can see everything down well he could see all the boat I mean there wasn't really can't see the bottom too deep I think it's like 50 feet of water here maybe 100 I checked the forecast on my inReach satellite messenger I don't have cell signal looks like around after midnight it's gonna pick up a little bit and I get five not to win so I should put the other two the sails back up and hopefully I'll get in some time tomorrow I was hoping to get in the morning it might be in the afternoon tomorrow but that's okay I do wished when they installed the wiring of the mast a to use conduit or something because it's just the noisiest thing slapping back and forth it's gonna be a real pain to fix that [Music] [Music] sailing in the moonlight wind just picking pickups up for the sails up now now we're doing three to four knots my clothes before actually right now we're almost headed straight towards the tractor to get out my bird friend flew back to the cockpit with me for a while and decided to fly away breakfast time cheese doing dishes on the boat is really easy you just tie it to a string throw it overboard make sure your string is tied to the boat and in about two minutes that will be completely spotless okay not quite spotless but good enough the wind vane is not behaving today it is just being completely illogical I do not understand it is just keeps falling over to this side looks like the wind is blowing it the wrong way look the wind is coming from this way so the wind of ancient blow like the streamer trying to figure if it's in light turbulence from the Bimini or something should go up I'm just so frustrated with this thing I was working in the last trip I know what's going on with it maybe we should like lender that's me hold him you know Henrietta you do yeah we were friends yeah we sailed to Hawaii yep she's out there taking like the islands oh it's fish a little bit place I'm gonna put my line in you catch one of those never have fish tonight oh boy no wind but I'll take a fish instead hope I know how to eat my bird friend over here you no trust me anymore okay he can stay over there the fish aren't going for my line and I don't see him jumping around anymore birds still here starting to get a little bit hazy I keep putting the mainsail up and down whenever I feel a little bit of wind we got to go for like I don't know we were going for maybe one and a half mile an hour maybe it was like two one or two knots we were going for a little bit and then it dies after like five minutes so frustrating it's not even enough wind it's so shifty they can't even use the wind vane so I got a hand steer little frustrating this ha I'm getting sweaty maybe I should go for a swim that means oh man I just figured out what I did wrong with the what's going on with the wind vane like why it's keeps it only it's pressed down so I the problem was these nuts were getting loose so I really tighten them to gown and that's supposed to be it needs to be loose in between here so that the rod can spin and what I've been doing is every time I change the course I've been invested been going counterclockwise more than clockwise it's been twisting this middle rod to the point where it's gotten so tight it's like starting to like to buckle and pull itself back down so I think if I just loosen that I might need to replace the rod now I have a spare though I have just been completely stumped by this like I've never had this much problem with these win vanes so of course it was my fault but it wasn't very obvious like they're so simple alright that's looking much better now I just gave me a boost I think I'm gonna go up and put the the wesker pull out and stabilize this jib sweet it's a bit of a struggle but it looks pretty nice I can't wait I ordered the the track and car system so you can't so I'm gonna be able to just fold the pull up on the mass that'll be really nice but I think I went where to be sailing in this light wind for a while so I figured it was worth paying up now the manual way to birds now I thought these are all the same maybe they're different the birds just keep multiplying going on up here hey guys what's going on angry look to you now which one was my friend neither of you are here different birds I can tell me I'm just gonna put the mainsail up I see you guys are pooping all over the place too all right oh all right here again birds are happy and we're going along at about one and a half to two nuts and now that I got the wind bail sort out its steering pretty good a lot of people say the wind vanes won't steer at slower speeds but mine does pretty well it goes down to about naught and a half a boat speed below that it's kind of hit or miss it's really more changes in wind velocity that give a trouble so like that would because that would cause the apparent wind to shift and then it wouldn't be able to keep that course good these conditions seem like they would be good for a drone shot people were asking I'm using the DJI Mavic mini and I got these little floats 3d printed floats on Amazon [Music] okay after that drone flight I think I changed my mind about those the floats