SWFL Fires

It's dry dry dry season in SWFL. We are in a severe drought.

Here is a recent fire that sent a plume of smoke into the area.

The winds shifted during the night and dropped this plume onto the marina like a fog the next morning.

I awoke to the smell of 1,000 campfires. I expected to awake in a tent, rather than a sailboat ;)

It was obvious how this relatively thin smoke plume blocked out the sun; reminding me of the theories of a possible ice age caused by some catastrophic event... in the midst of talk of global warming...

Small Footprint... take to land...

My efforts to keep my footprint on the Earth small extend beyond living on a sailboat...

I hope to encourage others to keep their footprint small too.

A very significant way to keep one's footprint small is by adopting a vegetarian lifestyle, or even simply making it a part of your life to whatever extent you are able to give at this time...

Here I am at one of the Earth Day celebrations in the area, doing vegetarian education and outreach as it relates to the environmental reasons for such.

We each make a difference.

Animal agriculture causes more damage to the Earth than driving a car...

Anchor Rode Markers

Before the last trip I had put anchor rode footage markers in the line... 30, 60, 90, 120, about 125 feet of line attached to about 15 feet of chain and the anchor.

I was hoping this "knowledge" of how much line I put out would make me feel better about my anchor holding... It would I suppose, if I followed the rules... which, I didn't quite do on the night of the storms that came thundering and blowing and raining through Panther Key. Not sure even if I had put out more line if I would have felt any better about the situation that night.

At any rate, there's probably no other place (besides the dock) I'd rather be during those storms. Panther Key, the sweet spot that Russell, Lynne, and I love to anchor in, has some great holding ground. and, honest to God, thank God!

Not sure what the drainage issue is yet, but when I went to pull the anchor back in the morning after the storms, my anchor locker was half full of water. I bailed it out before raising the line.

As always, check out the other blog to get the full story.... skip the boring stuff and go to the dates of April 10th and 11th.

http://athenacaptainslog.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

Before the trip I had also installed a new depth sounder on Athena. This came into use when I attempted to anchor in a new spot at Camp LuLu...

Patty Naps during trip

Patty, when not cowering during sailing... or, when not running around deck, chasing bugs that happen to fly by, batting at lines hanging from various places, swatting at my head as I walk down the companionway past her stealthy self "hiding" on top of the dodger, leaning over the edge of the boat staring into the water and making me worry she'll jump in, or relaxing under the shade of the dinghy on the bow or the kayak on starboard, she naps down below.

Pic on left is her cuddled up on a pile of stuff in the v-birth.
Pic on right is her cuddled up in the salon area when it's too hot outside.

Back to Camp LuLu, Again

After being rocked and rocked at 5 AM in the morning by the damn shrimpers heading out of the pass just south of Indian Key, and open to where I was anchored, I was NOT spending another night there, and likely I will not go back! Waves on the beam, we rocked, we rocked, off and on for a half hour or so that morning... blah!

So, Camp LuLu called... A nice "breeze" sail to Camp LuLu. Once anchored and rested, a kayak trip to Camp LuLu produced no shells this time. The wind and resulting wave action made it difficult to see the shells in the drop line on the shore.

Last week of freedom trip....

Well, this is the last week of "freedom," I've been successfully unemployed for almost 7 weeks now. It's been wonderful.
I've experienced many things I may not have otherwise experienced without this time....

What better way to spend my last week off than sailing....

A day later than I anticipated, I headed south to catch the winds that were out of the NNE, but would be switching to out of S-SE soon...

After being out on the water for a while, and being tossed around like salad again, I decided at the last moment to jibe and head into Indian Key, not all that protected an anchorage, but things calmed down a little bit once in.

The pics are of Indian Key.

~ Athena is "hiding" in the first pic on left...

~ First pic on right is part of beach on Indian Key, albeit, not the prettiest part...

~Second pic on left shows Indian Key obviously got some of the brunt of Hurricane Wilma, which came tearing through this area about 1.5 years ago... hard to believe it's been that long.

~ Second pic on right is sunset through a key that is just to the northeast of Indian Key, the key I was trying to "hide" behind from the winds and waves...

~ Third picture on left is all the "shells" washed onshore Indian Key. Lots of worm coral.

~Third picture on right shows "company" behind Athena. They came in while I was kayaking and exploring Indian Key. They closed up and went to bed early, it seemed... then left before I woke in morning, well, at least before I actually woke-woke up, and not just to check the anchor. Would have liked to meet them. It gets lonely sailing alone... I'm a little shy though, and not always confident that every sailing group wants to talk to others...

After a tiring day of sailing, had to enjoy sunset with wine, of course ;)
check out this wine, Goats Do Roam. a couple significances here... the wine is from South Africa, my mom might appreciate that since she and the rest of my fam (father and brother) visited there last year or the year before, i forget now. the other significance is that of the goat! being Capricorn, the sign of the goat, i just thought it interesting that "goats do roam" ;)