December 2013 – Have Wind Will Travel

November 22, 2013 – Day Three: The Local Riff Raff

December 27, 2013November 20, 2017anniedike

After some serious Annie muscle, what I believe to be a minor rotator cuff injury, and — Phillip’s infinitely better idea — a little patience (turns out we had flooded it), the outboard finally cranked. It seems even when you buy a brand new one, outboards are just finicky critters that you have to baby about. Go figure. But, chilled to the bone, we puttered on back to our boat and hunkered down with Mr. Heater.

Aside from the oven, engine and long johns, it is the only heat source on the boat and this little guy cranks out some serious heat. As chilly as it got during that trip, I never found myself cold on the boat with this little heat machine running. We cooked up a feast (lamb chops, sauteed mushrooms and kale salad), set a kerosene-lit table for two and curled up for another night at Fort McRae.

The next day, we pulled anchor around noon and headed on over to Pirate’s Cove, which was about a 3-hour jaunt west:

We were able to sail for a couple of hours before we made it to the tighter parts of the ICW that require the motor and actually passed some friends on the way who were out kiting at Johnson’s Beach.

We made it to Pirate’s Cove around four-ish, secured the boat and settled in at the dock.

Instead of a cozy night in, we decided to get out and throw back a few with the locals at the Cove. Now, anytime we pull into an old salty harbor, we always expect the local riff raff to provide some mild form of amusement, but, what we got at the Cove was — aside from that random midget burlesque show we caught back in the spring — one of the most entertaining and bewildering nights of our lives. I swear to you – every bit of this is true. And, thanks to the Pirate’s Cove live webcam (I’m serious: www.piratescoveriffraff.com) and my phone – it was also documented in vivid detail by yours truly for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy:

We walked in around 6:30, I guess, looking for a drink and an outlet. The place was littered with a few run-down looking regulars. Hell, we probably looked like a couple of run-down regulars. Without saying a word to anyone, we started roaming the perimeter for a usable outlet so we could recharge our laptop and phones. Living on the boat, we had no qualms plugging in anywhere. Well, I say we, but Phillip is actually worse. I threw a shy smile to the bartender as I mozied around each wall, subtlely, or so I thought, looking for two available prong holes, while Phillip unabashedly started shimmying behind the soda machine and shaking the cords that ran from the back of the machine and the coffee pot, shouting loudly enough for anyone to hear, “Which one is this?,” as he shook it violently. “Trace it back. If it’s the coffee pot, unplug it.” I looked around suspiciously, thinking the electricity Nazis would surely come and kick us out, but Phillip, who was half bent over the soda machine by now, one leg kicked up in the air for balance, said “They don’t give a shit, unplug it.” So I did.

With the computer juicing up, probably coincidentally so I could memorialize this tale the next morning, we finally made our way to the bar. And, as it always seems to turn out, Phillip was right. They didn’t give a shit at all. They could have cared less whether we walked the perimeter five times, spat on the doorstep, barked and walked away. It was unlikely anything we did could interfere with their “atmosphere.”

We were at Pirates Cove, which I believe is technically in Josephine, Alabama, but by reading the haling ports on most of the dilapidated old boats in the slips there, I took it for a “place” all its own. The building itself was basically a pile of driftwood and sheet metal fastened together in some manner with rusty nails and caulk. I was actually surprised they had electricity at all.

The floorboards leading in and out of the main door were worn down at least an inch by foot traffic alone. Well, let me take that back, mammal traffic. They were at least four dogs roaming around at all times, one of whom was equal in weight and stature to a small pony with black, wart-like growths the size of baseballs formed at each of his elbows from years of laying on wooden floors. His name was Tiki, but the bartender repeatedly referred to him (yes, him) as a “needy bitch.”

Rick, the bartender, looked like the lead singer of the Grateful Dead—that Jerry character that I believe is since long gone. He kept pushing sweaty, wavy hair back from his face and stroking his white bushy beard. He wore a purplish luau-like shirt that buttoned down, although I don’t think it would have reached around the massive beach ball of a belly that protruded from his mid-section. It seemed to function more as a wearable handkerchief than anything as he would occasionally pull the tail end of it up to his face and blow his nose in it without ever missing a beat. But, for a bartender, he was exceptionally well-spoken and delightfully entertaining. Engaging each of us at the bar only when provoked and even then, only ever so lightly, with an interesting tale or observation. He was, by far, the best “soft-sell” barkeep I’ve ever encountered. He had greeted us with an appropriate “Hey guys,” when we walked in but had left us entirely alone while we walked the walls of his establishment suspiciously and fiddled with his drinking equipment, but it was as if he sensed it when we started to turn his way for a drink. His salutation then changed to “What’ll it be?”

