Cruising Aboard Cosmos
Sailing a Com-Pac 16 through the Everglades
Article by Molly McCormick
The wind was billowing 25 knots directly into the harbor at Flamingo on the the southern tip of Florida, in Everglades National Park. We had to short tack our engineless Com-Pac 16 Cosmos out the 80 foot wide channel, keeping clear of the mangroves on one side and a looming 10 foot concrete wall on the other.
An elderly couple had taken a seat on some benches atop the wall to watch the spectacle we were creating. Bob was at the tiller. He would push it to starboard; we would enter the wind, all 25 knots of it would catch the boat, slamming it over. As she heeled, we’d “high side” (move our bodies to the windward gunnel to keep the boat from capsizing or filling with water), Bob would round us up, just enough to make some forward headway, and we’d tack. I would then yank the jib sheet out of the cleat and furiously pull in on the opposite sheet. “Crack!” the boat would heel as the sails caught the wind and we’d high side. That would put us a couple feet closer to the channel opening. Our timing was off at first and Bob would have to jibe around, missing the wall by inches as we let the four-letter words fly like real sailors (to the astonishment of the onlookers, who by now had gathered into quite a crowd). We would then start over. On the third attempt, we had managed to make enough headway, and on the ninth tack or so, we squeaked out of the channel, with a victorious, “Wee-hoo!” We turned around to see a couple dozen people on the seawall, cheering and waving their arms in the air in celebration.
We then tried to tuck behind the nearest island, and promptly ran aground in the mud. After wagging the tiller to and fro, letting the sails out, and leaning on the low side, we managed to wiggle out of the muddy shallows and get into deeper water. Luckily the crowd had dissipated by this time. Sore, aching, hot, and tired, we dropped anchor behind Bradley Key in maybe 4 feet of water on a changing tide, wind blasting, but chop smoothed by the island. It had been a great ten days of sailing, and we were only just beginning our cruise.
A couple months before, Bob said to me, “Let’s buy a small trailerable boat and take it to Florida this winter; we can sail through the Everglades and down to the Keys.”
“Hmmm,” I said. “Sounds great!” I didn’t have to think about it too long. It was to be our first extensive cruise, something we’d been preparing ourselves for since the summer of 2006 when we moved to coastal North Carolina to learn how to sail. We were adventurers and backpackers who were lured by sailing’s promise to take us to exotic locations. Since 2006 we had read and researched every aspect of sailing. We had worked on a couple boat restorations. Bob built a beautiful wooden dinghy, and we’d sailed on all kinds of boats. As a result of our labor, we’d made up our minds about sailing, and our motto was: keep it simple. We prefer small, easy to maintain boats with minimal electronics, no unreliable gadgets, and no expensive, dirty engines. After researching boats for our cruise to Florida, we decided the Com-Pac 16 built by the Hutchins Company in Clearwater, Florida. It was the perfect boat: safe, reliable, good reputation and following, solid construction, big enough to live aboard (camping style), small enough to tow behind our 1984 Volkswagen Westfalia, and within our budget. We searched the internet, and before we knew it, we’d found one in town for sale, purchased her, and dropped all other work to get her ready for Florida.
She was a beautifully maintained black-hulled boat with cream topsides, and nary a scratch in her gelcoat despite her 20 some years. But we did have a few jobs to complete before leaving, which of course, as departure time neared, seemed to double up on us.
Bob rebuilt the trailer, replaced the standing rigging, re-bedded the hardware, installed oarlocks, put on two coats of bottom paint, built new companionway dropboards, and added a removable solar panel with battery, to name a few. In charge of all things canvas, I built a new mainsail from a Sailrite kit, sewed up cockpit cushions, and an awning with drop down screens. We knew cruising on such a small boat was going to be a challenge, so we would optimize space by transforming our cockpit into our living room as soon as we set the hook. It took a month and a half of us running around like crazy to accomplish everything. Finally, Cosmos was ready and we loaded up and headed out. Destination: Southwest Florida.
We drove to Everglades City, chosen because of its size and location in the middle of the 10,000 Islands of Everglades National Park. We needed a small town where prices would be cheaper and people would be more likely to keep a good eye on our vehicle and trailer. We soon found the friendly folks at the Backcountry Marina who watched our belongings for a very reasonable price. We then paid $10 to launch Cosmos at the historic Rod and Gun Club, with its varnished cypress interior, animal trophies, and copper fireplace. As I sat in the boat while Bob took the car back to the Backcountry Marina, my nerves started wearing through. I’m like this at the start of all our adventures. Had we prepared enough? Will we drag anchor? Did we buy enough food? Would our five 5-gallon jugs of water last us until the Keys? Did we bring too much? What could we leave behind? We decided that we would treat the first couple days as a shakedown; we could return to Everglades City if we needed to before continuing south, and that helped to ease my mind.