I got it half fare and then I just started kind of going crazy and spinning around and like going to the side I said the remote was saying something like it's max power was reached or something so I think it's it just this is just too much windage for this little drone well we didn't cover a lot of miles today but I was pretty productive as far as getting a couple boat projects done and I added a lot of video my old video content so I have lots of episodes to post now and we're actually moving now at the end of the day I got it for the sails up and we're doing like two knots sometimes and so maybe you'll wake up and I'll be like right outside the keys we'll see I just woke up for my watch tonight and we were doing for nuts it's really good and we're still we're going right on course now we're only 25 miles away from dry tortugas and it looks like we will make it there like first thing in the morning so I'm I actually have to he've to wait for the Sun to come up outside the park fondle that chilly out here now just kind of good that one fat jacket on there pretty soon came up and coming up on oh it looks like some land over there I'm gonna bomb the channel to get in exhale passed it last night so I could go up through the Southwest jam like this as the Sun was coming up was a plan I'm gonna try to short tack my way up this channel only about 300 dy but seems to be doing okay buds in the harbor okay I just drop the anchor water I know normally you're supposed to go shore and get a permit at garden key but I'm not sure since the islands are I think the islands closed there tells to go ashore or not this is sailing yacht pickled herring is anyone on the radio in Fort Jefferson Harbor yes this is a pickled herring can you meet me on Channel six nine do you know if the we still need to go ashore to get the permits for anchoring in the Dry Tortugas or is it all closed down now [Music] thank you well I guess stopping Jefferson Harbor was useless then I'll just come and hang out here for a few minutes though and then I'll kind of try to explore some of these dive sites in the Dry Tortugas I would never think I wanted to mention was I for Miley cloth I kind of made some change this before if I'm just hinged right here and it was kind of hard to get out because I didn't open up wide enough so now I made it so it goes from here to here and then this clips on there so then when you release it this side and this side go down there's more room to get in and out of bed that's made it much easier I printed up this info on the dry tortugas before I left which I'm glad I did because there's no cell signal but it looks like there's some more in balls so I'm gonna enter those in my GPS and we'll try to find them so here's the 30 in use I'm gonna use it to pull out this anchor is nice and slow gonna have a whole lot of windage ups i don't drift get my tennis off time to tie up the anchor my back without that channel right now that wind is blowing up into this alright just wait anchor waiting on a wing we really got to go like a mile to get to the next dive spot it's out there but you got you got to go around here because there's like reefs in here when I go out like that so bad oh man today is been a struggle it's taken me hours to get this morning right like I just did so many passes trying to sail on to I gave up finally did the motor it took me a duck like another dozen tries to get it up the motor there was there was no pennant and and then I had to swim over it to run in the line through it and my boat if it started floating away from me I was swimming as fast as I could to catch it because the wind was blowing it away so fast but we're on it now so let's get geared up to go swimmin oh my gosh all that effort and just got down there and there's a freaking shark ah mmm so I thought about it and it was a lot of work being out here I don't think I could live with myself if I was afraid of a shark so going back out there bring in a knife this time though man what a rad snorkeling site that was so cool the sun's going down so I'll probably just spend the night and then I go find a new cool spot tomorrow so it looks like it's unfortunately gonna be a little too rough today to do this snorkeling I wanted I think I'm gonna head east I'm instead and go towards Key West see if I can maybe get some cell signal maybe look up somewhere beta on Anchorage's around here you're not allowed to anchor in most places you have to use the mooring balls and again there they're just kind of too hard to get right now looks like a race the race is on look at these guys the ocean 1/2 the effort again offend the pullout hugging on the foot away in an hour but I want try to get in this anchorage before it gets too dark so it needed the extra speed boost I just heard a rocket launch over there can't quite see it I think it's probably pretty far away it's kind of hazy today - not very far visibility we are coming up on a Key West sunset in the background this will be the first time I've had a cell signal so I'm gonna find an anchor see if I can find an anchorage in here just drop the anchor about a couple of miles