You gotta love the live webcam. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I was able to refresh it throughout the night on my phone and capture these shots:

Here’s Rick – sporting his luau shirt-slash-hanky:

We ordered two rum runners and settled in on two of the sturdiest damn bar stools I’ve ever had the privilege of resting my rump on. They were made out of exactly four pieces of wood, two sides, a seat and a support bar/footrest about halfway down. Each piece was at least eight inches thick and the whole stool weighed about forty pounds, a design I personally believe was intended to prevent stool tippage and usage of stools as weapons as we later witnessed a 300-pound patron who went solely by the name ‘Bama’ teeter on one repeatedly but not fall over. Phillip and I wrestled two stools up to the bar just about the time Rick Garcia slid our drinks in front of us. He then let us be to soak up the banter that was already brewing up nicely and acclimate to the atmosphere.

There were two regulars seated next to us who had clearly had a few but their slurred small-talk was still incredibly entertaining. The man next to Phillip had a full, blonde seventies shag and liked to try to speak with an Australian accent (although they both attempted German and Brittish throughout the evening). His comrade to my right was a clean-shaven, crew-cut gentleman who I believe actually was German, or at least had mastered the accent far better than his “I’m okay, you’re okay” compadre.

As Phillip and I perused the pizza menu, I heard the Shag say “We need a really great toast, something like ‘To the Fuerher!’,” which appeared to please the German. They shouted the sentiment with raised glasses and downed their shots with fervor while Rick Garcia was already making them another round.

Intrigued by the Hitler exchange, I had missed the stringy pizza man that had snuck up on Phillip. He was holding a pizza box open as if it contained some illicit substances, looking back and forth quickly over each shoulder and speaking in low tones. I leaned in to get a better listen. “Now, you want to get the MaryAnn’s mess with extra artichoke and spinach. Always extra spinach,” he said to Phillip in a whisper. The kid was probably all of twenty-one, with a grungy toboggan hat slid to one side on his head, cheek bones jutting out from underneath it and bony prominences sticking up along the back of his neck like a rooster’s mane. As quickly as he had appeared, he slipped a quick peak over his shoulder, closed the lid to the pizza box and slinked away. I asked Phillip what had sparked that encounter and he responded with only a slow shake of the head and a long pull of his drink, but with a smile slowly stealing over his mouth. We knew then and there we were definitely staying. We were certainly not going to find any entertainment better or free-er than this.

The whole crew:

We followed the junkie’s advice and ordered the MaryAnn’s mess – extra spinach – and another round of “rummers.” The Shag and the German were debating again over some previous exchange they had had at that very same bar last week, the Shag apparently recalling it one way, and the German, another. As the Shag was clearly making up details, “Yes, yes, I recall, I was wearing my flannel shirt and sipping a bourbon, when – yes, that’s it, I can see it clearly now, I’m having a flashback to … ”

“Your other personality obviously,” the German pitched in, “because you don’t wear flannel and you sure as hell don’t sip bourbon.” That did me in. I couldn’t then hide the fact that I had been watching them unapologetically like a movie. Blissfully staring. But, I couldn’t help it. The German was sharp and witty and the Shag was a perfect stupefied surface for his comments to bounce off of. But, unfortunately, as it happens, laughing at an old drunk’s joke at a bar is like feeding a dog at the table.

You’ll never shake him then. The Shag turned to me and widened his eyes, like a flower blooming before me. “Oh, what do we have here?” Oh boy, I thought. Here we go. But, he and the German both turned out to be incredibly smart and wildly entertaining. It was the fiftieth anniversary of JFK’s assassination and they both recalled, with vivid detail, where they were and what they were doing when they got the news. Although the Shag claimed it it must have been the memory of his other personality because he wasn’t actually that old. Rick Garcia piped in with an entirely inappropriate but perfectly-timed joke about someone who, legend had it, asked Jackie-O upon her return, “So, aside from that, how was your trip to Dallas, Jackie?” This quip garnered a roar of laughter from the bar-seated audience and was repeated, re-hashed and utterly used up by the time the night was over. The Shag would come back from the bathroom saying it smelt of copper and cat urine, to which we would all respond with “So, other than that, how was your trip to the men’s room, Shag?” The German griped about the piss-poor drink he had got on his last flight, and we would all respond with a “So other than that … ”

