Weathering the Storm
Dec 13, 2023
Gale force winds and gray skies is about all we have to look forward to right now. I would have been quite happy living life without knowing the stipulations that surround the term “gale force”. Alas we are not provided that luxury; gale force refers to any winds that will consistently blow or frequently gust to speeds of thirty four to forty seven knots. That’s thirty-nine to fifty-four miles per hour, and currently there is an advisory for the next three days. Checkout the Beaufort Wind Scale.
Apparently we aren’t meant to go anywhere. I think we may have skipped the howling wind phase and gone straight to screaming. It has definitely impeded my sleep for the last couple of nights and sounds like it will continue to do so. The noise is part of it, but the real killer is my anxiety that our anchor will break loose and drift. I’m just having trouble fully trusting our equipment, the boat is a whole lot bigger than our anchor.
Our future looks bleak
Jules and I eventually got a little stir-crazy and went out to the bow for some fresh air. Our conversation probably looked hilarious because we were basically screaming to hear each other over the gusts. Surprisingly, we weren’t the only ones braving the elements. Multiple shore birds were visibly hunting, I guess rain or shine they’re all still hungry.
My favorite was the Snowy Egret.The stark white feathers stuck out like a sore thumb against the dark gray skies. They have an immense wingspan that can reach almost four feet wide, but the whole bird weighs under a pound. They also stand on very long and slender black legs that resemble stilts. He stalked around the shallow water near the shore hunting before flying off, squawking loudly as he went.
My dad used the day to further take apart the microwave, unfortunately I think the two of them are at a stalemate. However he was able to find a very similar part online and, after minimal teeth-pulling with customer support, it is on the way. Finding an address to ship it to was another hurdle. Maybe soon Amazon can bring it to our coordinates by drone, but for now we are stuck having to find a physical address. Luckily, our neighbor in the anchorage knew a place we could have it sent, and it should be here before we cross.
The culprit to all the microwave problems
The rest of our day consisted of playing lots of cribbage, reading and writing, and speed-running a puzzle; we did five hundred pieces in about two hours. The wind continued to blow into the evening and apparently made some locals cold. I never thought I would see a campfire in Florida, but the house behind us decided to light one up. Just another addition to the “I Thought I Had Seen It All” list.
Dec 14-15, 2023
The days are beginning to blur together. When Jules and I quit our jobs and dispatched our daily routines, the days of the week somewhat lost their meaning. All we care about is what the weather is doing, and lately, it’s been nothing good. The sky has been the same color for five days now and there has been a serious lack of vitamin D.
We are beginning to consider taking an Uber to Miami just to get off the boat. Currently, this is the longest my parents have ever waited to cross over to Bimini. Stir-crazy is a bit of an understatement right now, we’re already onto our second puzzle. Going outside is barely even an option with the wind and rain.
Standing on the front of the boat we can literally watch the heavy gusts as they tear across the top of the water. They appear as dark lines or patches skimming across the water, when it hits you the full force of the gust comes with it. They are called bullets, and just like real ones, some are bigger and badder than others. My parents’ friend Randy taught us that when we sailed with him in Australia.
I did see our Snowy Egret friend again today, I’m sure to him it was just another Friday. Miami has become a mysterious city cloaked in fog, barely visible on the horizon. The palm trees in people yards look ridiculous. Beside the extravagant Christmas lights, the wind has their leaves blown into some crazy looking hairdos.
I think they might be stuck like that
Our plants also seem quite sad, no sun for us is a mood killer, but for them it’s just a killer. Fingers, toes, arms, legs, and eyes crossed that we’ll see the light and calmer winds some day soon!
Dec 16, 2023
“How’s the weather Ollie?” “It’s raining sideways!!!” and believe it or not we are still seeing the occasional boat braving the storm. The gale force warning is still in effect and has been extended through Sunday. This boat feels like it is shrinking every day, and trust me, it wasn’t that big when we got on it in the first place.
Our salon through to the fore stateroom
We all consider the kitchen a one-butt area, as in, it only fits one butt at a time. I have now used both showers onboard and cannot fully stand up in either. The one in our bathroom is so small that getting stuck is a real possibility.
Whatever you do, don’t drop the soap!