As we left the dock and started on our adventure, we failed to check the tide and were forced to short-tack against the strong flowing tidal current. We knew better but were too excited to wait for the tide to change. With determination, we were able to row and short-tack our way past the palm tree-lined neighborhoods of Everglades City and into the mangrove islands. Those oarlocks we’d installed on the boat came in handy in light-air situations and provided our only alternate mode of propulsion. Contrary to what many think, rowing a 16-foot boat was easy enough even for me; rowing is about finesse, not brute strength.
The setting sun left the sky all shades of rose and lavender as we dropped anchor for the first time. As we approached the anchorage, I measured depth with the leadline. With 4 feet of tide and 2 of draft, we needed at least 6 feet under us at high tide. It was mid-tide and we had 4 feet of water under us, so we needed 40 feet of scope with combination chain/rope rode. Bob at the tiller, would pick the spot where he wanted us to sit, he would then round up, and let the sails flap as we coasted. At his cue, I would drop the CQR off the front, let out 30 feet of scope to set the hook, then let out 50 more feet as the current pushed us. Bob would toss the Bruce off the back, and as he let out 40 feet I would take up 40 feet up at the bow, setting the rear anchor as we did it. Once we were happy with our set, Bob would bring the rear rode to the bow where we would lead it through the anchor roller and cleat it off. This is called the Bahamian style of anchoring, which prevented us from dragging when the tide changed. It took us a few nights to trust our anchoring skills, but we got better as we sailed deeper into the Everglades.
We slowly sailed south, winding through the Mangrove islands and the Gulf of Mexico. The low tide transforms this place into a wonderland where trees grow legs. The Red Mangrove send shoots down to the water as they slowly crawl out to the sea, creating land in the process as silt starts to build up in the roots, providing soil for other salt-tolerant plants. The root systems of Mangroves are a nursery to many species of marine life, including the many sport fish that make anglers drool. We saw dolphins or porpoise nearly every day as we sailed to the Little Shark River. The place was filled with large wading birds: herons, egret, ibis, storks and the like. At dusk, the sounds of nature were vibrant, the dolphins rising, and the birds changing guard back at the nest, sending shrieks, grunts, squawks, and honks into the heavy twilight air. Bob had a little joke that he never tired of. When one of those birds let out a guttural squawk, he would turn to me and say, “Did you say something dear?”
With no engine, we were glad to have a full suit of sails aboard: working jib, genoa, drifter, and a reef in the main. It would have been nice to have a second reef in the main for more heavy wind options. Bob added a boom vang for better performance and we had a whisker pole for more efficient down-wind runs. We wouldn’t have even made our 1 knot of progress over ground had we not had the drifter as we rounded Cape Sable in 4-5 knot winds on the nose. It took us two 12-hour sailing days to tack the 15 nautical miles around the Cape. One of those days was a surreal day of sailing in fog with 15-foot visibility: it was hard to tell where the water ended and the sky began as we floated in the misty gray, dodging crab pot buoys and tooting on the fog horn.
Then on the third day of rounding Cape Sable, the wind picked up and shot us past the Cape and towards Flamingo, which is where we began this story. It was that event, leaving Flamingo, that tested the skills we’d honed these ten days at sea. Our next test would be crossing Florida Bay and sailing the Keys. The crossing would be some 24 nautical miles, our biggest day yet. We decided to leave early, but the next morning found us high and dry, Cosmos nestled into the mud. We were expecting this when we anchored here, but had no choice as it was the only protected anchorage around. What we weren’t expecting was to awake and find a mud flat a half mile across to the water. We’d be floating again when the tide came up in a couple hours, so I cooked us some pancakes on our Sea-Swing stove. This was a gourmet treat compared to our usual fare of granola cereal. We kept meals simple: lunch was snacks of cheese, crackers, vegetables, cured meats, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Dinners were one-pot meals of pasta or beans and minute rice, unless of course we caught fish. We added a bonus like pancakes or grilled hamburgers every so often. And of course we had lots of cookies. As we dined on pancakes, we watched a reddish egret peck in the mud until at last the boat started to float.
At 11:30 we were off, headed towards marker five. It was noon when we reached it, two nautical miles away. That put us at 4 knots; our dead reckoning calculations estimated that we would reach the Keys by nightfall if conditions persisted. The NOAA weather forecast from our VHF called for no change in winds. We shot across the bay on that glorious sunny day, navigating from marker to marker, dead reckoning using chart and compass, as we challenged ourselves to not use the GPS. At one point, the land completely disappeared, leaving us in the open water aboard our trusty Com-Pac 16 with nothing in view but the markers and those magnificent birds. When we reached Duck Key, just east of Marathon, it was almost too dark to see. I turned to Bob and said, “Pinch me, have we made it?”
To which he replied, “Get up front and ready the anchor.”