What we had failed to notice, however, during our bonding with the regulars was the bond that had been forming between the junkie with the pizza box and Bama, who had been stumbling in and out of the joint all night. Bama and the Junkie had somehow found each other in that sparse, dusty bar and were now hunkered together at a sagging picnic table behind us, one arm draped over the other’s shoulder as they belted out “on the cover of the Rolling Stone, the Rolling Stone, the Rolling Stone … ” Bama was a smooth baritone and the Junkie, a raspy alto, but they made a decent duet and us bar hounds raised our glasses and swayed a few times in honor of their harmony. This was entertaining, at first, buy they repeated this verse every nine and a half minutes, approximately, throughout the night and by the fourth rendition we all began a collective eye-roll when they would strike up.

Two drinks in, our pizza finally came, a heaping, melting mozzarella-covered miracle and Phillip and I dove in, dipping whole slices in ranch, wiping swaths of grease from our face and washing it down with rum drinks that seemed to get stronger by the pour. The Shag had hunkered down and was scribbling something on some receipt paper he had pulled from the register.

I figured he had fallen prey to his intoxicants and was reaching that head-hang stage where one finds himself capable of only mono-syllables and drool. But, mid-way through another “cover of the Rolling Stone” revival, he emerged with a snap, flipping his blond wig back mightily and shoving his receipt paper drawing before me. “Ahhh .. a Lyden original,” Rick Garcia said, eyeing the piece. The drawing was actually an incredible sketch of a woman’s face, exceptionally detailed and shadowed, particularly considering it was drawn with only a ball-point pen.

Original, I thought. Rick, ever the ‘reader,’ sensed my inquiry and responded, “He’s an artist. Won something up in Fairhope for painting that … what was it Lyden? The swan over a crack?”

“A creek, Rick. It was a creek.”

www.leslyden.com

The Shag, now known as Lyden, handed me a business card that boasted the incredible swan over the crack with his name and website on the back. He was indeed an artist.

And a handsome one at that, pre-shag:

I fumbled the card around a bit, trying not to utterly destroy it with the massive quantities of pizza grease that coated my every finger, while I watched Rick Garcia use his purple luau cloak to simultaneously wipe the grease from his own face and blow his nose single-handed. “It serves many a-purpose,” Rick said completely unapologetically as he continued splashing together another concoction for Bama and the junkie at the other end of the bar.

While they were momentarily silent, enthralled by watching the mammoth Tiki eat a piece of cheese, the German engaged Rick in yet another riveting topic: employee theft. “So, how did you stop them?” He was asking about the apparently many-preceding bartenders who had managed to, night after night, sneak a few key dollar bills from the register, to which Rick Garcia responded by merely pointing up toward the corner of the bar to a camera. “We filmed them,” he said. “It’s amazing how accountable people get when they know they’re being videotaped.” Phillip and I eyed the camera intently while Rick continued. “We just put it on a live web cam so we could watch from afar, and we haven’t had a thieving ‘keep since.”

“So, we’re live right now?” Phillip asked. “Well, live, in a sense,” Rick Garcia responded. “It refreshes every two minutes. Here, let me show you.” He started fumbling around with his phone trying to look up the website, grumbling to himself that his “smart phone” was in fact “retarded.” He looked up with a frown and told us, “It seems I don’t have enough lapband.” Lapband? Phillip and I shared a confused look. “Lapband. Band-lap. What is it?” Garcia asked. “Bandwidth?” Phillip and I said in unison. “Yeah, that. I’ve had the lapband too – didn’t seem to have enough of that either – but bandwidth, that’s it.”

Luckily, it turned out I did have enough “lapband” and I looked us up on the old riffraff webcam. The first image that came up was of Phillip and I, eyebrows raised, watching the junkie/Bama band in yet another encore of “the Rolling Stones … ” an event that had occurred two minutes earlier, and so, by our calculation, was then set to occur again in approximately seven minutes and thirty-four seconds, give or take. When we refreshed again, I was pointing vigorously at Rick Garcia, making, I’m sure, a refreshingly witty comeback to his Lapband mishap.

We continued to refresh the webcam throughout the night, reliving each moment, exactly two minutes later, and enjoying immensely the greasy pizza, recurrent Stones revivals and the engaging banter of the Shag, the German and Garcia.

