We arrived in Key West Wednesday morning after a good sail over from Largo in N & NW winds.  We hadn’t spent the night in a marina since we were in Ft. Pierce, so we decided to spend the first night at the Key West Bight city marina to make it easier to do a couple repairs that needed power tools and make sure everyone could get a nice shower.  We’ve all been to Key West before, both by sail and by car, but it is still a fun stop.  Mallory Dock at sunset and Duval Street haven’t slowed down a bit, and there’s still a pretty good talent level in the numerous live bands that play for no cover in the nightlife district.  Dante’s is also a great stop as they have a large pool by the Bight docks that’s open to pretty much anyone.

Mallory Dock Entertainment

Tiffany and Lauren Enjoy Duval Street

The island proclaimed itself the Conch Republic in 1982 as part of a somewhat tongue-in-cheek secession protest due to a Border Patrol blockade and checkpoint on US Highway 1.  The highway is the only road in and out of the Keys and the blockade resulted in a significant inconvenience for the residents and a decrease in tourisim.  The Conch Republic celebrates Independence Day on April 23 and has the slogan “We seceded where others failed.”

The major repairs on the list for this stop were installing a rudder reference for the autopilot (it’s supposed to be optional with this model and the autopilot did pretty well on every point of sail except downwind, where it seemed to lose track of the rudder position, so this should be an improvement), having a couple sails repaired (we mentioned the spinnaker in the last blog but we also lost some stitching and chafed the jib on the spreaders on the way here), installing an anchor chain stop to hold the anchor & chain while underway, fixing our dim anchor light, and doing the 50-hour oil change on our newly rebuilt engines.

The first several repairs went smoothly.  We got the rudder reference and chain stopper installed on the same day we tied up and handed the sails off for repair the 2nd day.  Unfortunately, while doing the engine oils changes I noticed that the port engine, which had been vibrating more than even a small diesel should, was out of alignment with the prop shaft.  It’s something we’d suspected before leaving Amelia Island, but our mechanic didn’t have time to make it over to check things out before we left.  Aligning the shaft to the engine transmission is a little tricky and it’s one of the repairs that I’ve left to a mechanic in the past, but I gave it a shot on my own this time. It looks like we might actually have a bent shaft or an issue with the shaft coupling, so we’re headed into a marina tomorrow to have a mechanic take a look. Worst-case, we may have to be hauled out this week to have the port prop shaft replaced.  We’ll keep you posted on that one.  There’s no end to the fun :)

In terms of places to be held up for a bit, Key West isn’t too bad.  The anchorage is nice and of course free (though use of the dinghy dock is $6/day and use of the showers is $20/week — I know, it’s not exactly rent in LA).  Wes just checked the weather for the next 4-5 days and every day is the same — partly cloudy with a high of 83 and a low of 74.  Not bad.

We’re all starting to do a bit of reading as well.  Tiff’s been reading a novel, Wes started the cruising guide for the South Pacific, Lauren has started Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (a great read, for those of you who haven’t read it yet), and I’m about halfway through a book on the history of circumnavigators.  The stories of the early ocean crossings and circumnavigations are truly amazing.  Without accurate charts (in some cases no charts at all), no accurate way to find longitude, no knowledge of how to prevent scurvy, and small wooden ships, it’s no wonder that most of the early circumnavigations involved quelling a mutiny at some point, loss of most of the ships in the small fleet, and significant loss of crew due to death & desertion.  The author concludes that the day of circumnavigators is over in that the challenge and commercial utility of circumnavigation is essentially gone.  This is definitely true for something on the level of a commercial or state-sponsored venture, but it’s still not a trivial undertaking for the small boat sailor.  

New Shoes

On the walk back to the dinghy last night, Lauren and I spied a cardboard box with several pairs of flip-flops in it at the edge of the dock.  A passing local informed us that tourists often leave items on the day-charter boats and never retrieve them, so they’re just left on the dock.  As I’d had my flip-flops eaten by a dog in Amelia Island and Lauren had just lost one of hers overboard a couple of days ago, we tried them on and both found a great pair with a perfect fit and already broken in!