Bahia Honda Key to Marathon

On Sunday we took a leisurely cruise of about 14 milw to Bahia Honda Key which is a State Park.  We anchored between the old railroad bridge and US1.  More on that fiasco later. We took the dinks into the harbor watered the dogs and went for a swim on the beach (Atlantic) had ice cream. We basically chilled out.  This a very beautiful spot!  As the day went along the boats rolled a little bit at anchor but nothing to un comfortable.  In the morning Brigitte , Cody and I went for a two mile walk along the ocean. Dick and I watches all our weather sources and decided Monday might be a little rough on the outside so we decided to stay another night.  Hey, the anchorage is very free and great access to get the dogs off. As the day progressed so did the roll of the boats.  Our anchorage between the Briges is exactly were the Gulf and Atlantic meet.  The current ripped through here swinging the boat 180 degrees at each tide change 4 times a day.  This was fine until the winds picked up to a sustained 13 knots and gusts to 20 from the West.  Now the boats  were pinned by the current and taking all the wind on the beam hence the roll. I would guess a good 20 degree roll with some to 30 degrees. This known as being in a bath tub!  We felt confident our anchor would hold as we a hundred feet of chain out in 7 ft of water.  I took Cody out around nine  through 2-3 footers in the dingy yes we both had life jackets on.  We went to bed to tried to get a couple ours of sleep. I got up every two hours to keep watch.  At around 3:30 I got up and noticed that our buddy boat had change anchorages and was much closer to us, Strange why anyone would reset an anchor in this storm,  I forgot to mention it was raining cats and dogs and gusting to 23 knots.
In the morning I meet up with Dick at the Park and I kind of kidded him if he got a good nights sleep.
The reason he had re set the anchor was that during the middle of the night his anchor broke free and he was washed up on shore. Luckily his keel hung up in some sand just before the all coral shore line.
He called Sea Tow and they they arrived in about 45 minutes and pulled him off.  He had 60 feet of chain out! More is usually better if you have room. We both decided to pull anchor and get the hell out of the still heavy rolling seas. Inga stated that in their nearly 6000 miles of cruising it was the worst night they had ever had. As we pulled out in to the Atlantic we were managing 4 foot swells which we managed well and once behind the islands it went down to a 1 foot swell. We only had 12 miles to Boot Key Harbour and Marathon.