After three hours at the bar and four rummers in, Phillip and I found ourselves immersed totally in their “atmosphere.” I watched intently as a new couple sauntered in, keeping their distance, initially, from our group. The woman wrestled a massive barstool into place and nudged her partner when she first noticed the mammoth Tiki, a sight that was now normalcy for us. The Bama/Junkie duet struck up again, and I watched the couple share the same look Phillip and I had shared only hours prior. Oh, we are definitely staying. I knew, in just a short amount of time, they would join us at the bar and, before long, feel we just as we do now – like part of the local riff raff.

November 21, 2013 – Day Two: Another Dinghy Debacle

December 23, 2013December 30, 2013anniedike

Heeding Phillip’s shout for help, I scrambled out of the companionway hatch in my skivvies for a quick, chilly look-about, and he was right. We had definitely moved. The anchor light of the ‘nice and tight’ boat that had come up on us around sunset, which had once been inline with our cockpit, was now inline with our bow. Gulp. And, although it was dark, we could both make out the shoreline in the moonlight and it looked to be about ten feet closer than it had been when we had settled in for the night. Apparently, the 5:1 ratio we had dropped wasn’t enough.

You see the chart here where it says “too short – anchor may not hold.” They’re sugarcoating it. It should say, “you didn’t lay out enough rode, you dumbass – you’re screwed.” At least that’s how we felt. It was clear the boat was inching back toward the shore. We were going to have to pull the anchor up, motor forward and drop her back down. Snot was already freezing to my face, so I scrambled down below and started snatching every item of clothing I could find and throwing it on. I probably looked like a bag lady when I came up. I had on my long johns, Phillip’s t-shirt, leggings under pajama pants, a couple of scarves wrapped around my neck, a Christmas sweater, a tobaggan, my foul weather jacket and rain boots. But, I’m sure I made it look super sexy and smoking hot.

High fashion.

I refuse to believe I actually looked like this:

“Hey-haaay Cap’n! Let’s drop us an anchor!”

In the blistering cold, the black of night, we did it. We pulled the anchor up. Now, if you recall, Phillip has told me before that two of the most entertaining things you can watch a couple do are dock and anchor. Either is sure to be a catalyst for whatever tension might have been building between them during the trip. The process usually involves a lot of shouting, subtle (or not so subtle) insults and accusations and eventually name-calling. I am proud to say that Phillip and I have become pretty adept at it, and our process involves only hand-signals and code. Particularly after this trip, where we gained a good deal of anchor experience. Me, in particular, who works the bow. On our boat, we’ve got a windlass which pulls the anchor up by motor.

It’s a nice luxury to have since our rode is entirely chain, with the anchor alone weighing approximately thirty-five pounds. We also have a deck wash that hooks in at the bow and pulls in sea water to spray the mud off of the chain as the windlass hoists it up. From the first time he used it, Phillip always said “The deck wash is king!” And, while I agreed it was a handy little device to have when you’re pulling anchor, I wasn’t quite as enamored as he. Until, I had to learn the hard way (it seems that is the only way I truly learn) when the deck wash got clogged one time, and I had to hoist approximately 20-30 bucketfuls of seawater up to the bow to wash each link of that retarded chain off via bucket slosh, cursing it the entire time. Covered in sweat and my biceps and lower back screaming at me by the time I finished, I trudged back to the cockpit where Phillip made me reiterate it again. “The deck wash is king, right?”

Yes, the deck wash is king.

But, the only bad thing about the deck wash is that it sprays water everywhere. Particularly when the wind is howling and you’re spraying right into it, as we were that night. While my “bag lady” look was warm when dry, it was anything but when wet, and I got soaked. By the time we moved forward and re-dropped the anchor (100 feet plus this time, and nothing short of it!), I was frozen through. My fingers were barely functional and I couldn’t even feel my toes. I swore the next time we pulled anchor, I was busting out the Gorton’s fisherman outfit. Head to toe. And I did!

Misses Gorton ain’t got nothing on me! I rocked that number.

With our anchor secure, we woke the next morning to find the shore at a nice, safe distance.

Whew!

With 100 feet+ out, and a clean swing radius, we felt good about the anchor and decided it was time to go toodling around in our dinghy to explore our anchorage. Now, while you all are familiar with our downtrodden dinghy that made it’s way back to us from the middle of the Gulf, while she was making that wayward trek, we had a very generous boat buddy, Bottom-Job Brandon, give us an inflatable dinghy we could use in the meantime. The thing is awesome. It packs down a little bigger than my stand-up paddleboard and fits nicely in the aft cabin on the boat for passage. Once we anchor, we break it out, put the floorboards in, air it up – and GO!!

