You can't be that lucky twice

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.