Saturday April 4, 2009, Palm Island Marina
We did about 30 miles down the ditch dealing with a bunch of bridges. We have struggled to find out what the bridge names are and we thought well, what the hell, just ask the bridge tender what the next one is. Are we geniuses or what?
Everything was running smooth until we got to the “Circus” bridge. It is an open on demand bridge, we had talked to the bridge tender and she said to bring it on, she would have the bridge open. We saw her shut down the traffic. We were steaming along at 5 knots with the perfect bridge opening timing. The bridge tender calls on the radio and says, “Back it down cap’t there is a problem with the bridge”. Just like in the movies “Engines Full Reverse”. That is not a good thing to do! The boat does funny things. We get it straightened out and start backing away. The damn bridge is broke. We talk to the tender and something has broken. Oh Dirty word. We are a couple of hours south of the Venice Inlet and we have to go a couple of hours above the Charlotte Harbor entrance to where we have reservations. We can’t make that trip in daylight hours. The tender tell us a service man is on the way and we need to just hang back. Maintaining a boat on station is not an easy thing to do but after an hour of doing it, I was getting pretty good. The service guy must have known what to do because he had the bridge operational about 15 minutes after he got there and we were on our way again.
The trip was a nice run. There were lots of McMansions and some real old cement block Florida homes, like the ones that used to be in Orange Beach. There is one section that has bike and walking paths down both side of the ditch with lots of picnic tables. Looks like a great fishing area in the flats and around the mangrove covered islands.
We plow thru the entrance to the marina reading 0.0 on the depth sounder. We make the 1st stop at the fuel dock. We have sucked down 28 gals in the engine and generator since we filled up in Clearwater a month ago. We are shown our berth for the night on the wall and the dock guy goes to meet us. We have to yell to stop another boat from backing out of the other fuel dock in front of us and then a bunch of bubbas are cruising thru the marina sitting in the middle of the channel. You can’t really imagine how tight this place is. The channel is less than a boat length wide and there are several right angle turns. We get to the berth and the dock guy tells us to pull to the other end. I refuse! Well actually, I was OK with it but the boat was hard aground. He asks if we can back up and use the adjacent berth. Well we can but we can’t get off the boat there. The only thing we can do is the spin the boat 180 degrees. Did I tell you how tight this place is? There is a crowd of people in the marina and at the bar watching. Plus, there is a sailing club doing a rendezvous here and they are all watching. We back out a little ways, a forward maneuver, then back and turn with our anchor 8” away from the lifelines on a trawler and the stern 8” way from a concrete wall. A little forward again and back along side the wall, kick it forward so it slides against the piling on the wall. I walk forward and lasso the pile on the 1st try. There is nothing to this. We are professionals. The dock guy says “I have never seen anyone handle a boat that good before”. I reply, “Well the bow thruster help a little”. Carole acting cool and is restraining herself from jumping up and down on the deck. We both suck down a beer to calm our nerves. Sometimes you are good and sometimes you are lucky. I hope I never have to do that maneuver again as long as I live. You can’t be that lucky twice.
The marina had a “FREE” washing machine. It was the happiest I have seen Carole since St Pete where they had coin machines. We must be simple people. All we need is a washing machine and a tractor to be completely happy.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Sarasota Yacht and Tent Revival Club
Friday, April 3, 2009, Bird Key Yacht Club
This is the official NOAA weather forecast for today.
WEST WINDS AROUND 20 KNOTS AND GUSTY DIMINISHING TO 10 TO 15 KNOTS LATE. SEAS 6 TO 8 FEET. BAY AND INLAND WATERS CHOPPY. CHANCE OF SHOWERS AND SLIGHT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS MAINLY SOUTH OF LONGBOAT KEY
Is there any doubt why we are riding bikes in St Armands Circle? Actually this is the same front that went thru Alabama yesterday and last night. It wasn’t nearly as bad here as it was there.