Like Daffy Duck and the Abominable Snowman …

“I will love him and pet him and call him George.” And, for those of you with too much time on your hands – video HERE.

all summer long, Annie loved on the dinghy, rubbed on it, cleaned on it, fixed it up and made it her own.

We even got an outboard for her right before the November trip.

Vrooom!

After some research and debate, we decided to go with a 3.5 horsepower, water-cooled Tohatsu. It weighs about 45 pounds and we lift it(by hand) from the dinghy up to a mounting board on the stern rail.

Outboards are not cheap and if dropped in the water, I’m sure they sink right to the bottom, either irretrievably so or, even if retrievable, they are likely forever ruined in the process regardless. So, you can just imagine our first nervous, wobbly-kneed hand-off from Phillip up at the stern, to me down bobbing in the dinghy. It was hairy and there were a lot of “You got it?” “You got it?” “You sure you got it?” ‘s that were exchanged back and forth – but thankfully we got her down safely and mounted firmly on the transom of the dinghy. I don’t think I’ve ever gripped anything so hard in my life. My knuckles were white and my fingers were gnarled tight around her. I was NOT going to be the one who dropped the engine. But, it’s now a fairly routine exchange and we manage it fairly easily, without all the nerves and tension. Still a death grip, though. The death grip is key.

With the sun just rising on our first morning of the trip, and our boat now securely anchored, Phillip hopped in the dinghy and fired her up for a morning ride.

We cruised on over to Fort McRae first and poked around. The fort is no longer standing, but there are some old barricade walls and tunnels to explore, and it does feel pretty empowering to stand up at the peak and look out onto the Gulf knowing this was one of three spots where massive barricades were erected so many years ago to protect Pensacola’s shores.

We then dinghy-ed back across the chilly waters to Sand Island to go exploring.

It really is gorgeous there. Pristine and untouched. We frolicked along without a care in the world. Like a goofy couple in a Kay Jeweler’s commercial. Hands clasped blissfully together, we skipped back to the dinghy and patted her gently as we nestled in. We both smiled warmly at the outboard and commented on how shiny and pretty she was and how well she was running that morning. How well she was running. She WAS running. Had been anyway. Phillip pulled the cord, had to have been 20 or 30 times, but she would not start. Refused to start, or even to try. That bitch! She had turned on us.

We sat in the dinghy looking out across the water at our boat, and I know what you’re probably all thinking. Stop your whining Nancy and row! Sure, we could row. Assuming the wind was light enough. But, we still had nine days to go on our trip and plenty of little inlets and places we wanted to explore — in our dinghy — and we bought an outboard for a reason. This was America dammit and we’d spent our hard-earned U.S. dollars on that foreign motor. I wasn’t having it. I shoved Phillip aside. Let me at her!

November 20, 2013 – Day One: The Rode Out West

December 18, 2013December 30, 2013anniedike

With Big Mom tended to and Alabama in our rear-view, Phillip and I set to planning our Thanksgiving voyage. Due to the rush trip to North Alabama for the funeral and the lost time from work, we both needed to put in a few days at the office to make up for it before we took off again, so we settled on a departure date of Wednesday, November 20th, which would still leave us 10 whole days at sea. Now, while a trip east to Carrabelle, Apalachicola and the like was still do-able, it would be a stretch as Carrabelle, alone, is a two-day passage, assuming good weather, and I can tell you what we did not have that week was good weather. A front was set to pass through, leaving us with 25-30 mph winds and a predicted 6-9 foot sea-state. Not something you want to jaunt out in just for fun. There were plenty of anchorages we had heard about on the western route, so we decided to stay protected along the ICW inshore and head west in search of (what else?) — women, whiskey and gold!

Here is an overview of our planned voyage:

We planned to head over to Fort McRae first for a couple of days on the hook, then ease in to Pirate’s Cove to dock up and hang out with the local riff raff for a day or two. From there, we would jump over to Ingram’s Bayou (a place many of our sailing buddies kept telling us was one of the most beautiful, pristine anchorages over that way) to drop anchor for a couple of quiet nights, before we made our way over to The Wharf in Orange Beach where we had reserved a slip for Thanksgiving. Phillip’s clan was also planning to rent a condo there for the holiday and we – as true cruisers tend to do – were planning to make full use of their facilities! There is nothing like a hot shower and a washer and dryer after seven days at sea!

