Overturned Boat – MV Simple Life

If the Boat is a Rocking…

I awoke to the boat rocking. Yeah, it was waves.

After being awake for 20 hours, I caught about 3 hours sleep before waiting for first light to weigh anchor. Last night’s anchorage served it’s purpose. It was only 10 minutes off my path and was an easy-in / easy-out in the dark.

You can see my track – easy in – easy out

I headed west down Long Island Sound toward NYC. The wind was blowing from the south so the waves were building as they crossed over from Long Island to the Connecticut coast where I was. It made for a choppy wet ride. I decided to cross to the LI side before turning again to the west. This made for a much more comfortable ride heading west.

Demonic Possession

I always set Simple Life’s throttle to 1400 RPM which is 2 gallons/hr burn rate. Depending on the currents I average around 6kts. Doing the math, that’s 3NM to the gallon or about $1/mile. I’ve always thought it’s a pretty inexpensive mode to travel since you are moving you and your 40,000 lb home. However this home might need an exorcism?

Cummins smart craft tachometer showing my 2.0 gal/hr burn rate and 666 gallons burned.

Wait… They don’t go to Heaven?

I cringe when I watch people release mylar ballons to go to heaven in the name of a lost loved one.

Traffic Jam

At one point I had to change course to take the stern of a tug pushing a barge. I thought maybe I could follow the barge close and let her flatten out the sound but alas at 8.5kts I was burning a lot more fuel and salting up the topsides.

Salt spray was washing my muddy anchor pulpit

I no sooner gave up on following the tug and I was dodging other traffic.

Pilothouse Pleasures

As I plod along I am happy that I am inside on this cold rainy day.

I had left my marina in Warwick, RI on the same day as another B-Dock member, MV Leap of Faith. I had managed to slip ahead of them but not for long as I watched them speed past me.

Girl Power

Soon I pass an overturned sailboat. I think to myself… wow that must be cold as you swim back to the boat and attempt to right it. As I pass I see that it’s two women sailors. I feel a little like a woosie as I wrap a afghan over my feet which feel cold just watching them.

Route Planning

As I get closer to the west end of Long Island Sound I start to plan my upcoming routes. A quick check of the weather tells me I might enjoy the next two nights in a marina rather than anchored at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as planned.

Marina Hideout

I found a great marina called Safe Harbor Capri in Port Washington. I’ve stayed here before and the Dockmaster Rob is very accommodating. Nice place to sit out the wind & rain.

As I pull in there is a dock hand there to catch a line for me. It’s raining hard so I make sure to tip him well. The slips here are large and it looks as if you could dock another boat in my slip right alongside Simple Life.

As I sit and eat some spaghetti I pull out my laptop to renew my EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) with Search & Rescue for the next two years. I have emergency contacts incase it should ever be automatically triggered by a sinking.

As I sit inside, the wind is trying to blow the dog off the chain. I step out and see that as protected as this marina is… there are still waves rocking the boat.

At the end of the video, you see a sailboat on a mooring whose main sail has unfurled and is flogging. Not good.

Man of Leisure

My new Apple Watch gives me a haptic nudge. I glance down and see that all the boats rocking has tricked my watch into thinking I’m exercising. It believes I’ve just had my longest “move streak” to date. I chuckle to myself and think … I’m a man of leisure.

Apple Watch 6 thinks I have my longest move streak

Weather Window

Now checking the weather I can see it’s going to get worse for the next two days but there appears to be a 5-6 day weather window for running the coast starting Tuesday afternoon.

The weather has been very stormy lately. I would have expected all the tropical storm activity to have ceased but even now in November there are storms forming in the Caribbean.

Go With the Flow

I now need to plan my exit to align with an ebbing current in the East River. Throgs Neck Bridge current station is right at the entrance to the East end of the East River. It’s sort of broad there so you don’t expect too strong a current. However, at Hell’s Gate where the East River and the Harlem River come together you can see there is a 4.73kt max current. The last thing I check is the timing of the currents at The Narrows which is just before I duck under the Verrazano bridge and out into the Atlantic Ocean.

W04L002 is in the Books

Leg #2 of my Winter 2020 journey was only 46.4NM and looked something like this.

