Buddy Clark cussing school

Thursday, April 9, 2009, Naples Yacht Club

We left about 8:00 this morning. Kicked Michael off when I found that I had a major confusion with tides. I thought we were on a rising tide and found out that my data was not correct. We were on a falling tide at the club. We motored out reading 0.0 on the depth and feeling a little nudge on the bottom every now and again. Michael will meet us in Naples after doing the tourist thing in Sarasota, the Ringling Mansion and St. Armand Circle.

We continue slowly motoring our way down the channel and come very close to hitting a major hump in the bottom. It is a help for us to check each other on reading charts. Carole is a great sailing partner.

The wind is about 20 degrees off the nose. We pull the traveler all the way across to get the mainsail to pull a little. We have a couple of feet of swell that is 90 degrees off the wind, which causes the boat to roll. The sail isn’t doing any good for sailing but it sure stops the roll. As the trip progresses the wind goes thru to the opposite side and we actually pick up about a half a knot of speed. Approaching the Gordon Pass into Naples, that little wind and a little current shaved off 1 hour.

Coming up the river is an interesting trip. McMansions close to each other. It is narrow, shallow and full of boats going every direction. There is a 16 foot outboard boat with four old farts wondering all over the place right in front of us down the middle of the channel. We see a chance and power up to overtake them. There isn’t much room and we are running pretty close to them. We have the bow of the boat about 10 feet past their bow before they know we are there. One of the guys starts yelling and cussing about big boat think they own the water. Don’t you just love old Yankees? He was such an amateur curser; he needs to spend some time on a job site with Buddy Clark.

The club here is a classy place but more on that next time.