Drag Queens and Runaway Sails

Well, we at least tried to pick up that dinghy motor battery at West Marine… After a 1.7 mile walk, we were told the shipment was delayed 7 hours. Seeing that it was after noon at that point, we conceded to the news and added the darn thing to the list of “reasons we have to sail north, again.” The positive news of that day is we had a successful grocery trip and stopped at not one, but two cheap happy hours. As if I hadn’t been training the past 10 years to get free drinks, I’m getting even better at it now that we don’t have jobs. Amazing how many apps and services restaurants pay to advertise for them… Yelp: “Free beer or wine under $10” DONE. Freebie: “Any free drink, up to $8” Done and thank you. Those of you that know us well know we both have a lucratively soft spot for happy hours. The cruising life is similar to the “airport bar” talk, we have a story and so does everyone we talk to… it’s too fun not to meet new folks.

The beauty of deciding to go to Key West on what I would consider a “whim,” is that we weren’t on much of a schedule. I use “whim” liberally, as I’m aware any other type personality of the alphabet other than the wonderful letter “A” would call it a calculated, mostly planned intention or something of those sorts. We knew we had at least a week before we could leave the States with all our necessary parts for Jamaica, which gave us a week to sail 170 nautical miles each direction and also enjoy New Years in Key West. Who knew watching a famous Drag Queen drop in a massive red stiletto from the top of a bar at midnight was on our bucket list?!

We departed our Dinner Key Marina mooring ball at sunrise to fill up on water at the dock before sailing south. Water filled, we shoved off the dock… and within minutes, smoke was escaping through our cockpit navigation pedestal. CRAP, what NOW?! Our brand new alternator, as we had oddly suspected, succumbed to the machinery version of infant mortality. No panic ensued, I mean, we already had to come back to Miami for the darn windlass motor (and dinghy battery, custom LED bulbs, replacement headset, and whatever else would break in the coming days). Let’s just call the company, explain how they sold us a lemon, and we’ll have a replacement waiting for us by the time we return to Miami. Oh, it’s Saturday… they are closed. Oh, Monday is a quasi-holiday… Oh, Tuesday is a legitimate holiday. Well, crap. If we don’t learn to slow down, the universe will force it… didn’t I just say how we were learning to accept that lesson?

Complicated boat parts aside, we had a lovely sail down the Keys until dusk, when we found a nice anchoring location south of Tavernier Key for the night. We lazily sailed the next day for most the day, knowing we didn’t want to arrive in Boca Chica Marina until the following day. We anchored near Summerland and Ramrod Keys and finally went for our first swim. I’m embarrassed to admit that in 8ft of water, almost clear enough to see the bottom, I was too much of a wimp to get in without Nate. He jumped in graciously, and I followed gratefully. We kicked and swam near the boat for a little bit to stretch our “sailboat sore” limbs and then enjoyed hot showers and some wine. We watched “Chasing Bubbles” – HIGHLY recommended if folks want to see one of the original young world traveler’s tale. YouTube documentary, check it out.

The next morning was set to be a super easy, two-hour downwind sail to the marina. We were up with the sun and off the hook quickly; we’d be dockside at the MWR marina at Naval Air Station Key West in under two stress-free hours… queue the Great Spinnaker Disaster of 2018.

I intentionally refer to it as “of 2018,” as I’m certain something much worse will occur with our spinnaker in 2019 or 2020… or both. Alas, the story goes: we’d run the old spinnaker all day the previous day, so it was in the sock, on deck, ready to go. Super simple, we just need to attach the half-cylinder plastic tacker with the built-in hooks to the forestay. I watch the helm as Nate heads forward to complete the simple task, in anticipation for our laidback two-hour sail. It was breezy (ideal for sailing, of course) and Nate wrapped the tacker around the forestay. Then I see a bit of a fumble, as he suddenly has his arms wrapped around the forestay, holding the bottom corner of spinnaker and simultaneously trying to do something with the tacker. At this point, neither of us were too concerned, the clip had pulled itself out of the tacker, an easy fix…. Until the spinnaker sock decided to take a trip towards the sky, releasing the full spinnaker into the 10+ knots of wind. All hell broke lose. I run forward to assist, trying to shove the clip back through the tacker while Nate put all his strength into holding the sail on the boat. Fast-forward through lots of cursing, screaming forearm muscles, and cramping fingers and we finally have the spinnaker on deck. I’m still using quite a bit of strength to keep it there, including sitting on top of what I could billow under myself and leveraging assistance from the forestay, praying to King Neptune to not let the wind gust or the waves roll aggressively. Nate fixes the tacker and we’re back in business. We take a picture to laugh at later. Ready to loose the sail again!

Up she goes… in a twisted disaster of a mess. Oh gosh, no, please no, not again… the sheet lines loose themselves and the mostly opened spinnaker, full of wind, tucks down and fills itself with water. Fantastic! Now we have the wind AND water to pull against. Details get blurry, but after some strategizing, more cursing, burning forearm muscles, and cramping fingers, we finally get the damn thing back aboard. At this point, Nate thinks we can correct the twisted disaster on deck. I offer a hard pass. No way, Jose. We will motor for the next two hours, if we have to! Hell, at that point, I’d row us there… anything to avoid another runaway spinnaker.

Our “easy two-hour sail” turned into a 3-4 hour stress mess, but at least we got some exercise in! Stay positive, right? We finally made it to Boca Chica Marina and land felt great. We knew it was a two-mile walk to get from the marina to the base gate, so we went to the bar for a drink and to make some friends with cars. Success! A nice gentleman drove us to the gate after lunch and we took an Uber one island over to Stock Key. We met with Norman, Nate’s lifelong idol, and spent much of the afternoon and evening listening intensely to his sea stories. Feeling frisky, we ventured down to Mallory Square around 8pm and started a bar-hopping, historic-plaque-reading tour of Key West. We piled in with the crowd around 11:30pm to wait patiently for Sushi, the famous drag queen, to drop in her stiletto from the second story of Bourbon Street Bar at midnight. What fun! Definitely enjoyable, but certainly not making the future to-do list; one and done for Key West NYE. After a bit of a Lyft-stealing fiasco to get back to the marina, we finally made it back and crashed hard for the morning.

New Year’s Day brought on some necessary chores and as we heard beers cracking on the pier near us, our motivation increased. We completed our morning list, grabbed a bottle of champagne, and introduced ourselves to the dock partiers. They fed us too much pork and ribs and we all swapped stories and plans for adventures. The highlight of the day was helping a likely intoxicated woman dock her powerboat… the country holler of “oh, shiiiit, Ima gonna hit it!” sent most of us flying down the pier, when we’d been walking casually to offer assistance before. Nate dove onto the docked vessel under attack and fended off the incoming boat with all his might. The rest of us grabbed whatever lines we could and burned off a drink or two hauling the new boat away from the docked boat she had just made crunching contact with. Phew! The woman noted that she needed more wine and we all backed away slowly…

Wednesday brought a nice morning of chores and workouts, as we had no rush to leave the marina. We motor-sailed a few hours back to the previous anchorage and enjoyed a relaxing evening. We sailed all day Thursday and into the night, anchoring around 2am just inside Biscayne Bay. Up and at-em early (because we’re incapable of sleeping in) and we were back on our old mooring ball at Dinner Key Marina by 8:30am. Nate pulled the lemon alternator out of the engine and we headed ashore for errands, laundry, and workouts for the day… and probably a happy hour, because that’s what we do.

Until next time…

Cheers,

Sarah & Nate