All told, our trek out west was going to be about an 8-9 day trip and we had planned one last anchorage on the way back (likely Red Fish Point – just near Fort McRae) for one last night of solitude before heading back to the real world.

So, we set off on a brisk sunny Wednesday afternoon (Nov. 20th) and headed to our first stop — Fort McRae:

Now, we’ve been to Red Fish Point many times, so the passage across Pensacola Bay and through the little inlet by Sand Island was all too familiar territory. No sweat. We could make that sail with our eyes closed (assuming, of course, no other boats, bouys, or a shore). Stevie Wonder style!

Yeah baby!

But, we had never made the “uey” around the corner and into the inlet between Sand Island and Fort McRae.

And I’ll have you know I had to Google the word “uey” for the proper spelling. Urban Dictionary says:

Uey

To take a U-Turn

I guess this is a New England thing.

Cab driver : “I’ll just bang(make a/take) a uey on the next stoplight”

Although I’m not sure that’s just a “New England” thing. I think ‘to bang is to make’ rings true just about anywhere.

We had a phenomenal sail over. But, I will say, we had not been out on the boat in weeks and I think just about any conditions would have been ‘phenomenal’ to us as we were just thrilled to finally have water moving across the hull. Although many may disagree, runny noses and chilly fingers just aren’t enough to make any sail UN-phenomenal in our book. But, apparently we were a little rusty. I’d love to say we executed the ‘uey’ around Sand Island perfectly and eased right on up into our anchorage by Fort McRae. But that’s just not how it happened. As we were making (banging I guess the New Englanders would say) the bend, the boat lurched forward and let out a slight groan. With my hands on the bimini bar, I could feel the soft, thud of the ground we hit below. And let me just say for the record – although I’m a little reluctant to admit it, we have done it a time or two now (run aground) – but it’s never a feeling you get comfortable with. It’s a sickening, discomforting movement of the boat and instantly identifiable as contact with the treacherous bottom below. Thankfully, for us, it was a soft, sandy bottom and Phillip had the sharp skipper skills to back us out, “bang out” a bigger loop and get us into Fort McRae with our keel in tact.

Now, I’ve heard some people refer to this anchorage as “party alley” because it’s usually chock full of sailboats, power boats, trollers and the like. Hence the “party.” But, we were hoping that on Thanksgiving it would be pretty sparse so we would have plenty of room to spread out. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. There were three other boats in there, a marker for some sunken hazard, a bouy and a tight shoreline that we had to deal with. Enter the infamous Swing Radius. Now, most of you are smart enough to make a pretty good guess as to what that is, but humor me for just a moment for the newbies.

Imagine your anchor as the center of the circle. The radius, then, is the distance from your anchor to the stern of your boat:

Using the radius, you can then plot out a hypothetical ‘circle’ your boat could occupy depending on which way the wind or tide pushes it. Now, with several “obstacles” around us – three other boats, an immovable marker for the sunken hazard, a bouy, and a nearby shore with outstretched shoal, we had to be sure we dropped enough anchor chain (known as “rode”) to hold our boat secure while not creating a swing radius so large it would allow us to strike the surrounding obstacles. We typically like a 7:1 ratio. Meaning, if we were in 7 feet of water, with 4 foot freeboard (distance from the water line to the deck), that’s 11 feet total depth, so 77 feet of rode.

Now, while getting the anchor set right is important, making sure we had a proper cocktail at sunset easily trumps it. So, with the tight parameters, we dropped about 55 feet of anchor chain (an approximate 5:1 ratio with our ten feet of total depth) and set to our evening ritual. A book and cocktail at sunset. Could there be anything better?

But then another boat pulled up nice and tight near us and set us both on edge. We started looking around, running and re-running our calculation of the swing radius and speculating, once again, as to the approximate distance to the shore.