Back when I was a kid, 4-eyes, Rocky, Cotton and I would play cow pasture football. Of course the object of the game was to take the football (generally a wad of newspaper, footballs were expensive) from one end of the field with out getting knocked down or stepping in something. Of course, the highlight of the day was to tackle someone so they fell in the cow patty. Today I have been playing Bird Sanctuary Dock. The object of the game was to get from one end of the dock to the other without stepping in something. These people need a good Remington 1100.
There are three yacht clubs here in Sarasota. We are at the Bird Key Club, which is on Bird Key. How about that. The Sarasota Yacht Club is just down the road a short distance. Carole and I have renamed it the Sarasota Yacht and Tent Revival Club. They have torn down all their facilities and have moved into a big tent. My partner in crime John sent me a link to a YouTube site that might just fit right in here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFNeE_W5VZU It looks like a typical construction site with dust, cranes, construction debris. I am glad we chose Bird Key.
We have some good friends who are making a motor home trip across the country to Oregon. Peg has started a blog of their trip. Her personality really comes out in what she is writing. This is the link if you would like to follow her adventures. http://www.pegsontheroad.blogspot.com
We will be out early tomorrow for 30 more miles and 7 bridges.
This is the official NOAA weather forecast for today.
WEST WINDS AROUND 20 KNOTS AND GUSTY DIMINISHING TO 10 TO 15 KNOTS LATE. SEAS 6 TO 8 FEET. BAY AND INLAND WATERS CHOPPY. CHANCE OF SHOWERS AND SLIGHT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS MAINLY SOUTH OF LONGBOAT KEY
Is there any doubt why we are riding bikes in St Armands Circle? Actually this is the same front that went thru Alabama yesterday and last night. It wasn’t nearly as bad here as it was there.
Back when I was a kid, 4-eyes, Rocky, Cotton and I would play cow pasture football. Of course the object of the game was to take the football (generally a wad of newspaper, footballs were expensive) from one end of the field with out getting knocked down or stepping in something. Of course, the highlight of the day was to tackle someone so they fell in the cow patty. Today I have been playing Bird Sanctuary Dock. The object of the game was to get from one end of the dock to the other without stepping in something. These people need a good Remington 1100.
There are three yacht clubs here in Sarasota. We are at the Bird Key Club, which is on Bird Key. How about that. The Sarasota Yacht Club is just down the road a short distance. Carole and I have renamed it the Sarasota Yacht and Tent Revival Club. They have torn down all their facilities and have moved into a big tent. My partner in crime John sent me a link to a YouTube site that might just fit right in here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFNeE_W5VZU It looks like a typical construction site with dust, cranes, construction debris. I am glad we chose Bird Key.
We have some good friends who are making a motor home trip across the country to Oregon. Peg has started a blog of their trip. Her personality really comes out in what she is writing. This is the link if you would like to follow her adventures. http://www.pegsontheroad.blogspot.com
We will be out early tomorrow for 30 more miles and 7 bridges.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
I am not a hard tail
Thursday, April 2, 2009, Bird Key Yacht Club
We left Bradenton as soon as we had enough water under us to clear the club. We have been on bottom for the last couple of nights at low tide. We were trying to get out in a hurry to get to Sarasota as early as possible. We wanted to get to the Ringling Bridge as soon as we could. The longer we waited the higher the tide we would have to deal with at the bridge. It seems no one has a clue how tall the bridge is. Some of the charts show 60’ the latest chart you can review on line shows 65’. One of the yacht clubs told us 63’ another told us 67’ and another told us not to attempt the bridge. Our mast is 63’-10” to the top and we have weather instruments, lights and antennas above that. If you are into ham radio, you know the VHF antenna is 19” so doing the math we are 65’-5”. The antenna is flexible and we can blink it on the bridges and clear a 65’ bridge. 64’-6” we start loosing equipment. Most bridges have boards that tell you what the height is above water level. The Ringling Bridge doesn’t have one. It is the only bridge, I have ever seen, that doesn’t have one. Our pucker factor is high, no it is extremely high, like trying to insert the straight pin with a 20 lb sledge hammer. Did I mention the wind is blowing over 20 knots. Carole gets on the bow and I am steering with my head hanging out trying to see. There is a guy on the top of the bridge who is yelling we are going to hit. There are two guys in powerboats who have stopped to watch. There is nothing like being able to tell your buddies about watching a boat hit a bridge and the mast falling in the water. We inch up and the wind blows us off the center, which is the highest point. Hard reverse and try again. Have you ever tried to inch up a 30,000 pound boat. It would be like trying to bring a semi tractor-trailer up to your front door without hitting the house. Oh yea your tractor-trailer doesn’t have breaks. We try again. The guy on the bridge still thinks we are going to hit. The mast goes past the edge and nothing hits. One of the guys in the boat give us hand motions and tell us we clear by about 2 ft. We have a huge sigh of relieve and can’t even remember what we are supposed to do when we clear.
