From Tampa to the Cape

Two hours into the due south leg of our trip it was becoming apparent that the summer cycle of showers was building early. The haze cut our surface visibility to a couple of miles, while above the haze we watched as the clouds began to mount higher into the sky. They blotted out the bright blue and replaced it with more white, and a growing amount of gray. The sea darkened its reflections too. The glassiness of the surface was beginning to break up. It appeared as though the storms were building over the exposed land of the Keys, but our judging of distance over the water was a skill in its infancy. We came to course 220° to jog west, motored past Red Bank shoal, and lined up with the channel markers guiding us under the bridge. Clouds to the west were building in numbers while the ones ahead and to the east were building in size. Behind us over Florida Bay, the storms that would bring the daily heavy rains to Miami were well on their way east to douse south Florida with fresh water. We made the bend around Red Bank shoal and headed south toward the bridge. There are actually two bridges across this span, running parallel. The old bridge is in service from Vaca Key to Pigeon Key to serve the homeowners living there. The old bridge is open over the boat channel and at a couple other locations to prevent its use. This is the span used in the movie “True Lies” with Arnold Swartzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. The new bridge rises to 165’ above the water over the channel, making it visible several miles out on a clear day. The buttresses are concrete and spaced well apart to allow vessels to pass each other while passing under the span. We were about to get our first brush with inclement weather. The clouds over Vaca Key and the city of Marathon could now be classified as a thunderstorm, though it appeared small enough. The crew noticed the changes in the conditions with the change in light and turned their eyes from the water below to the sky and the build-up of weather above. Soon, the clouds gathered into a blanket that only let the Sun in through places of the clouds’ choosing. We were about three quarters of a mile from the bridge when we started to feel the downdrafts from the storm in a coolness on the rising breeze. The breeze built into a headwind that began to disturb the water. Choppy waves began to build and slap at friendShip's hull. A half mile off the bridge, it was Alex that said, “Is that a funnel cloud forming?” A wisp of one cloud had begun to swirl and a tail grew from the small dervish it was to an ever-growing twist of wind and water. It grew longer, …and longer…and longer until finally its tail dipped into the sea and… ….and it was too late for me to be dodging waterspouts! The storm was between the boat and the port we were heading for. And then there was a second dervish. And a third spout formed. Then the lighting started. The wind picked up. The waves on the water were saw toothed. There was a two-foot chop on the water, rather larger than that in the channel through the bridges. It wasn't much of a chop for the three-foot freeboard on the S2, but that same freeboard made the boat vulnerable to the rising wind. The chop on the water just made for an additional distraction as we moved into the channel with the storms coming on full force. "What are you going to do?!" Mindy shouted from the bow.