Thursday, March 12th, St Pete
Some of your time sailing is pure boredom other times are pure fear for your life. Most of the time it is like yesterday, a three-knot wind on the stern and the drone of the diesel at 2000 rpm as we head up the bay at 5.7 knots. Since a lot of this is new territory for us entering these harbors even in daytime is a challenge. The yacht basin is huge with several marinas in the same basin. Our first mission is to find the pump out station by talking to the dockmaster at the city docks on VHF. After searching all over the basin we find it is behind us so we do the “Uee” and head back. The area is about 75’ long and we have to parallel park the boat. Capt Carole swings this big sucker right into the hole, kicks it into reverse and we slide up to the dock. Who says girls can’t drive.
We have a huge box of mail at the yacht club and I head across the street to collect it. For a little country boy from Sycamore who thinks the “Ark” in Pell City is fine dining, the St Pete Yacht Club is a pretty intimidating place. The staff is finely dressed and had trouble looking down to my level even though I towered above them. Ok, I did have on an old tee shirt, shorts and flip flops and a bath would have helped a lot. I told them I had come to pick up mail and we had just crossed the Gulf in our boat. Well making ocean passages will raise your statue in any yachting community, I was instantly accepted, but I will clean up before I go back.
Tony and “K” arrived after a 9 hour trip from the Keys and we had a nice dinner at “Moon Under The Water”.
This will probably be the last log for a few days. We will be hanging out in town and attending the meeting of the Florida Yacht Council.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Mothers, sons, hamburgers
Wednesday, March 11th, Manatee River
After a bike trip to the post office, we were off in the ditch again. Carole had to send out some post cards to some of our friends (mothers) who don’t do computers. We only had one bridge to deal with today and we had perfect timing to miss the opening so we had to “stool” around for 28 minutes until the next opening. They were working on the bridge and could only open one side. After we cleared, it took them 15 minutes to get it to go back down. Now there were some hacked of islanders waiting to get somewhere. It was a pretty boring along this section. You parallel the Skyway Bridge for several miles, right outside the markers you can see sand about 6” deep. We make our bump on the bottom (is there no deep water anywhere here?) and head to the Bradenton Yacht Club to meet Mike. It takes Mike about 3 minutes to figure out what is wrong with the stove and about 3 more minutes to fix it. We throw the dock lines on board and head back out in the river to anchor under a full moon.
We are looking forward to cheeseburgers off the grill and baked beans. There is one thing I have never understood about mothers and partially sons. You can’t leave your moms house without some food. So in the age-old tradition when Michael left on Sunday he had our cooler (thanks for mailing it back Sonya) with food. Well Michael, I hope you enjoyed your stir-fry hamburgers because baked chicken didn’t quite hit the spot. May next time Carole will look at what she is sending home with the boys.
Anyway, it was a beautiful full moon, with Johnny Mathis on the stereo. You don’t need any more details.
After a bike trip to the post office, we were off in the ditch again. Carole had to send out some post cards to some of our friends (mothers) who don’t do computers. We only had one bridge to deal with today and we had perfect timing to miss the opening so we had to “stool” around for 28 minutes until the next opening. They were working on the bridge and could only open one side. After we cleared, it took them 15 minutes to get it to go back down. Now there were some hacked of islanders waiting to get somewhere. It was a pretty boring along this section. You parallel the Skyway Bridge for several miles, right outside the markers you can see sand about 6” deep. We make our bump on the bottom (is there no deep water anywhere here?) and head to the Bradenton Yacht Club to meet Mike. It takes Mike about 3 minutes to figure out what is wrong with the stove and about 3 more minutes to fix it. We throw the dock lines on board and head back out in the river to anchor under a full moon.
We are looking forward to cheeseburgers off the grill and baked beans. There is one thing I have never understood about mothers and partially sons. You can’t leave your moms house without some food. So in the age-old tradition when Michael left on Sunday he had our cooler (thanks for mailing it back Sonya) with food. Well Michael, I hope you enjoyed your stir-fry hamburgers because baked chicken didn’t quite hit the spot. May next time Carole will look at what she is sending home with the boys.