outside of Key West I'll probably move the boat closer tomorrow morning calm wave wise and but there's maybe six or seven knots of wind so mellow in here I'm not really very protected but there's lots of room and drag just pull the anchor fired up the motor I'm going to try to go a little closer see if I can go to shore I get some supplies for the anchor up there that I could just throw in no easy all right so if I get behind these boats that should give me closest access to that the beach over there this'll be a good beach to go into it's only about a quarter mile away instead of the big ding I'm just gonna use my little one this is my new small dinghy let's call it the rapid rap so the way it works is uh it's uh pretty small funny up catch that air in there it doesn't take that much air and when you do is you roll it up like a dry bag and I think it's super inflated now if you need to it's got a little top up using these little hand paddle things yeah getting back here at all wind all right make our way just get into the channel I forgot to wrap my ankle just got ashore now the nice thing about this boat is just open it up and it deflates and then you gotta do it I go to his role throw it up it's very small to carry with you the last time I was in Key West I was working on a Disney cruise ship but it's a lot different now there's like hardly hardly any people it was so crowded there's more people over the last time I mean he's pretty empty just got restocked on food get plenty of supplies next next week palace we are stocked up on groceries now should be good for another another week at least this is gonna be a challenge to get out there oh man that was a challenge something did not hold air and the current was soup really strong up here I was like at least anodic current I was paddling against just in the Anchorage I'm gonna make myself some some lamb burgers I'm just living the dream out here can't ask for anything better than this got like those delicious baby sheep Dixon de sailing out here and find a reef let's get in the boat ready in cells ready to race pull the anchor up this current is think of the knot and a half so I got the motor forward to get this anchor up a challenge looks like it must have wrapped itself around the keel a little bit with all that what's going on all right the anchor is up way back I've been just giving it a little bit of throttle well I go pull the anchor out just makes it easier when there's a current color of this water is so awesome I'm gonna ride up front today favorite spot when the wind leaned up and it's kind of on our nose anyway so I figured this would be a good excuse to uh burn some diesel for some using the autopilot to steer now cuz doesn't really work with the wind vane okay I think I'm coming up on it now the sheriff isn't more involved see any being guys see a couple out there let's hook em up be on the other side of every need to go around let's kind of hope it stay on this sides and I can swim upwind and rep back to the boat let go forward and see if I can get a look at what type of bottom we're dealing with here looking like sand with patches of coral I think I could see pretty good spot of sand over there though we could we can stay out of the coral maybe another one up there so I think those are mooring balls I think the right thing to do is to try to try to grab that and what's not quite as windy today I think I can do it alright we're coming up on them looks like this one is a nice easy one it's got a pennant the normal ball not is offender half underwater we are all fastened up and just look at this this is awesome I get the drone out I think [Music] [Music] I've been here like ten minutes I've already seen so many cool fish Mumbai Hey real long snorkeling session here untie us I'm off to explore Boca Grande key next looks like it's about 20 miles away 15 20 miles so well probably does get there just just after dark never and every time these things to get there before that Sun Goes Down we're going down the wind now so I'm gonna set up a preventer because we're I'm gonna try to get a swing on winged and that preventer is just a line that goes from the end of the boom somewhere forward on a strong cleat and it prevents it from accidentally driving and it also helps with these kind of Roly downwind legs if the wind lightens up in the state will tend to go slack and slap around I'll just kind of holds a boom steady for you all right there we go now let's put a little tension on the mainsheet here and that I'll kind of lock it in now we're tight I'm gonna set the whisker poll now and I think we might be fun to see you like actually what's going on so with the GoPro GoPro head head camera mount thing to see more cool footage like this be sure to subscribe to my patreon you can fund more camera gear maybe I'll get a 360 camera next and then purl it in a little bit just to keep it tight around the trick coming up on bocagrande key originally I was gonna try to go into the the channel anchor and that like little lake in there so dark right now and it wasn't windy also it's about 15 knots of wind just gonna make you