With both of us being born fierce litigators and each a few drinks in and, thus, a little more ballsy to boot, Phillip and I embarked on an exhaustive debate about the swing radius. I made a rough calculation and explained to Phillip my educated guess as to the radius, to which he naturally responded:

With no one else on the boat with us, a riveting discussion ensued, in which I had to drop some serious geometry knowledge on Phillip that, if translated to a demonstrative aid, would look something like this:

Length of Boat + [ (Rode )²– (Depth + Freeboard )² ]^1/2

Simple, right? I thought so. Or at least I was sure, in my eloquent, unslurred, precise and persuasive frame of mind, that it was. And, I told Phillip as much. To which he responded:

Fine by me! I had made my peace with it. I offered my best pitch – full of reason and geometry and gin – and my plight had fallen on deaf ears (or ogling eyes – although I consider them to be synonymous). I set about to “banging out” another drink or three and resting my weary mind while Phillip got up about every hour to try and make out the markers and shoreline in the dark of night as the wind began to howl over the boat. I kept a shoulder turned to him, pretending to be sleeping soundly (lah-tee-dah) as he was checking GPS coordinates on his phone, but I was wide awake and just as worried as he. The sounds and motions of the boat from below were incredibly deceiving. What could just as easily have been the wind and a smooth shift of the boat in the water sounded, in the v-berth, like the keel wedging into sand and the boat preparing to tip over. Neither of our weary minds were resting. Phillip made one last trek topside, and I heard him walk up toward the bow, my eyes following the sound of his footsteps in the dark. Then I heard them pound quick on the deck above as he scurried back to the hatch and shouted down to me:

“Annie, I need you up here now. We’re moving.”

November 13, 2013 – The Best Laid Plans

December 13, 2013December 30, 2013anniedike

I guess that’s the thing about plans. That’s all they are until they come to fruition. Phillip and I had planned to travel east over the Thanksgiving holiday and make a straight four-day passage across the Gulf to Carrabelle, but, as it always does, life seemed to have something different in store for us. We had planned to leave on November 15th and had spent the week provisioning and planning and getting the boat ready, when I got a call mid-week from my Dad that changed everything. My grandmother, better known to all as “Big Mom,” the strongest, most stubborn southern woman I’ve ever met, passed away on November 13, 2013.

Now, while any death is sad. It’s the end of a life, the severing, or distortion, at least, of a connection you made with someone. It’s a loss of something irreplaceable, a person. It’s sad. Always. But it’s also inspiring and stirring. What better motivator could there be than a humbling reminder that our time here is most certainly limited. That every moment passed is one lost forever, and that, no matter how long it may seem when looking forward, looking back, life is nothing but undeniably all too short. My grandmother lived eighty-six full years on this earth, fuller, even, than I had imagined. It’s funny how we forget that the people in our lives exist outside of us. I learned, while sorting through old photos for her funeral that, long before I was even a gleam in my father’s eye, Big Mom had already experienced a lifetime of adventure. I found pictures of her hiking in Alaska, riding a furry Clydesdale-looking horse in thigh-high snow, splashing around in the ocean at the ripe age of eighteen, skiing, skating, dancing and laughing, always laughing. I even found a picture of her in a pretty ‘racy’ bikini for the times (1955) and have to admit I was nothing but proud. My grandma was hot! While I didn’t know her as this adventurous spit-fire, that was before my time, I do remember the many years she spent schooling, scolding, spanking and shaping my Dad, my aunt, my brother, my cousins, all of us, into the people we are today.

And I do mean “all of us.” Spanking was allowed by anyone in the “village” in those days, and kids behaved in those days.

So, instead of packing the boat for a voyage, Phillip and I packed a couple of suitcases with our black Sunday bests and headed up to north Alabama for the services. And, holding true to my belief in the power of stories, I chose this one for the funeral, as I believe it captures the essence of the woman we lost that day:

I was quite the cowgirl when I was four. Well, I made a good run at it least. My Dad was the actual cowboy and I was his handkerchief-wearing, boot-and-spur sporting miniature. If Dad was getting on a horse, so was I, in the front, right up next to the horn. One day, I was riding with my Dad on one of his new roping horses, Rusty. My brother had hopped on the back so we were three-deep, horseback and walking along the gravel road from the pastures down yonder up to Big Mom’s house.

Now, I can’t tell you what happened exactly. I barely remember the actual fall, but Dad tells me the horse was stung by something. A hornet, probably, based on the welp he found on the horse’s hind quarter later, but Rusty reared back on his hind legs, his fronts doing that classic Black Stallion bicycle kick, and threw John right off the back. He then came down, firmly planted the’ fronts,’ and gave a massive buck with the back, launching my Dad and I up and over his head. Now, it was a good thing my Dad held on to me tight when the horse reared back so I wouldn’t fall, but not such a good thing when the horse bucked us over his head and we smashed into the ground, me on the bottom and all two hundred and ten pounds of my Dad on top, and slid across the gravel road and into the ditch.