Whoever designed this boat was definitely under six feet tall. Even the door frames are slightly too short for me. If I catch it just right, I nail the top of my head against the trim and yes, it feels fantastic. Our stateroom lacks the space to walk around the sides of the bed, instead we have to crawl into it from the end. It does have just enough space to keep from hitting my head on the ceiling when I sit up so that’s a plus, I guess.
This is how Casey makes the bed
Stepping up onto the bow is becoming a new form of entertainment. I like to go try and brave the storm, however it’s very clear that mother nature has the power and I don’t. I’m not sure what we did to upset her, but screaming “I’m sorry!!!” into the oncoming gusts of wind hasn’t seemed to help much. Is there an anti-rain dance that I am unaware of?
While the wind and rain has been relentless, Hurricane Harbor has us fully protected from any waves. Surprisingly, we only have one other boat with us. Between their boat and ours we definitely take up some space, but there is still plenty of room for anyone trying to hide from the storm.
Our lone neighbor in Hurricane Harbor
At one point, we thought another small motor yacht might join us. He drove in close to the harbor entrance, a narrow channel bordered by the sandbar where we high-centered the skiff. It seemed like they were coming toward us but the wind was fighting them hard the whole way. The boat slowly edged closer and closer to the shoal which, by the way, is very obviously marked.
Please excuse the handwriting
The captain, I’m sure feeling the pressure of the situation, turned the boat away from the shallow water. For a moment it appeared they had corrected just fine, however, moments later we looked up to see they had spun around and were now heading directly into the shoal. We all commented rhetorically: “what are they doing”, “can they not read the signs”, “they’re definitely going to run aground”, “they must not have a depth finder”, ect….
The boat cruised right between the signs and straight into the shallow water. We all gazed onward, biting our nails at what would happen next. The water very abruptly gets shallow inside the signs, yet the small boat trudged on. Eventually they very gently ran aground - hope they have Sea Tow.
I peered through our binoculars still baffled at the events unfolding in front of us. Once they had stopped we watched them lower and then raise their anchor for some reason, churn up sand with their props, and make general buffoons of themselves. Miraculously the wind, waves and high tide managed to float them off of the shoal and they reversed back into the deeper water. I am here to tell you, the whole sequence was better than TV.
Shortly after the sunset, the wind picked up speed and gave a new definition to the word “howling”. It kicked the power to all of the surrounding houses and suddenly everything went black! Luckily, it reset very quickly and we didn’t have to sweat it out in the darkness for long. I saw gusts as high as thirty knots recorded by our radar around that time.
Approximate wind speed (bottom right)
We have an anchor alarm that sounds if the boat starts to drag the anchor, thankfully it never went off. If I didn’t have faith in our anchor manufacturer before, I sure as hell do now. We could have filmed a great commercial for them seeing as the boat didn’t budge. Winds were predicted to gust up to forty knots, that’s forty-six mph! Around 11pm it finally calmed down and we were able to get some sleep.
Dec 17, 2023
Happy birthday Julia!!! This morning we saw blue sky for the first time in five days and entered the final twelve hours of the gale force wind advisory.
Our first glimpse of the sun
We still don’t have a great window to cross to Bimini, but we have to celebrate the little things. The wind changed direction again last night and swung us around to a new section of real-estate. We have very nearly made a full 360 from where we initially dropped our anchor.
Breadcrumbs left by our chartplotter through the storm
The sun managed to burn off the clouds a little before noon, immediately we were all on the bow of the boat to soak it up. I really can’t explain how great it felt. We got the paddle boards in the water immediately, Jules was dying to go say hello to the manatees. We took off from the boat back into the nearby cove with a generous helping hand from the breeze.
Taking full advantage of the sunlight
Almost immediately we spotted a large opaque blob under the surface. Very slowly it raised and a tiny nose loudly exhaled, almost as if saying hello. As we paddled around more and more of them appeared and disappeared. We saw at least four or five of them enjoying the sun with us. Julia ended up right over the top of them at one point, she described it as a manatee party.
Not a bad birthday present if you ask me
Eventually we turned around to head back, we paddled around the corner and out of the shelter of the cove. Immediately, we realized that we were in for a battle. The wind that had so graciously assisted us before, was now directly in our faces and much stronger. We sat down and swapped into kayak mode.