So the question is why did we even attempt this maneuver? The 20-knot winds have kick up some pretty bad seas outside. Beating into 20-knot winds on your nose with 6 ft seas would be a pounding we are not willing to take. It would have also been a 50-mile run, which would have put us 10 to 12 hours in that environment. We are just relieved to know we can get under the bridge with the tide reading 1.75 ft. It will make the trip back easier.
There was an old Cuban guy who was the night dockmaster at the Tampa Club. He had the graveyard shift and I talked to him for a while early one morning. He was an interesting person. He had been a delivery captain, had captain large yachts for owners and had been a charter-fishing captain. He told me for the next couple of weeks we were going to be having “Easter Winds”. He says for a couple of weeks before Easter the winds blow strong from either the west or south and create high seas. He said that Easter Day was sometimes the worst day of all. We decided it was just God’s way of telling you that you should be in church on Easter and not out fishing. We probably won’t be in church on Easter but I will send my contribution in so maybe the preacher will help me ask for 8 to 10 knots out of the east.
Let me back up and talk about the Bradenton Club. It is a pretty relaxed club with shorts and jeans allowed in the dining area. The 1st night we were there they were having a two-for deal. Two meals for the price of one. The next night they had a “Build-A-Better-Burger” night. The burger was a 10 oz on a bun, with slaw and fries for $9.00 and every topping you could imagine to add to it. Did I mention it was also $1.00 beer night? BYC may be the most inexpensive club we have visited. They also get the prize for the warmest water in the pool.
I took a bike tour in Bradenton of the state park. I think I am going to become a tree hugger. It is a neat park that is just a long finger of Mangrove trees along the side of the road. The whole island isn’t more than a hundred feet wide. When you look out in the Mangrove, there are plastic bags, plastic drink bottles, plastic cups, plastic forks, and plastic oil containers. It is the crap that blows out the back of some redneck’s pickup truck and is washed by rain into our streams, rivers and oceans. How many life times will it take for that stuff to deteriorate back into the earth. As a society we have to start being more proactive about how we deal with trash. We have hit plastic bags twice off the coast and had them wrap around the prop. We had to have a diver get one of them off before we installed spurs on the prop to cut them up. OK I will get off my soapbox and tell you I really can never be a tree hugger. Carole and I have 600 acres of trees that are part of our retirement plan. They only add to your retirement money if you cut them down. Beside how would you ever build a beautiful wooden boat or piece of furniture if you never cut a tree?
Our major mode of land transportation is the bicycles we carry on board. When I was growing up in Sycamore, I rode my bike all over the place. Sycamore was a great place to ride a bike back then. There weren’t that many cars and all the streets had wide sidewalks. Many of the cities in this area of Florida have nice bike paths. Many are old railroad beds and go on for miles. I guess there is still enough kid in me that I really get a kick out of riding a bike. I have not overcome one issue yet. My butt is sore. Were bike seats better in the 50’s? I have found out I am not a hard tail.
