Boca Chita Key
We were at Boca Chita until Wednesday morning, our plan on Wednesday was to go explore the other islands in the Biscayne Bay. We had set our eyes on Elliot’s key a couple of miles away. So on Tuesday morning we took off, it was such a pleasant morning. It was sad to leave Boca Chita because it was so convenient for us to be able to just jump out of the boat on to dry land and have the kids run around. So we untied the lines and started our sail to Elliot’s key.
The sailing was going fine the water looked very pretty, green…you could see the bottom…suddenly, Anthony said he thought we hit something…his dad said he didn’t think so but on further inspection we found we had ran aground; oh boy! This was no good, well, we thought of different ways we could get ourselves out but to our dismay the tide was going out so fast and the water level was lowering too fast for us to be able to get ourselves out. We tried to pull the boat with the dingy, no couldn’t do, we tried moving our small anchor to deeper water and tried to provide stability that way, nothing! didn’t work. We tried everything imaginable nothing worked.
While we were trying everything to get our boat out, our buddy boat Lady J spotted us and immediately realized that we had ran aground. They beckoned us on the radio asking if we needed help…They were gracious and turned around to help us so they returned to Boca Chita and tied up to the boat ramp and John the boat captain came to our aid. Mirek and John tried to push our boat with the dingies but that didn’t work. So it was decided that we off load the diesel and the water and any other heavy stuff we had on board that was weighing down the boat so that it could become buoyant again once the tide came up. So we loaded some things on John’s dingy and our dingy and took them back to Boca Chita. In the meantime, we decided that the 100 gallons of water were weighing the boat down so we decided to lighten the boat by using some of the water to clean the boat(the irony of it LOL water is very precious on a boat) We decided that if we were going to wait for the tide to rise we were going to clean the boat. Salt water makes the boat sticky and it is not good for the long term condition of the boat.
So we washed the boat, cleaned it till it sparkled; Did I mention that we were grounded for a loooong time? At about 3PM however,the tide started to come and water level started to rise…We could feel the boat starting to rise and it was bouncing more and more and we knew it was only a matter of time before we would be loose. So at about 5PM we safely made our way back to the Boca Chita dock, happy that we had not made any holes on the boat and that all crew was accounted for. We spent a lovely evening at Boca Chita even though everyone wished we could have been able to make it to Elliot’s key.
It looks beautiful there. You all look fantastic and happy.
ReplyDelete