Don’t worry, she went back for the hat
The second paddle helped tremendously, but the strong wind and waves fought us the whole way back. Jules lost her hat to the wind and had to go back for it. We ended up soaking wet and by the time we came back, quite an audience had gathered in the harbor. After a semi-stressful few minutes we made it back to safety on the boat and cracked some well-deserved beers.
Some of the day boaters that joined us had some sweet water toys. Aside from their fancy Mastercraft ski boat, they had four remote control hydrofoil boards. These things are ridiculous! You stand on them while holding a remote control and a small propeller pushes the board through the water at up to thirty miles an hour, no boat required. They have a fin that reaches down into the water about two feet. When you speed up the board lifts vertically into the air and only the fin is submerged. They look like an absolute riot for a day on the water. The only drawback to them is they cost around 10k a piece for the cheap ones. I’m sure they are fun, but not ten thousand dollars fun. It seems like one of those instances where it’s better to have a friend with one than actually own one yourself. See for yourself: eFoiling tutorial.
Jules decided to join them in the water in her pink, gold-flecked innertube. She donned her bucket hat, sunglasses, and margarita; then proceeded to nearly yard-sale it all trying to orient herself in the small floaty.
Queen Jules
Her final request was chocolate cake, of course with our broken convection oven we had to get creative. Fortunately, our airfryer has a bake setting that made quick work of her surprise cake. My mom had to cook it in a bundt pan because our cake pan didn’t fit in the airfryer. It came out looking like a giant chocolate doughnut but it was still good. Apparently, air fryers can make great cakes.
Dec 18, 2023
After spending a full week on anchor in Hurricane Harbor we jumped at our first opportunity to leave. The weather isn’t calm enough for us to make our crossing but we are dying to catch some fish. We departed early and headed east into deeper water. On our way, we passed through Stiltsville.
I would love to have seen the heyday here
From a distance, it looks like there are large ships floating offshore but, on closer inspection, it is a collection of houses located about a mile from the coast. The original structures were built sometime in the late 1920s and early 1930s as a loophole for prohibition and gambling. Apparently, it was legal if you were one mile offshore. Multiple large clubs were constructed throughout the years and very quickly they became the place to be when visiting Miami.
Shore birds are the new full-time residents
The unique location left the structures vulnerable to hurricanes so none of the original stilt houses remain. However, at its height in the 1960s there were twenty-seven buildings. Today, seven structures remain and are maintained by private owners; but an agreement made with the National Parks Service in 2003 required all of them to be available for educational purposes. They are now used for community events and are regularly toured by boy scouts and other organizations interested in conservation and natural resources within Biscayne National Park. It sounds like permits are pretty easy to obtain for anyone who is curious.
The further we got offshore, the larger the waves became. By the time we were in enough water to start fishing the rollercoaster ride had begun. We got the poles in the water and almost immediately I heard the drag rip out and my mom scream “FISH ON!” I pulled the boat back to an idle speed and went to assist, but before I left the pilot-house the fish was off. We continued fishing, now on the edge of our seats and ready for action.
Here fishy fishy fishy
Unfortunately we had no other bites and the three foot waves discouraged us from being out there for too long. There is no way we could have done that for seven hours to Bimini. Once we got back, we headed back to No Name Harbor for a walk on solid ground; after six days on the boat it felt like land was rocking around too.
Walking in Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park
The path took us along a seawall that was littered with man o’ wars and saltwater puddles; the aftermath of the storm we endured the previous night. The breaking waves were no doubt tame in comparison.
Iguanas are prolific here, all shapes and sizes of the reptiles decorated the rocks along the coast. Cormorants joined them, sunning themselves on the nice day. We even saw some baby raccoons! I’ve never seen one in the daylight before.
Sadly, the Cape Florida Lighthouse was closed for renovations when we arrived at the gate. It towers ninety-five feet in the air and is nearing its two-hundredth birthday. It has withstood countless hurricanes, an attack that included some form of gunpowder bomb, and nearly two centuries of erosion.
Cape Florida Lighthouse 2023 (Left) 1923 (Right)
It’s no longer in operation today due to modern navigation technology, but they still offer public tours. After our walk, we headed back out to the boat. The waves in our new anchorage will no doubt make sleep difficult so, reluctantly, we headed back to Hurricane Harbor for another night. At least we are well protected there.