We left Bradenton as soon as we had enough water under us to clear the club. We have been on bottom for the last couple of nights at low tide. We were trying to get out in a hurry to get to Sarasota as early as possible. We wanted to get to the Ringling Bridge as soon as we could. The longer we waited the higher the tide we would have to deal with at the bridge. It seems no one has a clue how tall the bridge is. Some of the charts show 60’ the latest chart you can review on line shows 65’. One of the yacht clubs told us 63’ another told us 67’ and another told us not to attempt the bridge. Our mast is 63’-10” to the top and we have weather instruments, lights and antennas above that. If you are into ham radio, you know the VHF antenna is 19” so doing the math we are 65’-5”. The antenna is flexible and we can blink it on the bridges and clear a 65’ bridge. 64’-6” we start loosing equipment. Most bridges have boards that tell you what the height is above water level. The Ringling Bridge doesn’t have one. It is the only bridge, I have ever seen, that doesn’t have one. Our pucker factor is high, no it is extremely high, like trying to insert the straight pin with a 20 lb sledge hammer. Did I mention the wind is blowing over 20 knots. Carole gets on the bow and I am steering with my head hanging out trying to see. There is a guy on the top of the bridge who is yelling we are going to hit. There are two guys in powerboats who have stopped to watch. There is nothing like being able to tell your buddies about watching a boat hit a bridge and the mast falling in the water. We inch up and the wind blows us off the center, which is the highest point. Hard reverse and try again. Have you ever tried to inch up a 30,000 pound boat. It would be like trying to bring a semi tractor-trailer up to your front door without hitting the house. Oh yea your tractor-trailer doesn’t have breaks. We try again. The guy on the bridge still thinks we are going to hit. The mast goes past the edge and nothing hits. One of the guys in the boat give us hand motions and tell us we clear by about 2 ft. We have a huge sigh of relieve and can’t even remember what we are supposed to do when we clear.
So the question is why did we even attempt this maneuver? The 20-knot winds have kick up some pretty bad seas outside. Beating into 20-knot winds on your nose with 6 ft seas would be a pounding we are not willing to take. It would have also been a 50-mile run, which would have put us 10 to 12 hours in that environment. We are just relieved to know we can get under the bridge with the tide reading 1.75 ft. It will make the trip back easier.
There was an old Cuban guy who was the night dockmaster at the Tampa Club. He had the graveyard shift and I talked to him for a while early one morning. He was an interesting person. He had been a delivery captain, had captain large yachts for owners and had been a charter-fishing captain. He told me for the next couple of weeks we were going to be having “Easter Winds”. He says for a couple of weeks before Easter the winds blow strong from either the west or south and create high seas. He said that Easter Day was sometimes the worst day of all. We decided it was just God’s way of telling you that you should be in church on Easter and not out fishing. We probably won’t be in church on Easter but I will send my contribution in so maybe the preacher will help me ask for 8 to 10 knots out of the east.
Let me back up and talk about the Bradenton Club. It is a pretty relaxed club with shorts and jeans allowed in the dining area. The 1st night we were there they were having a two-for deal. Two meals for the price of one. The next night they had a “Build-A-Better-Burger” night. The burger was a 10 oz on a bun, with slaw and fries for $9.00 and every topping you could imagine to add to it. Did I mention it was also $1.00 beer night? BYC may be the most inexpensive club we have visited. They also get the prize for the warmest water in the pool.
I took a bike tour in Bradenton of the state park. I think I am going to become a tree hugger. It is a neat park that is just a long finger of Mangrove trees along the side of the road. The whole island isn’t more than a hundred feet wide. When you look out in the Mangrove, there are plastic bags, plastic drink bottles, plastic cups, plastic forks, and plastic oil containers. It is the crap that blows out the back of some redneck’s pickup truck and is washed by rain into our streams, rivers and oceans. How many life times will it take for that stuff to deteriorate back into the earth. As a society we have to start being more proactive about how we deal with trash. We have hit plastic bags twice off the coast and had them wrap around the prop. We had to have a diver get one of them off before we installed spurs on the prop to cut them up. OK I will get off my soapbox and tell you I really can never be a tree hugger. Carole and I have 600 acres of trees that are part of our retirement plan. They only add to your retirement money if you cut them down. Beside how would you ever build a beautiful wooden boat or piece of furniture if you never cut a tree?