Anyway, it was a beautiful full moon, with Johnny Mathis on the stereo. You don’t need any more details.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Wooden boat lovers are everywhere
Tuesday, March 10, 2009, Pass-A-Grille
I had a real adventure this morning. Les the dockmaster is a unique person. He started talking how he had lived on a wooden boat and then the real conversation started. He invited me go on a road trip to see his boat that he is rebuilding. The boat was built in the Bahamas in 1946 the same year as Les was born (yesterday was his birthday), his father bought the boat when Les was about 10 and they moved on board. He spent most of his childhood in the Bahamas. After a couple of tours of duty in Vet Nam he moved back on board with his new wife and they did charters. He took Prince Charles sailing on it in the 70’s. He has been the dockmaster at the Treasure Island Yacht Club for the past 28 years. He lived on the boat in the marina for the first 18 years until it got to where it was leaking so bad it had to come out of the water to replace a few board. So far all of the main frames and planking have either been replaced or in the process of being replaced. It is looking so good he has decided to replace the keel now. I think the only thing that will be remaining of the original boat will be the lines from the original. We not only saw his boat but we visited with a couple of other wooden boat builders and repairers in the area. One of the guys is building a 25 ft glued lap strake power boat. He is about 80% finished and was doing a beautiful job. He was doing all of this in a shop about half the size of The Hundred Acre Woods. It is amazing that you can find wooden boat lovers everywhere. By the way, Les told me his dad is 88 and still flies his own plane. He and Les are going to fly to the Bahamas in the next few weeks.
We only have a few miles and two bridges to get to Pass-A-Grille Yacht Club. The club is closed on Tuesday not Monday like the book shows. It is a small club, no pool but across from a pretty beach. We bike about a mile into town and check things out. Carole got very excited when she found a coil operated laundry. A good washing machine and she is happy as she can be.
We are off to Bradenton tomorrow to see if we can someone to repair the stove.
I had a real adventure this morning. Les the dockmaster is a unique person. He started talking how he had lived on a wooden boat and then the real conversation started. He invited me go on a road trip to see his boat that he is rebuilding. The boat was built in the Bahamas in 1946 the same year as Les was born (yesterday was his birthday), his father bought the boat when Les was about 10 and they moved on board. He spent most of his childhood in the Bahamas. After a couple of tours of duty in Vet Nam he moved back on board with his new wife and they did charters. He took Prince Charles sailing on it in the 70’s. He has been the dockmaster at the Treasure Island Yacht Club for the past 28 years. He lived on the boat in the marina for the first 18 years until it got to where it was leaking so bad it had to come out of the water to replace a few board. So far all of the main frames and planking have either been replaced or in the process of being replaced. It is looking so good he has decided to replace the keel now. I think the only thing that will be remaining of the original boat will be the lines from the original. We not only saw his boat but we visited with a couple of other wooden boat builders and repairers in the area. One of the guys is building a 25 ft glued lap strake power boat. He is about 80% finished and was doing a beautiful job. He was doing all of this in a shop about half the size of The Hundred Acre Woods. It is amazing that you can find wooden boat lovers everywhere. By the way, Les told me his dad is 88 and still flies his own plane. He and Les are going to fly to the Bahamas in the next few weeks.
We only have a few miles and two bridges to get to Pass-A-Grille Yacht Club. The club is closed on Tuesday not Monday like the book shows. It is a small club, no pool but across from a pretty beach. We bike about a mile into town and check things out. Carole got very excited when she found a coil operated laundry. A good washing machine and she is happy as she can be.
We are off to Bradenton tomorrow to see if we can someone to repair the stove.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Doing the Ditch
Monday, March 9th, Treasure Island Yacht Club
We are doing the ditch, for those of you who are marine challenged that means we are taking the ICW. A brief history lesson here; the ICW is a protected waterway that runs from Brownsville, Texas to New Jersey. A lot of it is in bays and rivers but there are long stretches is in dredged canals thus the name “The Ditch”. It is a great way to travel with two minor issues bridges and shallow water. Well when you are 65’ tall and 6’-2” deep those are not minor issues. Most of the bridges in this section are bascule bridges, which is a real adventure. If you live on or trying to get to an island those damn sailboat keep wanting to wonder up and down the ICW stopping traffic. There is a lot of pressure from residence to have a minimum number of openings. As a side note there is one in DC that opens once daily at 3:00 AM. The bridge tenders don’t like to have the bridges open for any longer than possible. When the bridge is open enough for your spreaders to not hang on the bridge girders then they want you to come thru. One woman (she certainly wasn’t a fine southern lady) keep telling us to come on we were going too slow. We get to the bridge and have to back down hard to keep from hitting it. After we go thru the bridge, barely clearing with our spreaders the bridge continues to open and remains open for another 5 minutes with no other traffic. You have to ask yourself what was the #^$* point in that. I will get off my soapbox now and continue on. By going down the ditch, you see a LOT of beautiful houses. There is a lot of money of money along that path, of course there are bunch of them with for sale signs with reduced on the sign.
We pull into Treasure Island Yacht Club. The club was closed on Monday. Les the dockmaster met us even though it was his day off. After things are secure, we take off on our bicycles to tour Treasure Island. We have to go check out the Publix grocery story that was built on stilts to get it above the wave action. It has 4 hospital size elevators, to get the groceries up and down to the street. There is a beautiful wide beach with pretty white sand. We can highly recommend the Grouper sandwiches at Sloppy Joes.
