10000 Islands Sailing 9 Jan. 2020

The annual WCTSS camp sailing event draws sailors from all over to sail out Gullivan Bay that reaches out in the Gulf south of Marco Island, FL. Base camp is usually the north side of Panther Key. If the wind is somewhere out of the North or West, then sometimes we camp on the south side, but there is a 100 ft marsh shelf so one has to be weary of the time of lower low tide. But this trip would be a bit different and shortened for me.

The group camp sailing was scheduled from Monday to the following Sunday. It turns out the most of the sailors launched on Monday and were back on trailers by Thursday. I launched on Thursday. The winds had been picking up. Indeed most of the Florida East Coast was under gale warning with rip currents on the Atlantic. NWS/NOAA wind forecast for the Southern Gulf Coast for the weekend was east wind at 15 to 25 kts, shifting to the SE and damping to less then 10 kts on Sunday. A couple of sailor friends noted that was the driver for a shortened trip. The NOAA weather channel was predicting small craft advisory, but the forecast included territory out 20 miles form shore.

Now one can have some nice discussions on the wind forecast models, GFS or ECMWF. NOAA uses GFS (US computed) which typically shows higher wind predictions than ECMWF (European modeling). In my opinion, ECMWF is more accurate. Historically, looking back over the various recent storms, named, and numbered and otherwise, and compare the various monitoring stations data, the actual wind speed matches very well with the ECMWF predictions.

I'm not foolish, but I did not see a problem going sailing on Thursday after reviewing the windy.com app for predictions that is normally default to ECMWF (GEFS is also available). Also. sailing off the Florida Gulf Coast, wind from the SE or E or NE, typically yields some nice sailing waters. The swells have not built up, just don't sail a mile or so off shore. Most of the time, sailing the coastal waters in a small boat is quite enjoyable and in view of the Everglades mangroves, island and various beach heads. However, there are locations that even being off shore, the water can shallow out due to the shoaling racks that extend out. Just have to keep a watch out for the crab trap buoys; don't want to get the swing keel to hit the line.

I left Calusa Island Marina, just after noon, 16 kts wind on my face, motoring out in to Coon Key pass, with main sail set at the 2nd reef point. Once in the pass, set the jib and retired the motor and was sailing south west at a comfortable 7 kts on port tack. Beautiful day actually, sunny with broken clouds and air temp about 75 degrees. Once out past Cook Key, I headed South and Southeast toward Panther Key. As I noted before, not to get too far out in the Gulf, else the water gets a bit choppy with waves running 2 to 3 feet, then starboard tacking back North to calmer shore waters. Since I was in no hurry to get to the Panther Key rendezvous, (everyone left already) just took my time on the water cruising at comfortable 5 to 7 kts. The Astus tri was having a good time, very responsive changing tacks on the second reef and full jib. Seemed to have is trimmed pretty good as the helm was mostly neutral. I did hit bottom a could of times and trip the keel down haul. Then I raised to partial keel to prevent that from happening, and still had good helm response; probably tacking through 100 to 110 degrees. I haven't stopped using the 26 inch custom (for shore cruising) rudder.

There are some very nice passages in and around some of the 10000 Islands near the Gulf. I took the opportunity to try a few out. The local fishermen are in and out of there all the time. The best way to describe the passages is that they wind around the coastal islands and the tidal changes seem to keep the passages open to some extent. Some passages can be closed off at low tide. About this time, 1 to 2 hours past higher high tide, the risk was low if following the chart to stay in the middle of the pass.

So for this exercise, I doused the jib and deployed the motor, and still the main was on the second reef. My chart data is about 10 years old, both hard copy and the chip on my Garmin. However, there are little to no updates for these waters. But the area is just beautiful and worth traveling, if not by powered boat, then by kayak. So I just motor tacked back and forth, enjoying the sights.

Eventually got back in the Gulf. By 4 pm, It's a good time to pick and island or beach head to settle in, get anchored and watch the sun set. Not meeting up with the crew, no need to hit the beach get the chair out and look forward to a campfire. I was planning to just anchor out. I found a nice protected cove near Turtle Key and stern anchored out in 6 ft of water. Lower low tide at 730 am full moon set would show a lot of mud flat. Indeed it did and I still had three foot of water underneath. (Lesson learned from last years trip, where we anchored out in a cove for the evening and was just barely floating in the am. May have lightly rested on mud in 10 inches of water before sunrise.Then we had to wait an hour or so for water to rise to sail out of there.)

Surveying the water scape, beautiful blue sky and light 6 kt winds out of the east. Decided to motor sail out of the anchorage to the Gulf and full sail further down the coast to Panther and see if by chance there was anyone there. The water was calm, wind light at 8 to 9 kts, and just a beautiful morning on the 10000 Islands Gulf Coast. About an hour down the coast, sailed past to Panther; nobody home. So I decided to call it a trip and sail back to the marina and haul out.

Note about Florida Gulf Coast weather on this trip. The scary forecast from NOAA radio, small craft advisory (not a warning) and all. I relied on windy.com (ECMWF) for predictions, which in hind sight were on target. The winds are usually calm in the morning before the Sun heats up the area and provides the energy for increased wind currents. And at 15 to 19 kts, sailing is fun on the 2nd reef point. Winds generally out of the easterly direction keeps the coastal waters fairly benign at low to moderate chop. I had a good sailing trip, even though my friends were all off the water before I got started.