Our major mode of land transportation is the bicycles we carry on board. When I was growing up in Sycamore, I rode my bike all over the place. Sycamore was a great place to ride a bike back then. There weren’t that many cars and all the streets had wide sidewalks. Many of the cities in this area of Florida have nice bike paths. Many are old railroad beds and go on for miles. I guess there is still enough kid in me that I really get a kick out of riding a bike. I have not overcome one issue yet. My butt is sore. Were bike seats better in the 50’s? I have found out I am not a hard tail.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Pig Liver Road
Wednesday, April 1, 2009, Bradenton
Happy April Fools Day! I started to do a good April Fools Blog and let my imagination run free with stories of huge waves, EPIRB’s, Pirate Ships, Coast Guard rescues, shark-infested waters. My sister has been sharing these blogs with my mother. Dink doesn’t always get the punch line on a joke and mother over reacts so, I just have to settle for wishing everyone Happy April Fools Day.
There are some events I have to catch everyone up on before we get back to sea stories. Johnathan’s wedding was very nice, the bride was beautiful, and the reception was a sit down dinner. The flower girls, one was Lee’s daughter, were too cute. All of Carole’s family was there, with the exception of brother-in-law Larry and Rebecca’s husband Patrick. Patrick had to work and Larry was sick. As a matter of fact, he was so sick that the doctor told him he was the sickest person he had seen all year out of the hospital. What a bedside manner! He was put to bed with “DRUGS” and is beginning to be among the living again. Y’all realize that being a child of the 60’s DRUGS is a good thing.
Lee’s son Nicholas is 16 months old and is quite a hand full. He is a big kid tall and solid muscle. He is fascinated with doors! Carole and I took him for a walk to give mom and dad a break. In our walking, we went thru the automatic doors at the hotel. That was the most marvelous invention in the world. He stayed there for 30 minutes running at the door making it open. He figured out that if he backed up it would close. He had total control of his world. He was laughing, clapping his hands and was the happiest child you have ever seen. Well he was happy until we had to go then he was kicking, screaming and making us look like child abusers as we pulled him away from the door.
Something everyone ate while we were at the wedding caused varying degrees of illness among the attendees. It varied from Carole having a case of the quick step to Jeremy doing projectile vomiting and Donya having to go to the doctor. I apparently didn’t eat what they had because I had no ill effects. It was probably because I don’t eat healthy foods except when my wife makes me. That healthy stuff will make you sick every time. It was probably some of those crunchy green beans. If they had cooked them all day with a little bacon grease like my mother does no one would have been sick. Last reports are everyone is back to normal again.
Just a couple of random thoughts. While we were traveling in Georgia to the wedding and back and forth to the boat, I came across two very different street names. One was “Pig Liver Road” and the other was “Whiskey Boulevard”. You have to ask yourself what kind of person lives on Pig Liver Road. Do you think there is a church named Whiskey Boulevard Baptist?
Monday was a long drive back. 9 hours thru the back country. We had one stretch of interstate between Auburn and Opelika. It is a pretty drive and fairly easy. Mostly 4 lanes and little traffic. Our car computer said we averaged 60 mph, which isn’t bad for that type of trip. And, no mother I wasn’t speeding. We get to the boat and after a couple of trips to the grocery (We are not going to discuss who did what and why our groceries are in the kitchen floor at home) and crash. I have to be up early to have the rental car back to Hertz before 8:00.
Tuesday, I say good-bye to Buck, Fred, Larry and the TYCC chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. We really enjoyed our stay at Tampa Yacht and Country Club. The people were very friendly and the facilities were a notch above all of the other places we have been so far. I am not going to put the story in print but remember to ask me about Buck, the “King” and the secret service.
OK class when you are trying to get from point “A” to point “B” which way does the wind blow? (a) It doesn’t blow. (b) There is a gale. (c) Directly from the direction you are going. If you answered all of the above, you would be correct. From Tampa to Bradenton, we saw no wind for a couple of hours then we had 15 to 20 dead on the nose for the rest of the trip.
