Anchored at 24°37.5312′N, 82°52.3086′W.

Fort Jefferson -- centerpiece of the Dry Tortugas.

From Boo Boo Key, it's a solid 6 hours to the Dry Tortugas.

We had 1-3' seas, which is manageable, but unpleasant. It's at the edge of being sporty. If it was an overnight, CA would have struggled. As it was, she could lay down with her eyes closed and wait for the Dramamine to kick in.

We had wind from -- almost -- dead astern.

Seems like it might be helpful.

Foolishly, I tried to use the mains'l for this. Running downwind under the mains'l a bad idea. The mains'l is for beating to weather in light air. It really is. I often forget this and try to haul up the main for running, which creates a mess.

Running downwind in a Whitby calls for jib-and-jigger. After putting up and taking down the main, we decided to motor-sail the rest of the way with Yankee and engine. We did make tremendous speed, sometimes exceeding 8 knots. The Yankee is amazing. I so wanted to try a day of pure sailing, but we also wanted to get there at a respectable hour for finding a good anchorage. Too much fooling around with sail trim wouldn't be prudent seamanship when we have a destination.

The various keys of the Tortugas are very, very low; there's no real shelter from the wind. The waves, however, are all breaking on the outside keys. Inside, the waves are tiny.

The water is not "flat". But, the chop is manageable.

We're on the East side of the fort, behind Garden Key. It means we're exposed to the SE wind. There are few boats here, which means we have plenty of swinging room. Lots of boats (i.e., Tiara) are on the West side of the fort, with a longer dinghy ride to the beach.

We dropped the hook in 15' of water. We put out 95' of chain out before backing down to dig it in, and deploying about 8' of rope snubber. We feel confident.

The seas are forecast to be 1-3' with winds from the SE for several days.

I'd like to wait for calmer weather before going back.

But. There's no cell coverage of any kind.

There's almost no VHF radio except to other anchored boats.

CA would like to hit the bird locations hard tomorrow, check the weather on the bulletin board in the ranger station, and maybe leave in the 1-3' seas with winds 10-15. It's 18 hours to Marco Island; leave around noon to arrive at dawn.

CA would like to spend days and days birding here. I would like to snorkle some of the sites.

But.

Without connectivity, we're not comfortable staying here for a long time. We now know that a satellite-based communication system is essential. We'll be back next year, but with a Spot X or possibly some kind of satellite hot-spot.

(Once upon a time, cruisers used Short Wave Radios and fancy Paktor modems for this. I'm pretty sure that satellite-based communications will be less complex.)

Explorers

There's a little, tiny National Park Check-in office where you pay your national park fee. The form is simple. You stuff it in an envelope with your $15 and drop it into a metal vault. Or -- if you have a lifetime National Park Pass -- you write down all your info on the form and stuff it in the vault with no money.

One of the rangers can give you a hasty briefing on where you absolutely cannot go. Where you cannot anchor. The terns are nesting, so you cannot go anywhere near Bush Key. Signs make it clear the area is closed.

We chatted with two women who were filling out their paperwork. We walked down to the dinghy beach with them. It was their first time, also.

When you come in from Garden Key, you're looking at a big dock. One Dinghy Beach is to the left of the main dock. This is covered with bricks. We went there, and it was a bad idea for all concerned. Do not ues this beach.

The other Dinghy Beach is the the right of the main dock. There's a short stretch of dinghy beach followed by a long stretch of Float Plane beach. This part of the dock is used by the ferry.

We had both chosen the brick-filled Dinghy Beach. We helped the ladies push off and start the work of getting their motor started. The wind was blowing them back onto the beach, but they had oars. They looked good. We motored out to Red Ranger. We looked back. They no longer looked good. They hadn't made progress.

We motored back to the women drifting in their dinghy. I did the manly thing -- used a lot of upper body strength to pull the starter a bunch of times. They'd been pulling it for a while and were whipped.

This is partly a body mechanics problem. If you don't pull a dinghy starter very often, you don't have a good process that's relatively low energy. After the fact, CA had some body mechanics advice. At the moment, however, she didn't have a great patter to guide them through it. We'll be working on it; it's a kind of yoga practice.

It's also partly a "men have more muscles" problem. I can pull a dinghy starter rope a bunch more times than many (not all) women close to my age.

Finally. It's a "willing to fiddle with it" problem. I've started enough outboards that I'm able to quickly try a bunch of combinations of choke and throttle, and recognize which one is starting to fire. I'm not really good at articulating rules like "motor is pretty warm, maybe full choke isn't needed." I sort of know it. I can reflect on it after the fact and know that's why I was successful. But at the moment, it's a "let me fiddle with it" thing that's helpful in the short term and unhelpful in teaching anyone a useful skill.

They were from Tiara. More on this story tomorrow.

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