....................--- New Turkey Key to Little Shark River ---
.................................................................--- April 7, 2011 ---
Nights Anchorage: 025o 19.700' N -- 081o 08.323' W -- New Turkey KeyTrip Odometer: 244.9 miles
Days Mileage...: 27.1 miles
This day and the one to follow would prove to be a real turning point in our involvement with sailboats in general and more specifically our boat ownership status.
We motored out a ways from New Turkey not long after sun-up and then commenced to sail or tried to sail. After a mile or so we gave up and went back on the motor. The wind had changed directions from the day before where it had been on the port beam to now being on the nose. Also the waves were not real comfortable. They were running in the 1-2 foot range which meant there was an occasional wave over 3 foot. That wasn't so bad, but the bad part was that they were running on about a 2 second interval. This resulted in waves close together that were steep and choppy.
If we wanted to sail we were going to have to tack either towards shore and since it was shallow there that was out of the question or tack out into the Gulf on one or two long tacks that would see us coming back towards the mainland near our destination, Little Shark River.
The Seaward 25 that had been anchored near us the night before left not too long after we did and also move offshore into deeper water. They also put the sails up and were more successful than we were and that was because they tacked off out into the Gulf. We kept them in sight for some time, but as they moved further out into the Gulf they grew smaller and smaller. We gave some further thought to doing the same, but then reason or cowardice took over and we kept heading south a couple miles off shore on the outboard on a more direct route to Little Shark.
I'm sure the Mac would of been fine considering the conditions weren't really bad, just uncomfortable. We just didn't have enough time out in these conditions to feel comfortable heading more offshore. I'm also so fortunate in having a wife like Ruth who would take a trip like this and I didn't need to do something to frighten her. We had talked about getting a larger boat before and this situation just kind of reinforced that idea and brought it back to the surface again. We love our Mac and wouldn't consider getting rid of her, but having a larger boat for a while where we could head out in less than favorable conditions and feel safe was starting to tug pretty hard at my thoughts.
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As we headed in a southeasterly direction huge thunder heads started to build south of us and seemed to be moving to the east. We were aware of the high winds that could be near these and just hoped that they wouldn't move north towards us.
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Finally we were near our approach into Little Shark and they remained to the south of us. Still the sky....
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..... as we move into the first bay took on a very strange look to it. The sky looked like smoke, similar to the way the sky looks in the west where we live when there is a large forest fire a hundred miles or more from us. We didn't smell smoke though and I couldn't understand what could be on fire, but it sure looked that way.
In the photo above we are heading up into the bay at the mouth of Little Shark River. We had laid out out a course into the channel using SeaClear and had no problems, but if you are coming from the north be careful about not being tempted into cutting in too soon. Once you are headed up into Little Shark you will approach a couple bends in the channel. The first is to the starboard before you reach where the boat above...
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... is anchored in the direction of the arrow. You can also see the ominous look that the air took on.
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Then after another slight bend the channel runs somewhat straight in an eastern direction. We put two anchors down in this area on the south side of the channel opposite a couple smaller channels that...
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... ran off of Little shark at right angles, see arrow above. We did not go where the arrow is pointed.
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We were just at the confluence of Little Shark and this short channel coming in from the south.
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Again the final anchorage was about where the left arrow is next to the side channel, right arrow. We would of loved to of explored here some, but we knew we were suppose to have decent weather the following day and we were still intimidated some about crossing Florida Bay for the first time so we stayed down close to the Gulf. There were a lot of dead trees and it really wasn't as pretty as I had hoped for. Hopefully we can come back here and spend some days here and explore more with the dinghy.
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We arrived fairly early in the after noon and at that point there was only the one sailboat anchored down closer to the Gulf. Soon other boats started to arrive along with the huge yacht above that...
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... soon passed us on its way up Little Shark. We could not believe the size of..
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... this boat with just the two guys sitting up on the bow and the Captain up above. I'm sure there must of been some others below. Also the boat was being ....
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... shadowed by this small power boat that seemed to be with the yacht.
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It wasn't long before a number of other boats came in and anchored near us...
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... back down...
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... by the Gulf and some continued on in ...
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.... further up Little Shark and ...
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... and anchored there. The Seaward 25 that had left New Turkey behind us that morning also appeared later in the afternoon.
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Despite a number of dead trees there was still a lot of beauty to behold along with ..
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... the usual cast of birds looking for something to eat.
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Night started to settle in and we got the pop-top up and the canvas cover with the bug netting installed and ....
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.... settled in for the night. We were really pumped up making it this far down the coast with no problems, but still had some anxiety over what was ahead of us the next day. Crossing Florida Bay to Marathon in the Keys had been done thousands of times by other sailors ahead of us, but still to be honest it was an intimidating task for us.
We were determined to get away at first light in the morning to give us a cushion just in case we had any problems at all during the crossing.
