Rolling Night (Florida Boating, Post 24)

Friday, February 12, afternoon

We are feeling humbled by two nights of grounding the boat. It’s a complete rookie mistake. And we did it twice in a row! Hello, do we even know how to sail at all? 

We moved the boat to the north side of the island, hoping to get into deeper water and also out of the southeast wind. 

Even before we grounded onto rocks early this morning, we had a rough water, causing the boat to bounce around all night long. It’s definitely less windy on this side of the island, but it is still choppy.

The day was warm and we braved the cold water briefly, just long enough to snap a picture or two. Doesn’t that look amazing?

John actually went swimming. Brrrr.

We went kayaking.

And finally, some time to just sit peacefully.

And time to fish!

John mostly does catch and release, but that night when he caught a snapper he asked me if I wanted it.

Sure! If he cleaned it, I’d eat it. At first I felt bad for the fish. But after it was filleted and in the pan, I had no trouble enthusiastically seasoning and cooking it.

I know, canned mushrooms are a bit lame, but we’re on a boat, with no refrigeration! You should be amazed that I even had mushrooms.

That night was fairly calm, but there were side swells causing the boat to rock side-to-side. When a boat is on anchor it swings until it’s facing into the wind. When swells are created by the local wind, they run in front of the wind, perpendicular to the wind. In this case, the boat takes the swells head-on when at anchor, which causes the least amount of rocking.

But sometimes the orientation of the swells is not caused by the local winds. The swells could be caused by winds somewhere else, or by landforms or by other connected bodies of water (such as the ocean). In these cases, swells can be running parallel to the wind direction instead of perpendicular in front of the wind. The swells can be unexpected directions in the Keys because of the differing influence of both the Gulf and the Atlantic.

On anchor the boat orients itself pointing into the wind, so if the swells are running parallel to the wind, the boat take the swells along its side, rather than facing into them. Side swells can cause huge amount of side-to-side rocking of the boat, making it very difficult to sleep!

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