We are doing the ditch, for those of you who are marine challenged that means we are taking the ICW. A brief history lesson here; the ICW is a protected waterway that runs from Brownsville, Texas to New Jersey. A lot of it is in bays and rivers but there are long stretches is in dredged canals thus the name “The Ditch”. It is a great way to travel with two minor issues bridges and shallow water. Well when you are 65’ tall and 6’-2” deep those are not minor issues. Most of the bridges in this section are bascule bridges, which is a real adventure. If you live on or trying to get to an island those damn sailboat keep wanting to wonder up and down the ICW stopping traffic. There is a lot of pressure from residence to have a minimum number of openings. As a side note there is one in DC that opens once daily at 3:00 AM. The bridge tenders don’t like to have the bridges open for any longer than possible. When the bridge is open enough for your spreaders to not hang on the bridge girders then they want you to come thru. One woman (she certainly wasn’t a fine southern lady) keep telling us to come on we were going too slow. We get to the bridge and have to back down hard to keep from hitting it. After we go thru the bridge, barely clearing with our spreaders the bridge continues to open and remains open for another 5 minutes with no other traffic. You have to ask yourself what was the #^$* point in that. I will get off my soapbox now and continue on. By going down the ditch, you see a LOT of beautiful houses. There is a lot of money of money along that path, of course there are bunch of them with for sale signs with reduced on the sign.
We pull into Treasure Island Yacht Club. The club was closed on Monday. Les the dockmaster met us even though it was his day off. After things are secure, we take off on our bicycles to tour Treasure Island. We have to go check out the Publix grocery story that was built on stilts to get it above the wave action. It has 4 hospital size elevators, to get the groceries up and down to the street. There is a beautiful wide beach with pretty white sand. We can highly recommend the Grouper sandwiches at Sloppy Joes.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Yacht Club Ready
Sunday, March 08, 2009, Clearwater Yacht Club
After two days of cleaning, I have “most” of the salt off the boat. Spent most of today cleaning the enclosure and polishing stainless. I still have more to do but I have time before we have to be “Yacht Club Ready” at the St Pete Yacht Club next weekend. One of our missions on this trip is to attend the Florida Yacht Council Meeting. Our friends Tony and “K” have wanted us to go with them for a while and things have just never worked out.
We have enjoyed our stay at the Clearwater Yacht Club. We have been hanging out with John and Helen Caffery who we have been sort of buddy boating with. They are a great couple that we have really enjoyed getting to know better. They have friends from Gulf Breese that were transferred to Clearwater last year. In the fine tradition of southern hospitality, Dale and Jeannie Walden also invited us to join in for dinner at their house. Steaks no less. In the fine tradition of the Deal family Carole load up an ice chest and off we went. It was a very enjoyable evening. Carole, Michael and I had a wonderful time. One of the best things we have found about traveling by boat is all of the great people you meet along the way. John and Helen pulled out this morning about 10:00 headed to their next stop. They are on a mission to get to the Keys so they are trying to make as much headway as possible. Right now, the winds are not favorable for heading down to the Keys. They are going to try to work there way south and jump out in the Gulf as soon as they get a window.
Michael left out today headed home. I went and pickup a rental car yesterday for him to drive back to Pensacola, pick up his car, drive to Pell City, spend the night at our house and then head back to Atlanta on Monday. Going to get the car was a real adventure. The rental car office was only six miles away but it took over two hours to make the trip. Apparently, a pretty weekend, a few spring breakers can back up traffic for a long way for people trying to get to the beach. With a car for a few hours, we made the required trip to the grocery and liquor store. Carole spent more on liquor than food. That should be revealing about the type of trip this is going to be.
Tomorrow we head down the ditch thru the narrows and under drawbridges for the trip to Treasure Island Yacht Club.
For all of you who are not familiar with yacht clubs our 1st night in all of the clubs are free. This trip will go quite a way toward paying for our club initiation.
After two days of cleaning, I have “most” of the salt off the boat. Spent most of today cleaning the enclosure and polishing stainless. I still have more to do but I have time before we have to be “Yacht Club Ready” at the St Pete Yacht Club next weekend. One of our missions on this trip is to attend the Florida Yacht Council Meeting. Our friends Tony and “K” have wanted us to go with them for a while and things have just never worked out.