know if I need to back up running around giving it a little bit more difficult I think I'm gonna just work my way around to the right side of the island and drop an anchor there and then hopefully tomorrow morning it won't be too windy or of a mess I don't give me enough courage to go up go in there I want to kind of try to explore there they can be pretty cool I think it's about two anchor and looking for water [Music] to actually have a wind vane just steer us in the irons okay so we're setting this to zero degrees the mainsheet [Music] [Applause] pretty windy but the seas are very flat because we're protected by the island under only it's dumping fish all over the place this is neat spot man when that anchor crab man it almost yanked the line out of my hands nothing grabs hard I'm liking this fade to aluminum Spain anchor so now I go on my phone with my anchor Laura map and I just said the position so I ended up putting out 80 feet of line so it's a 8 to 1 scope just because they're calling for 20 knots of wind so you got to expect you know maybe even gusting up to 30 and they said they'd probably issue a small craft advisory on the radio which isn't a big deal it sends you take the water I'm sure I get a little choppy but I don't think it will get released it on to us well which is what's really uncomfortable an anchor but uh I'm only a little concern that I put out so much line because I'm worried I might have snagged on some coral I was looking at Google Maps and it looked pretty sandy I can't really quite see right now but the way it dug in man it felt like I might have snagged something and the problem is if I have so much line out then my there's more of a chance for my line of you on the ground and could snag on some coral but it's pretty a thick rope so I think it should hold up for tonight and at worst case at least it's not on the island island is we're on the leeward side of the island so we're not gonna go ashore or anything if we drag lose our anchor looks like the winds picked up I'm just gonna go check on things what's going on first I thought the lion was wrapped around the keel but then I sorted itself out but then I whoa are we good ground so the line was so slack and like 20 knots of wind you'd think it would have been like real tight and then I think I figured out what's going on so I think it's happening we've got 20 knots of wind and because the mast is a little bit you know further forward the boat likes to weathervane in Reverse and then on the other hand we have a one and a half knot current coming from the other direction and because of the shape of the hole the boat wants to face into the current I think and then because the wind is winning like he's right forces are almost cancelling each other out so the anchor isn't super tight but witness is winning so it's kind of pushing us this way and so we're kind of like kind of backwards on the anchor I guess that's not necessarily a problem I mean I suppose I could bridle the anchor off the stern but I don't think it's really worthwhile let's keep an eye on it I am gonna set out a second stern anchor just to keep the wage from crashing over the back of the boat anymore quite strong today I really don't think I'm gonna get into this island it looks really cool though yeah it's done the hon I'm gonna get a shore this must win I pulled the anchors with great difficulty is really windy and and back towards Myers this southeast 1520 knots a wind looks like it's gonna be holding up for the next few days and it's kind of makes it kind of difficult to do some of the exploring I wanted to do and the keys so I think I'm gonna go ahead and take advantage of it to get myself back up Fort Myers because I can make a pretty good passes back and I'll be stopping again the keys on my way back up the East Coast anyway so it doesn't work out pretty good and we're just flying right now we've been surfing down these waves it feels so good we've averaged six knots the entire trip so we're doing seven and eight a lot of times yeah we're gonna we're making great time I think it isn't a record for me like a hundred miles in 17 hours so we'll we'll be there pretty soon the wind is really holding up every once a while we can't get at us on the side but mostly we're just kind of surfing down them and coming pretty good coming into Fort Myers after a long night of sailing and the long day of sailing we made really good time she's gonna come in and buy put motor on the center's Sun is just starting to come up that's crazy I wasn't even blowing that hard thanks for watching this trip to the keys has definitely been one of my favorite sailing trips I've done if you enjoyed it maybe think about hitting that like or subscribe button edited and this was was a little bit of a challenge with all the footage if you're interested in contributing we got a I'll have links in the description I'll see you guys next time

Channel: Sam Holmes Sailing

Views: 674,791

Keywords: sam holmes, florida keys, sailing, sailing florida keys, key west, dry tortugas

Id: ug3b5KNIp3Y

Length: 50min 21sec (3021 seconds)

Published: Sun May 10 2020