The trip down to Key West was full of things to see. It started with an overturned vessel. We saw a diver in the water possibly attempting to flip it? Hope nobody was injured?

There was a diver in the water hooking lines to the overturned hull

As we got closer to Key West, the water became a beautiful green-blue color.

We passed SV Toucan, a 40’ Manta catamaran underway and hailed them on the VHF offering to take some pics of them. Capt. Elizabeth thanked us and returned the favor.

The crew of Toucan would later invite us for a “Sundowner” which is live-aboard speak for why don’t you dinghy over to our boat just before the sun sets and we’ll do drinks and appetizers. They were terrific hosts and I enjoyed getting a tour of their amazing catamaran. If I get a copy of the selfie we took, I’ll post it here.

When you approach Key West from Hawk’s Channel (ocean side) you see sights such as huge cruise ships underway in the channel and others docked.

You pass Margaritaville Marina and many anchored boats.

Looked like they had student sailors aboard?

The US Coast Guard Key West station is down here and they have a large ship docked.

The Navy’s Naval Air Station and Army Special Forces Underwater Operations have a presence in Key West. We passed the many buildings with military logos and such.

US Army Special Forces Underwater Operations building logo

At one point a couple of inflatables with Army Special Forces motored by.

We grabbed a mooring ball in Garrison Bight Mooring field rather than fight the crowds in the different anchoring locations. Garrison Bight is the only real transient mooring field that I am aware of here in KW. The mooring field is run by Key West City Marina. Getting onto the mooring is a lot like in Boot Key Harbor where the mooring ball has a short pennant line that comes up from below the ball (rather than on the top of the mooring ball as it’s better to keep the scope angle low leading to the mooring anchor itself). Up North in Rhode Island, most mooring ball pennant lines are mounted on the top and have either a single long pennant line or a single that spits into two lines with loops for throwing over your bow cleats. Here in Key West the mooring pennant line is very short with a thimble that you must thread two of your own dock lines through. They ask that you keep a minimum of 10 feet between the boat and the thimble. The winds can really blow down here and they don’t want you short tying to the ball and potentially dragging the mooring anchor.

Dock lines through mooring pennant with thimble at end

Once tied up it was a bit of long dinghy ride into the marina office which is located in a different location than the transient dinghy dock.

We arrived on St. Paddy’s day so we wasted no time getting an Uber to Duval St. and hitting some of the local watering holes like Hog’s Breath Saloon. Want to see the drink menu? It’s on your plastic cup (not a bad idea). I had to do a Gumbash Smash just to make Danny & Dina smile. (Inside joke)

Every bar should do this. Starting at the top…

We found that the Sunset Pier had a good band playing and spent some time there taking selfies and enjoying the cool breeze off the ocean.

We ate at Margaritaville’s and found it was less crowded than adjacent restaurants due to the St. Paddy’s day crowds. The food & drinks were good.

The dinghy ride back to the boat was hysterical as we had not paid enough attention to where we left the big boat and we were driving around in the dink trying to find Simple Life. Fish were jumping out of the water as we skimmed over the shallows at high speed.

While there I got to visit places like The Green Room.

The Whistle Bar (AKA the Bull)

Is it the “Whistle Bar” or “The Bull”? – Branding issues?

We joined the 1st ever Key West Cruisers Net Social at Key West Waterfront Brewery (right on the water). We had lots of fun sharing drinks and stories with other live-aboard cruisers.

They teased me a bit being a live-aboard cruiser on a trawler vs. Sailboat but I like to tease them back a bit 😉

Waterfront Brewery right on the water, nice breeze

Lots of fun drinking & chatting with the other cruisers

We made the first ever Official KWCN Social

Don’t you just love the banter between sailors and those who went to the dark-side?

Some nights were dead calm which can get hot aboard without a breeze. Other nights the breeze was blowing in through the hatch and you needed a blanket to keep your toes warm. The funny thing about no wind is… the boats tend to spin randomly rather than all lining up with the wind. Our neighbors on a Manta 44 power catamaran had to jump in the water to untangle their mooring line that was wrapped around their mooring ball.

I offered help but they wanted to fix on their own. He’s a trooper

At night we would see amazing sunsets as we relaxed in the aft cockpit with a drink or two.

Tag: Overturned Boat

Long Island Hideout