We have enjoyed our stay at the Clearwater Yacht Club. We have been hanging out with John and Helen Caffery who we have been sort of buddy boating with. They are a great couple that we have really enjoyed getting to know better. They have friends from Gulf Breese that were transferred to Clearwater last year. In the fine tradition of southern hospitality, Dale and Jeannie Walden also invited us to join in for dinner at their house. Steaks no less. In the fine tradition of the Deal family Carole load up an ice chest and off we went. It was a very enjoyable evening. Carole, Michael and I had a wonderful time. One of the best things we have found about traveling by boat is all of the great people you meet along the way. John and Helen pulled out this morning about 10:00 headed to their next stop. They are on a mission to get to the Keys so they are trying to make as much headway as possible. Right now, the winds are not favorable for heading down to the Keys. They are going to try to work there way south and jump out in the Gulf as soon as they get a window.
Michael left out today headed home. I went and pickup a rental car yesterday for him to drive back to Pensacola, pick up his car, drive to Pell City, spend the night at our house and then head back to Atlanta on Monday. Going to get the car was a real adventure. The rental car office was only six miles away but it took over two hours to make the trip. Apparently, a pretty weekend, a few spring breakers can back up traffic for a long way for people trying to get to the beach. With a car for a few hours, we made the required trip to the grocery and liquor store. Carole spent more on liquor than food. That should be revealing about the type of trip this is going to be.
Tomorrow we head down the ditch thru the narrows and under drawbridges for the trip to Treasure Island Yacht Club.
For all of you who are not familiar with yacht clubs our 1st night in all of the clubs are free. This trip will go quite a way toward paying for our club initiation.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Crusted in salt
Friday March 6th, Clearwater
Crusted in salt. When you take spray over the bow, the water evaporates and leaves a layer of salt crystals behind. There is enough salt on the boat to last us for a year of cooking.
On Tuesday, we had been watching the weather and original indications were to wait to Thursday to leave. Sometimes I think the weather people never look out the window the way they change their minds and miss forecasts. Their original forecast showed it being fairly rough out on Wednesday night but they later revised that to forecast east winds around 10 shifting to southeast late Thursday. We knew we didn’t want to wait for the southeast wind. For you who are geographically challenged, draw a line from Panama City to Tampa bay. The only direction a sailboat can’t sail is directly into the wind.
We were not planning to leave on Wednesday, so we had to “jump to,” as Capt Bob Bligh ordered, and get ready to go to sea. Instead of leaving at the crack of dawn we were clearing the sea buoy at about 11:00. We turn south to head to Cape San Blas. It was a beautiful sail, sails full, the gentle motion rising and falling on the waves. We rounded the corner at the Cape and adjusted our course to 120 degrees. As they say on the info commercials, But Wait!We can’t get to 120 degrees. About the best we can do is 148 degrees. For those of you who had problems in trig the sine of 28 degrees times the length of sail is 78 miles off course. That meant we were going to miss our destination a little. Hey, but that is not the type of things a true sailor worries a lot about. If you do, you go buy a trawler.
By about sundown the wind was beginning to die so we roll up the sails and take the opportunity to move east under motor. We correct the course to about 110 degrees, which will allow us to work our way back without loosing much forward headway. I can down load weather information from satellites on the boat (it is just wonderful to be a Geek). The SOB’s at the weather bureaus have changed the forecast. They are now calling for a “brief” period of 15 knot winds out of the east after midnight. Well I can tell you Mr. Webster doesn’t agree with their definition of brief. Shortly after midnight, the winds start to build and shift southeast. We continue to motor with the winds on our nose. Around 4:00 we are pounding into the waves. The bow raise straight up in the air and does a 180 back into the sea. It is not Olympic quality dive, water goes everywhere. You know that is a great exaggeration. The boat was taking a pounding and the winds were “dropping” to 15. Like the tom cat making love to the skunk there is just so much of that you can enjoy. We roll out a handkerchief main and jib around 5:00. Probably about 30% of the sail and settle in on a course of 170 degrees. Well if we are going to miss on our course of 148, going to 170 just adds a few more miles of error. We settle down some but are still taking a pretty good beating. I did see it get down to 15 about once or twice an hour. According to the sea buoy when I checked it, we are in 4 foot seas and labeled as “Steep”. I think they were more like 5 foot and very steep. Around mid morning, Cuba is looking like a good destination if we don’t do something so we tack thru to try to gain a little more east direction. If you were following us on spot it doesn’t actually record our 170 course change and how far to the west we had gotten but you can see about one half of the jog. After a few hours, the instruments are telling us we aren’t getting any closer to Clearwater. And, “Brief” time of strong winds it is 12 hours later and we have yet to see a steady 15, it is more like 18 to 20. Around lunchtime, we tack back thru the wind to head more south. The good news is according to the instruments we are only 30 hours out of Clearwater. The real good news is we are beginning to see 15 knot winds and a couple of hours later we are down to 12 with full sails out again.
