We woke up early on Wednesday as we wanted to get down to Key Biscayne earlier in the day. We pushed off around 8:15am, enough time to request the 8:30AM bridge opening at Holywood Beach Blvd. Bridge.
This was the first time I’ve taken While One’s helm. Existing the marina was relatively easy as Nico had provided a starboard bow line to help bias the boat as we left. 227 was the last slip next to the fixed end of the dock which were concrete.
Requesting bridge openings we also new for me but watching Nico a few days earlier made it a non-issue.
Once we exited Port Everglades, the seas were quite rough. My mom became seasick. We headed out about 4 nm but ultimately turned back closer to shore to avoid the current which seemed to be about 2 knots. Coming back closer to shallower water once we were further south gave us about another 1 knot in boat speed. We had both engines at about 1800 rpm and were make about 5 knots with the wind and current at our nose. After several hours and turning further east, we were able to put the jib out for a bit to pick up another knot. We arrived at the anchorage outside of No Named Harbor on Key Biscayne about 3pm.
The bridle on While One is very long…I’m not quite sure why. In any case, Sherine and I were familiar enough with using a bridle during anchoring when we bareboat chartered in the BVI a Leopard 40. However, the new windless, chain counter, slipping gypsy, etc. caused us several unsuccessful anchoring attempts.
After a few hours at out current spot. some of the folks had started to leave and so we desired to get in closer to shore. We attempted to bring up the anchor but found it was fouled on what seemed to be a lobster pot and some line. We tried our best to remove it but ultimately Sam had to jump in the water to remove the line from the anchor.
We were in about 11 feet of water. I wanted to have a scope of about 3 or 4 (not being familiar with the bottom conditions, boat or anchor). We ultimately determined, after several attempts of the the devil’s claw slipping off the chain, that we were letting too much chain out before putting the bridle on. Once we figured that out, things were much smoother!