Conall63
Senior Member
Greetings all.
I'm typing this note, early Thursday morning sitting on my aft deck at A&B Marina in Key West having coffee. A&B has proven to be a great harbor so I'd recommend it to anyone heading this way. The A&B staff is awesome, our dock neighborhood is super friendly, and the boats are spectacular.
Our kids have almost two weeks of spring break so this is the how and the why of us taking this ten day trip. Because my wife has to be back to work on Monday, and not wanting to risk a return delay due to weather, she drove here with her daughter and friend from our home in Cape Coral. I, on the other hand, made the trip with my 7 year old son, 12 year old step son, and my 17 year old step son along with his girlfriend.
Our float plan heading down to the Key's was leave Ft Myers Yacht Basin to anchor off Sanibel, then off shore to Panther Key in the 10,000 Island area, next to Little Shark River, then on to Key West via the northern channel.
Because we let the older kids each bring a friend the logistics of getting the friend on board had us leaving Ft Myers Yacht Basin sort of late Friday to anchor off Sanibel lighthouse. Because the rains have eased up, Florida has stopped releasing water from lake Okeechobee and the water here is no longer brown. Being somewhat protected, this is a nice spot to anchor with good holding. To dinghy to ashore and spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach was a good way to spend our first afternoon.
The next morning had us hoisting anchor at sun up heading to Panther Key. I've always used Danforth type anchors with great success. Recently I purchased a new, somewhat heavier Danforth online, and truth be told, wasn't too impressed with how it looked when it showed up. I rigged the anchor any way and relegated my 10 year old Danforth as a spare. When we pulled anchor on this morning, the new Danforth came up bent like a pretzel. We were set good and firm in a sand bottom, and the tide flipped us around once overnight, and other than being cheap junk, I saw no real reason for the failure. Once we were under way, I got a file from the tool box and ran it across various parts of the new anchor. The file test showed the metal to have the same hardness as imported re-bar. The same file test showed the old Danforth to have at least double the hardness as the new anchor.
I'm typing this using my phone, and the kids are bugging me to cruise them around the harbor in the dink so they can see some tarpon. I'll continue this boat on the move post a little later on. I'll get some pictures up once I get home and am able to shrink them.
Cheers
Conall
I'm typing this note, early Thursday morning sitting on my aft deck at A&B Marina in Key West having coffee. A&B has proven to be a great harbor so I'd recommend it to anyone heading this way. The A&B staff is awesome, our dock neighborhood is super friendly, and the boats are spectacular.
Our kids have almost two weeks of spring break so this is the how and the why of us taking this ten day trip. Because my wife has to be back to work on Monday, and not wanting to risk a return delay due to weather, she drove here with her daughter and friend from our home in Cape Coral. I, on the other hand, made the trip with my 7 year old son, 12 year old step son, and my 17 year old step son along with his girlfriend.
Our float plan heading down to the Key's was leave Ft Myers Yacht Basin to anchor off Sanibel, then off shore to Panther Key in the 10,000 Island area, next to Little Shark River, then on to Key West via the northern channel.
Because we let the older kids each bring a friend the logistics of getting the friend on board had us leaving Ft Myers Yacht Basin sort of late Friday to anchor off Sanibel lighthouse. Because the rains have eased up, Florida has stopped releasing water from lake Okeechobee and the water here is no longer brown. Being somewhat protected, this is a nice spot to anchor with good holding. To dinghy to ashore and spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach was a good way to spend our first afternoon.
The next morning had us hoisting anchor at sun up heading to Panther Key. I've always used Danforth type anchors with great success. Recently I purchased a new, somewhat heavier Danforth online, and truth be told, wasn't too impressed with how it looked when it showed up. I rigged the anchor any way and relegated my 10 year old Danforth as a spare. When we pulled anchor on this morning, the new Danforth came up bent like a pretzel. We were set good and firm in a sand bottom, and the tide flipped us around once overnight, and other than being cheap junk, I saw no real reason for the failure. Once we were under way, I got a file from the tool box and ran it across various parts of the new anchor. The file test showed the metal to have the same hardness as imported re-bar. The same file test showed the old Danforth to have at least double the hardness as the new anchor.
I'm typing this using my phone, and the kids are bugging me to cruise them around the harbor in the dink so they can see some tarpon. I'll continue this boat on the move post a little later on. I'll get some pictures up once I get home and am able to shrink them.
Cheers
Conall