The forecast has changed again with a wind shift to take place putting the wind out of the northeast. Now that is good news; we should be able to round up into Clearwater. The winds are beginning to die and the iron jib (the engine) is up to about 2800 rpm when we pull in the sails. After a while, the winds do turn to the northeast and we roll out the jib that gets up to 7.2 knots. Our destination is in sight somewhere out there with an arrival time at 9:00 p.m.
We have another beautiful sunset. Carole has finally after all of these years seen the “Green Flash”. For the past 20 years, she has thought I was lying to her.
We are buddy boating with the Caffery’s, who were leaving out of Apalachicola. They had a shorter trip and better sailing angle because of their more eastward condition. We didn’t want them to be concerned and were not able to make radio contact. We could hear the BoatUS site in Tampa and asked that they relay a message. But they were not able to contact them when they made the call. Later they heard them calling us and contacted them with our message that we would be in late. We were impressed that they would take the time and help us relay messages.
I guess some people never learn. How many more times is it going to take before I don’t come into a strange harbor in the middle of the night. Do you know how many lights on shore are red and green? We make it under the bridge with some trouble but then the fun starts. There are two turns we have to make off the channel going in. While we are in between the red and green we run aground not just once but three times. We finally find the channel against the red markers , apparently there is a shoal on the green side. It would have been a funny sight to see from the air. Because of the current, we are going sideways up the channel with our nose almost touching the markers. We probably looked like the Three Stooges with Michael and Carole trying to find the marks with a flashlight and yelling over the sound of the engine “The mark is right there, can’t you see it”. Thanks to the Caffery’s and several phone calls, we find the channel and yacht club. Damn that was one good Budweiser after the dock lines were out and we secured to the dock.
I don’t know if I should spend the rest of the day trying to get rid of the salt and make the boat “Yachtie” or wear it as badge of courage. It is kind of like the football player with a clean uniform at the end of the game, he didn’t get to play. Only the muddy guys had the courage to go into battle.
Crew Log Supplemental (Michael)
Being awoken at 8:00 to “Let’s Go!” wasn’t the way I had planned to start the day but seemed as good of a start as any. By 10:00 we were under way and enjoying a beautiful if not brisk morning. My enjoyment of the weather conditions quickly faded as we cleared Cape San Blas and the seas kicked up a rough wave. Being a huge fan of playing with the RADAR, I was highly disappointed to see that we were alas alone on the high seas. With the waves far to rough to read, I resigned myself to relax and enjoy the scenery. There is only so much open water you care to look at so sunset and nightfall was a welcome change. I was sent below around 10:00PM to get some sleep. Sleep I did not, but rather catnapped between being tossed about. I woke up around 2:00AM when I literally was lifted off the berth by a giant wave. The forward cabin is not the place to be in a 5-foot wave. I came on watch at 4:00 in very rough seas and high winds and stayed on deck throughout the rest of the day. After numerous changes to the winds and tactical course changes, we were all so beaten down that we just wanted to arrive as soon as possible so we set a course for Clearwater and motored.
Again arriving in the dark, at least this time we had a better idea of how to handle it. I’m sure it was still quite a sight to see me on the bow with the flashlight trying to point out the channel markers which apparently didn’t help a whole lot since we still ran aground three times (to the captain’s credit he was in the channel when it happened, all three times). Thankfully, docking maneuvers were very easy and we were connected to shore power within 30 minutes of arriving. Once settled I realized how very nice it felt to not be bouncing up and down and rolling left to right. Glad to say that I experienced the trip and survived the experience, though not sure that I will jump at the chance to experience those sea conditions any time soon.
Notes from the galley wench-Capt Bligh wants me to add my impressions. I don’t think that sort of language should be written down so I will just say that we made it and after 12 hours almost, really, of sleep I am feeling great. Working in the galley under those conditions is challenging but I learned a lot from it. Being uptop in the middle of the night by yourself wasn’t as frighting as I thought it would be. The boat handled everything great and except for never being able to rest , we did too. So glad Michael was with us. Helen and John were without an extra hand for watch, so I know it was hard for them, too. It is all about the stories you have to tell, so of course we have some more tall tales! Miss all you guys.
Crusted in salt. When you take spray over the bow, the water evaporates and leaves a layer of salt crystals behind. There is enough salt on the boat to last us for a year of cooking.
On Tuesday, we had been watching the weather and original indications were to wait to Thursday to leave. Sometimes I think the weather people never look out the window the way they change their minds and miss forecasts. Their original forecast showed it being fairly rough out on Wednesday night but they later revised that to forecast east winds around 10 shifting to southeast late Thursday. We knew we didn’t want to wait for the southeast wind. For you who are geographically challenged, draw a line from Panama City to Tampa bay. The only direction a sailboat can’t sail is directly into the wind.