We arrived at the Bradenton Yacht Club about 4:30, secure dock lines, hook up power and have a Budweiser. We will be here at least thru today while we figure out bridge heights and weather windows. Right now, there are 4 to 6 footers in the gulf for the next couple of days. And class what is the wind doing. Gusting to 25 out of the south.
Happy April Fools Day! I started to do a good April Fools Blog and let my imagination run free with stories of huge waves, EPIRB’s, Pirate Ships, Coast Guard rescues, shark-infested waters. My sister has been sharing these blogs with my mother. Dink doesn’t always get the punch line on a joke and mother over reacts so, I just have to settle for wishing everyone Happy April Fools Day.
There are some events I have to catch everyone up on before we get back to sea stories. Johnathan’s wedding was very nice, the bride was beautiful, and the reception was a sit down dinner. The flower girls, one was Lee’s daughter, were too cute. All of Carole’s family was there, with the exception of brother-in-law Larry and Rebecca’s husband Patrick. Patrick had to work and Larry was sick. As a matter of fact, he was so sick that the doctor told him he was the sickest person he had seen all year out of the hospital. What a bedside manner! He was put to bed with “DRUGS” and is beginning to be among the living again. Y’all realize that being a child of the 60’s DRUGS is a good thing.
Lee’s son Nicholas is 16 months old and is quite a hand full. He is a big kid tall and solid muscle. He is fascinated with doors! Carole and I took him for a walk to give mom and dad a break. In our walking, we went thru the automatic doors at the hotel. That was the most marvelous invention in the world. He stayed there for 30 minutes running at the door making it open. He figured out that if he backed up it would close. He had total control of his world. He was laughing, clapping his hands and was the happiest child you have ever seen. Well he was happy until we had to go then he was kicking, screaming and making us look like child abusers as we pulled him away from the door.
Something everyone ate while we were at the wedding caused varying degrees of illness among the attendees. It varied from Carole having a case of the quick step to Jeremy doing projectile vomiting and Donya having to go to the doctor. I apparently didn’t eat what they had because I had no ill effects. It was probably because I don’t eat healthy foods except when my wife makes me. That healthy stuff will make you sick every time. It was probably some of those crunchy green beans. If they had cooked them all day with a little bacon grease like my mother does no one would have been sick. Last reports are everyone is back to normal again.
Just a couple of random thoughts. While we were traveling in Georgia to the wedding and back and forth to the boat, I came across two very different street names. One was “Pig Liver Road” and the other was “Whiskey Boulevard”. You have to ask yourself what kind of person lives on Pig Liver Road. Do you think there is a church named Whiskey Boulevard Baptist?
Monday was a long drive back. 9 hours thru the back country. We had one stretch of interstate between Auburn and Opelika. It is a pretty drive and fairly easy. Mostly 4 lanes and little traffic. Our car computer said we averaged 60 mph, which isn’t bad for that type of trip. And, no mother I wasn’t speeding. We get to the boat and after a couple of trips to the grocery (We are not going to discuss who did what and why our groceries are in the kitchen floor at home) and crash. I have to be up early to have the rental car back to Hertz before 8:00.
Tuesday, I say good-bye to Buck, Fred, Larry and the TYCC chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. We really enjoyed our stay at Tampa Yacht and Country Club. The people were very friendly and the facilities were a notch above all of the other places we have been so far. I am not going to put the story in print but remember to ask me about Buck, the “King” and the secret service.
OK class when you are trying to get from point “A” to point “B” which way does the wind blow? (a) It doesn’t blow. (b) There is a gale. (c) Directly from the direction you are going. If you answered all of the above, you would be correct. From Tampa to Bradenton, we saw no wind for a couple of hours then we had 15 to 20 dead on the nose for the rest of the trip.
We arrived at the Bradenton Yacht Club about 4:30, secure dock lines, hook up power and have a Budweiser. We will be here at least thru today while we figure out bridge heights and weather windows. Right now, there are 4 to 6 footers in the gulf for the next couple of days. And class what is the wind doing. Gusting to 25 out of the south.
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