Approaching Fort Jefferson. Sailboats can be seen anchored on the right.
Tampa Bay to Key West to the Dry Tortugas and Back “A classic west coast Florida cruise” By Frances Lima
Flop Stopper I
Anchoring • Mooring • Drift Fishing • Dive Boats
Greatly reduces side-to-side rolling • • • • • •
Use on any boat, power or sail (use 1 on boats <45’) No pole needed – hang from the center cleat Clean & Very Durable (marine grade aluminum) Easy Assembly – no tools! 2 minutes to water Roll-damping engages immediately (even 1’’ waves) Big Platform yet Tuck-away Stowable (36x10x4)
Watch “how it works” video at
Morewww.FlopStopper.com info & videos at www.FlopStopper.com 40
November 2015
SOUTHWINDS
am forever ruined. The only way I want to enter a city on the water is by boat, and the only way I can truly relax is swinging on the anchor in a harbor. Key West and the Dry Tortugas are great places to visit by any means—but it’s better on your own boat. For vacation this year we took a trip we have done several times before: St. Petersburg to Key West to the Dry Tortugas and back. Even though these places change, they still deliver on having fun and connecting with nature. To give you a little background on myself and my husband Al, we cruised up and down the Florida west coast on weekends and vacations for 10 years in a 31-foot sailboat, Christine. In 2006, we bought Jade, a 44-foot CSY sailboat, did a refit and cruised the U.S. and the Caribbean for 18 months. We’ve been back on land working full time for three years now. Provisioning and getting the boat ready for the Key West trip made us wonder why we still do this type of traveling. However, we had a relative flying down to join us for the Tortugas run so there was no backing out at the last minute. On Sunday, May 10, we sailed from the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina straight to Key West. We left the dock at 6:00 p.m. The sun set as we were going under the Skyway Bridge. The departure time was planned to arrive and anchor in daylight. The distance from the mark off Anna Maria Island to Smith Shoal light off Key West is 175 miles. The 175 miles divided by our average speed of five knots equals 35 hours, plus four hours to get out of Tampa Bay and two hours to transit the NW channel from Smith Shoal into Key West, a total of 41 hours, the estimated time for the trip. If we leave at six in the evening, we will spend two nights and one day getting there and arrive at 11 am in the www.southwindsmagazine.com