We were not planning to leave on Wednesday, so we had to “jump to,” as Capt Bob Bligh ordered, and get ready to go to sea. Instead of leaving at the crack of dawn we were clearing the sea buoy at about 11:00. We turn south to head to Cape San Blas. It was a beautiful sail, sails full, the gentle motion rising and falling on the waves. We rounded the corner at the Cape and adjusted our course to 120 degrees. As they say on the info commercials, But Wait!We can’t get to 120 degrees. About the best we can do is 148 degrees. For those of you who had problems in trig the sine of 28 degrees times the length of sail is 78 miles off course. That meant we were going to miss our destination a little. Hey, but that is not the type of things a true sailor worries a lot about. If you do, you go buy a trawler.
By about sundown the wind was beginning to die so we roll up the sails and take the opportunity to move east under motor. We correct the course to about 110 degrees, which will allow us to work our way back without loosing much forward headway. I can down load weather information from satellites on the boat (it is just wonderful to be a Geek). The SOB’s at the weather bureaus have changed the forecast. They are now calling for a “brief” period of 15 knot winds out of the east after midnight. Well I can tell you Mr. Webster doesn’t agree with their definition of brief. Shortly after midnight, the winds start to build and shift southeast. We continue to motor with the winds on our nose. Around 4:00 we are pounding into the waves. The bow raise straight up in the air and does a 180 back into the sea. It is not Olympic quality dive, water goes everywhere. You know that is a great exaggeration. The boat was taking a pounding and the winds were “dropping” to 15. Like the tom cat making love to the skunk there is just so much of that you can enjoy. We roll out a handkerchief main and jib around 5:00. Probably about 30% of the sail and settle in on a course of 170 degrees. Well if we are going to miss on our course of 148, going to 170 just adds a few more miles of error. We settle down some but are still taking a pretty good beating. I did see it get down to 15 about once or twice an hour. According to the sea buoy when I checked it, we are in 4 foot seas and labeled as “Steep”. I think they were more like 5 foot and very steep. Around mid morning, Cuba is looking like a good destination if we don’t do something so we tack thru to try to gain a little more east direction. If you were following us on spot it doesn’t actually record our 170 course change and how far to the west we had gotten but you can see about one half of the jog. After a few hours, the instruments are telling us we aren’t getting any closer to Clearwater. And, “Brief” time of strong winds it is 12 hours later and we have yet to see a steady 15, it is more like 18 to 20. Around lunchtime, we tack back thru the wind to head more south. The good news is according to the instruments we are only 30 hours out of Clearwater. The real good news is we are beginning to see 15 knot winds and a couple of hours later we are down to 12 with full sails out again.
The forecast has changed again with a wind shift to take place putting the wind out of the northeast. Now that is good news; we should be able to round up into Clearwater. The winds are beginning to die and the iron jib (the engine) is up to about 2800 rpm when we pull in the sails. After a while, the winds do turn to the northeast and we roll out the jib that gets up to 7.2 knots. Our destination is in sight somewhere out there with an arrival time at 9:00 p.m.
We have another beautiful sunset. Carole has finally after all of these years seen the “Green Flash”. For the past 20 years, she has thought I was lying to her.
We are buddy boating with the Caffery’s, who were leaving out of Apalachicola. They had a shorter trip and better sailing angle because of their more eastward condition. We didn’t want them to be concerned and were not able to make radio contact. We could hear the BoatUS site in Tampa and asked that they relay a message. But they were not able to contact them when they made the call. Later they heard them calling us and contacted them with our message that we would be in late. We were impressed that they would take the time and help us relay messages.
I guess some people never learn. How many more times is it going to take before I don’t come into a strange harbor in the middle of the night. Do you know how many lights on shore are red and green? We make it under the bridge with some trouble but then the fun starts. There are two turns we have to make off the channel going in. While we are in between the red and green we run aground not just once but three times. We finally find the channel against the red markers , apparently there is a shoal on the green side. It would have been a funny sight to see from the air. Because of the current, we are going sideways up the channel with our nose almost touching the markers. We probably looked like the Three Stooges with Michael and Carole trying to find the marks with a flashlight and yelling over the sound of the engine “The mark is right there, can’t you see it”. Thanks to the Caffery’s and several phone calls, we find the channel and yacht club. Damn that was one good Budweiser after the dock lines were out and we secured to the dock.
I don’t know if I should spend the rest of the day trying to get rid of the salt and make the boat “Yachtie” or wear it as badge of courage. It is kind of like the football player with a clean uniform at the end of the game, he didn’t get to play. Only the muddy guys had the courage to go into battle.
