.............--- Moved Down to Whitehorse Key ---
.............................................--- March 27 and 28, 2011 ---
Nights Anchorage: 025o52.279 N -- 081o34.051 W -- Whitehorse KeyTrip Odometer: 171.0 miles
Days Mileage...: 2.8 miles
After 2 nights up past Whitehorse Key we decided to move down closer to the key. There had been a couple boats between us and there in the deeper channel, but they moved on and it looked as if only one boat remained down by the key. The wind had been coming out of the east and southeast and we were a little unprotected from that direction, so that also weighed into the decision to move.
It was windy during the day with gusts to 20 mph and a 14-16 mph average. I took two videos of the anchor sail in action during that period.
One off the stern....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkLbyBld1lY
And one off the bow....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKjU842c9Zo
We had relocated the anchor sail lower on the backstay for this trip and it was working much better than on the fall trip. With it tied off center it tries to sail the boat off in one direction..
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.... and stalls there. Eventually it will fill on the other side ...
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..... and sail some back the other way, but the sailing around on anchor is really reduced and it just takes a minute to setup. More on it ( HERE ).
........The winds calmed down late afternoon and we made the move down to Whitehorse around 6 pm. The move went quickly and soon we were down in a bay looking back up towards where we had been.
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We had one boat off a ways from us. There were a couple different cuts ....
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... out to the Gulf in the distance, but we were pretty protected from the wind regardless of direction.
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There was a family camped on shore. They must of arrived the day before (sorry for the poor picture). They packed up later and that left the sand spit at the end of the key open.
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We decided to go over the next day weather permitting. The day came to an end....
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... with a nice meal thanks to the 12 volt EdgeStar Frig. A real plus on a trip like this.
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Another nice day anchored out came to end.
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Monday dawned with some clouds which became more clouds and a brief storm and then cleared off. We decided to go to the beach and once there...
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... turned the Zodiac Zoom over and worked at cleaning the ...
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..... bottom. We didn't have to do this the previous fall and even then there wasn't as much growth. We would have to clean it a couple more times on this trip.
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We used dish scouring pads and a sponge. The small barnacles ate them up. Later we found that it was much easier using a Teflon spatula. It worked great.
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After cleaning the dinghy we walked the beach some. Above is the bay side. Our boat was just behind the island at the left of the picture.
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Now from about the same spot looking along the Gulf side.
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A little further along the shore.
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The beach has lots and .....
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... lots and .....
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... lots of shells and other....
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.... interesting creatures.
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Looking back towards the point of the spit.
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I liked the beach, but really liked the ...
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.... area where the trees and the beach and the water all came together.
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Looking back on the trip our only regrets were that ...
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... we didn't spend more time here and at the other beaches in the 10,000 Island area. We will go back.
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We returned to the Kera Jane and found a really good way to cool the cabin if there was any wind at all.
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We left the pop-top cover in place, but opened the front to let as much air in as possible and ...
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.. clamped a towel across the top of the pop-top. It diverts the wind down ...
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.... onto us instead of going over us and out the back. It was amazing how ...
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.... something so simple could work so well.
We spent about a day and a half by Whitehorse, but hopefully there will be more days there in the future. The last night it stormed all night, but the anchor held and we slept well as usual.