We rolled in the swells all night. This small island offered little protection. But our spirits were high as we weighed anchor the next morning and headed to Marathon. We had to tack into the harbor—the wind died midway and Bob started rowing. One oarlock soon broke and we quickly re-hoisted the sails and continued tacking in the light air, past marinas whose workers gave us the thumbs up, past various kinds of boats afloat, through a bridge, and into the busiest harbor we’d ever seen. There were hundreds of sailboats in Boot Key Harbor filled with liveaboards. We sailed in dumbfounded at the sight, and found a place to anchor—not too close to the crowded mooring field. A few hours later we were ready to go to town. With no dinghy, how would we do this? The dinghy docks didn’t allow boats bigger than 12 feet and our boat was too small for a dinghy. We were caught in a gray area. In the end, we hitched rides from other cruisers. We would stand on our bow, thumbs out like we were on the side of a road. Eventually, someone would give us a ride to the dinghy dock. We spent a few days at Marathon, resting, sightseeing, provisioning and eating pie with old friends who we chanced to meet.
We were ready to head back to sea for a few days after being a part of the lovely cruising community in Marathon. Our next big destination was Key West, some 50 nautical miles out. We made this destination and went as far as the Marquesas Keys, about 15 nautical miles farther west, with a stop at the barrier reef along the way. We used coastal navigation as we sailed along the Keys, sighting landmarks, and using chart and compass to steer clear of shoals dotted with shipwrecks.
Out in the Straits of Florida, if the south wind was kicking up, waves fetched up to 5 feet when there was a break in the islands with no reef or land to break swells. Cosmos handled the waves like a rock star, even when one would come by that was taller than her freeboard. This motion affected me and I would start to feel the symptoms of seasickness, but it only happened a couple times in the journey. When we first got into sailing I used to get queasy about every time we went out. Seasickness can be overcome as a person gets more comfortable on the water, and learns how to keep the queasiness at bay with crackers, ginger, drinking water, fresh air, and manning the tiller/helm. I think the difference for me now is that I ride the waves instead of trying to fight them.
Cosmos was loving the waves through the straits. The water had lost the dark color of tannins and started to turn blue since we left the Everglades. We could now see more sea-life: starfish, turtle grass, fish of every shape, size and color, and the neon green phosphorescence at night. We caught fish for dinner by trolling a hand line while we sailed. We did a little snorkeling in the Mangroves and at the barrier reef. Bob spotted a 8-9 foot Spotted Eagle Ray one morning as we left a shallow bight that little Cosmos had tucked into to wait out a storm.
It was in those moments that we really appreciated our decision to cruise in a small boat. When we visited the Marquesas Keys, we were able to sail Cosmos through the shallow inner-maze of the key into a well protected pocket amongst the mangroves. While there, we sat out the biggest blow of the trip. We felt only a gentle rocking when winds reached 35-plus knots out in the open water and many boats dragged anchor back at Key West Harbor. After the storm, we found our way back to the Straits of Florida.
On our return trip from the Marquesas Keys and the barrier reef, we entered Key West at sunset. Now sunset is a big deal in Key West; everyone gathers on the waterfront to blow conch horns, music blasts from the bars, and the harbor is alive with chartered boats of all shapes and sizes. This particular night, the winds died as we approached the entrance to Key West Harbor, and it was a typical scene on a night with a perfect Key West Sunset. There we were with Cosmos, ghosting along with our bright red, orange, and black drifter, trying to stay clear of all this, but enjoying being a part of the activity all the same. It was another one of those surreal moments, the sky pink with sunset, these glorious boats from the days of old and new cruising the channel, the flashes going off from cameras at Mallory Square, the rock ‘n’ roll getting pumped out of a very loud speaker, and our little brightly colored boat right in the middle of it all. We “motor-sailed” with Bob on the oars and me at the helm. We soon made our way back to the west side of the harbor, near Christmas Tree Island as civil twilight was nearing an end.
We left Key West a day or two later, and headed back to Marathon to wait for the winds to carry us through the Gulf and back into the Everglades. After more adventures along the way, we ended up back in Everglades City where we plucked Cosmos out of the water and put her back on her trailer.
She had taken us 433 nautical miles in 52 days through strong gusts that tested her strength and ability, to long days when she made way in nothing but a whisper of wind. And she even made good time with us rowing against 3 knots of tidal current. We were also satisfied with ourselves. We had come a long way and learned a heap. We had now been exposed to the cruising lifestyle and the ways of good seamanship, thanks to our trusty small boat. •SCA•
While not currently sailing, Molly is still adventuring and utilizing the skills she learned while aboard Cosmos. Whether tying a bowline, mending canvas, reading the clouds, or confidently tackling a new task, she continues to keep it simple.
Com-Pac 16
LOA: 16'
Beam: 6'
Draft: 1' 6"
Displ: 1100 lb
Ballast: 450 lb
Sail Area: 115 sq ft
First appeared in issue #69
Again, thanks for sharing.
Great article and adventure!