Crew Log Supplemental (Michael)
Being awoken at 8:00 to “Let’s Go!” wasn’t the way I had planned to start the day but seemed as good of a start as any. By 10:00 we were under way and enjoying a beautiful if not brisk morning. My enjoyment of the weather conditions quickly faded as we cleared Cape San Blas and the seas kicked up a rough wave. Being a huge fan of playing with the RADAR, I was highly disappointed to see that we were alas alone on the high seas. With the waves far to rough to read, I resigned myself to relax and enjoy the scenery. There is only so much open water you care to look at so sunset and nightfall was a welcome change. I was sent below around 10:00PM to get some sleep. Sleep I did not, but rather catnapped between being tossed about. I woke up around 2:00AM when I literally was lifted off the berth by a giant wave. The forward cabin is not the place to be in a 5-foot wave. I came on watch at 4:00 in very rough seas and high winds and stayed on deck throughout the rest of the day. After numerous changes to the winds and tactical course changes, we were all so beaten down that we just wanted to arrive as soon as possible so we set a course for Clearwater and motored.
Again arriving in the dark, at least this time we had a better idea of how to handle it. I’m sure it was still quite a sight to see me on the bow with the flashlight trying to point out the channel markers which apparently didn’t help a whole lot since we still ran aground three times (to the captain’s credit he was in the channel when it happened, all three times). Thankfully, docking maneuvers were very easy and we were connected to shore power within 30 minutes of arriving. Once settled I realized how very nice it felt to not be bouncing up and down and rolling left to right. Glad to say that I experienced the trip and survived the experience, though not sure that I will jump at the chance to experience those sea conditions any time soon.
Crew Log Supplemental (Carole)
Notes from the galley wench-Capt Bligh wants me to add my impressions. I don’t think that sort of language should be written down so I will just say that we made it and after 12 hours almost, really, of sleep I am feeling great. Working in the galley under those conditions is challenging but I learned a lot from it. Being uptop in the middle of the night by yourself wasn’t as frighting as I thought it would be. The boat handled everything great and except for never being able to rest , we did too. So glad Michael was with us. Helen and John were without an extra hand for watch, so I know it was hard for them, too. It is all about the stories you have to tell, so of course we have some more tall tales! Miss all you guys.
Running at hull speed
Tuesday, March 3rd, AM
Many of you know this but for the others. A sailboat will just go so fast (hull speed) after that you are just overpowered and getting beat up. We were hull speed for most of the day yesterday.
We had to wait for the tide to lift us off bottom yesterday before we could leave the marina. The strong north winds had blown all the water out of the bay. We hadn’t planed to leave early anyway. It is supposed to be a 16 to 18 hour trip and we wanted to arrive about sun up this morning. We cleared the sea buoy about 12:30 got all the sails out started the trip. The winds were pretty much as forecast about 12 knots out of the north. The seas were surprising calm; we had expected it to be much rougher because of the front that had just gone thru. It had been gusting over forty on Sunday.
When we left, we were showing about 7 knots over ground but the wind were forecast to die down as the day progressed. We knew if the hugged the coast the waves would have a chance to build with the north wind. We decided to sail a straight line since the seas light and were dying. That course only takes you about 20 miles off the coast and we figured we could always work our way back if we needed to. Well I can tell you that the forecast was wrong for the rest of the day. The winds shifted a little to the north-west which put us on a broad reach and started to build. By mid afternoon we were seeing a steady 15. 15 is about the limit for us before we have to reef the main. With all sails up we where hitting a steady 8 knots. We have hours where we were logging 8.4 knots. That means we were seeing over 9 some of the time. It was one heck of an afternoon. By sunset, we were off the coast of Destin. That meant we were over half way so we were looking at a very early arrival. For you non-sailors it is no fun to enter a bay and harbor you don’t know in the dark. Michael talked about it and figured it was better to negotiate the bay than endure the cold air. It was actually pretty warm with the full enclosure up and we were protected from the spray. I wouldn’t have wanted to make the trip without the enclosure. Alain re-read that last sentence.
Carole had a real challenge with fixing dinner. She was going to cook a clam chowder with pasta. With pots and pans flying around in the galley, she thought better of that idea and warmed up a pre-cooked roast in the microwave. It filled us with good warm food and dishes didn’t get washed.
We reefed down the main to about 50% about sunset because the winds were continuing to build. That eased the angle of heel but had almost no effect on the speed. I don’t know what happened to the 7 knot winds and flat seas because we were seeing a steady 20 knots and 3 to 4 footers. The waves would catch the rear of the boat and kick it around, sliding everything in the boat across the cabin. Our Autohelm “Bubba” worked his ass off. We had the response level set high so he could keep up. It wasn’t a comfortable ride. Michael’s point of reference is that if you got thru 2-a-days in football you can get thru anything. It was a 2-a-day ride. You just wedge in get as comfortable as you can get.
We hit the Port St Joe sea buoy about 12:30. We had to turn down wind to blanket the jib to get it to roll up. Even with that, we had to winch it in. Most of the time I can just pull it in. It took a couple of hours to cross the bay. Thank heaven for chart plotters. We just sat down, plotted our next point and set our course. Have you ever tried to find a 20 hole into a marina in the middle of the night when you don’t even know where the marina is? Thanks to Michael standing out on the deck, we were able to spot a few masts on the other side a earth berm. Then a small red light and what looked like an opening. We ease thru the slot, find a spot on a “Tee” dock and throw out dock lines. After a family vote, we decide to run the generator and not mess with shore power. So about 3:00 we all crawl into bed to get warm. It must have taken my feet about an hour to warm up.
After several cups of coffee, we are coming to life. The boat is covered in salt. If you were tracking us on spot, you can see there are large gaps in the information it sends.
We are looking at weather to see what our next leg is going to be like but it might be more of the same.
Many of you know this but for the others. A sailboat will just go so fast (hull speed) after that you are just overpowered and getting beat up. We were hull speed for most of the day yesterday.
We had to wait for the tide to lift us off bottom yesterday before we could leave the marina. The strong north winds had blown all the water out of the bay. We hadn’t planed to leave early anyway. It is supposed to be a 16 to 18 hour trip and we wanted to arrive about sun up this morning. We cleared the sea buoy about 12:30 got all the sails out started the trip. The winds were pretty much as forecast about 12 knots out of the north. The seas were surprising calm; we had expected it to be much rougher because of the front that had just gone thru. It had been gusting over forty on Sunday.
When we left, we were showing about 7 knots over ground but the wind were forecast to die down as the day progressed. We knew if the hugged the coast the waves would have a chance to build with the north wind. We decided to sail a straight line since the seas light and were dying. That course only takes you about 20 miles off the coast and we figured we could always work our way back if we needed to. Well I can tell you that the forecast was wrong for the rest of the day. The winds shifted a little to the north-west which put us on a broad reach and started to build. By mid afternoon we were seeing a steady 15. 15 is about the limit for us before we have to reef the main. With all sails up we where hitting a steady 8 knots. We have hours where we were logging 8.4 knots. That means we were seeing over 9 some of the time. It was one heck of an afternoon. By sunset, we were off the coast of Destin. That meant we were over half way so we were looking at a very early arrival. For you non-sailors it is no fun to enter a bay and harbor you don’t know in the dark. Michael talked about it and figured it was better to negotiate the bay than endure the cold air. It was actually pretty warm with the full enclosure up and we were protected from the spray. I wouldn’t have wanted to make the trip without the enclosure. Alain re-read that last sentence.
Carole had a real challenge with fixing dinner. She was going to cook a clam chowder with pasta. With pots and pans flying around in the galley, she thought better of that idea and warmed up a pre-cooked roast in the microwave. It filled us with good warm food and dishes didn’t get washed.
We reefed down the main to about 50% about sunset because the winds were continuing to build. That eased the angle of heel but had almost no effect on the speed. I don’t know what happened to the 7 knot winds and flat seas because we were seeing a steady 20 knots and 3 to 4 footers. The waves would catch the rear of the boat and kick it around, sliding everything in the boat across the cabin. Our Autohelm “Bubba” worked his ass off. We had the response level set high so he could keep up. It wasn’t a comfortable ride. Michael’s point of reference is that if you got thru 2-a-days in football you can get thru anything. It was a 2-a-day ride. You just wedge in get as comfortable as you can get.
We hit the Port St Joe sea buoy about 12:30. We had to turn down wind to blanket the jib to get it to roll up. Even with that, we had to winch it in. Most of the time I can just pull it in. It took a couple of hours to cross the bay. Thank heaven for chart plotters. We just sat down, plotted our next point and set our course. Have you ever tried to find a 20 hole into a marina in the middle of the night when you don’t even know where the marina is? Thanks to Michael standing out on the deck, we were able to spot a few masts on the other side a earth berm. Then a small red light and what looked like an opening. We ease thru the slot, find a spot on a “Tee” dock and throw out dock lines. After a family vote, we decide to run the generator and not mess with shore power. So about 3:00 we all crawl into bed to get warm. It must have taken my feet about an hour to warm up.
After several cups of coffee, we are coming to life. The boat is covered in salt. If you were tracking us on spot, you can see there are large gaps in the information it sends.
We are looking at weather to see what our next leg is going to be like but it might be more of the same.
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