My Dad had a look of horror on his face when he rolled me over, pushed a blood-soaked swath of hair and bits of gravel from my face, and asked me if I was okay. I tried to respond but, although I can’t explain it, I had a clot the size of Kansas in my mouth. I do remember that. I also remember the world jostling around me as he scooped me up and started running toward the house shouting for Big Mom. And, Big Mom was, I guess, all of fifty-nine at the time, but she hoisted me up close to her body and hauled me up every stair in the house, saying, just as calmly as ever, “Now, let’s see what we got here.” In the bathroom she started drawing a bath and I saw a couple bottles of hydrogen peroxide on the edge of the tub, a home health product I was all too familiar with. That was the stuff that made a tiny little cut that didn’t hurt at all bubble and fizzle and burn like acid. I knew what it was capable of and I saw Big Mom dumping bottles (bottles!) of it into the tub. I started wriggling out of her grasp, protesting and wailing and begging for “Anything but that!”

But Big Mom wasn’t having it. Even my most fervent rebellion was not going to stop her from doing what she knew was right for me. With strength I had never imagined her capable of and not a single word, she plopped in that vat of acid and every laceration on my body started fizzling and frothing until it looked like a bubble bath. I was flailing and sputtering and shrieking at her in protest, when she grabbed me by my bloody, foamy chin and–this part I will never forget–said “Awww hush, you’re alive ain’t ya? It ain’t that bad. Hell, I swish with it.” And, then she did the unthinkable. Big Mom tipped the bottle of hydrogen peroxide up and took a swig. I sat there dumbfounded, totally silent, only the soft sound of my fizzling skin floating between us, as she swished that foul stuff around in her mouth three of four times, her eyes locked tightly on mine. She then spit a white foamy mouthful out next to me in the tub and gave me a firm “hmmpph” look that shut me up entirely. I forgot completely that my skin was burning off, that I was in pain everywhere, or, even, that I had fallen and skid across gravel. Clot? What clot?? Big Mom had just swished with hydrogen peroxide!?! Could there be anything worse? And, just like that, I stopped complaining, I stopped crying and I agreed with her. It really wasn’t that bad.

And, it was a lesson that stuck. There have been many times in my life when something that seemed tragic at the time happened to me and, for whatever reason, my mind flashed back to that foul bath, my fizzling skin and the look on Big Mom’s face as she swished and spat. You’re alive ain’t ya?

You’re damn right I am. And, I don’t intend to waste a minute. Phillip and I knew we were going to have to push the trip back and, likely, plan a different route, but we didn’t mind. We didn’t care where we went, really, as long as we went. While we prefer sunshine and cocktails, we know rough seas and foul weather are going to be part of it, too, and will likely be just as memorable, if not more so. Either way, as long as we’re alive, it just ain’t that bad. We still had time left and a voyage to plan.

November 9, 2013 – “When Are You Going to the Islands?”

December 10, 2013December 30, 2013anniedike

Isn’t that what you’re all thinking? At least that’s what I get asked three times a week. (Yes, I’m talking to you Bleeke!) Soon, people. Soon. Stick with me. But, I’ll tell you, even when we do get there, it’s not going to be any more beautiful than this:

And, when we cook up a meal in the galley off the coast of some remote island in the Keys or Bahamas, it’s still going to look like this:

Adventure is relative and can be found anywhere. Usually, it’s the act of getting there that’s the real “journey,” not the destination itself.

But, you want to see us on a passage. I get it. So do we, minus the transmission fluid catch this time. Although I’m sure you want to see some equally entertaining minor disaster occur that we have to resolve in true MacGyver fashion with bubble gum, nail polish and sheep shears (all of which we keep on the boat for just such an occasion).

I’ll see what I can come up with.

Trust me, we were ready to get back out there, too. With the summer pretty much behind us and all of our major boat chores done, the rubber gloves finally came off,

and we set down to plan our trip. Which we, of course, had to do over wine and dinner – a whole roasted snapper, anyone?

Between work, family and my obligatory appearances on the rodeo clown circuit, we had about two weeks to work with in November. Yes, we do plan to go longer and further later, but that will have to come later. All evidence to the contrary, we do have to work. I can’t stress to you enough how expensive boats can be. Now, let me remind you how far the actual Keys are:

I think even MacGyver’s scruffy eyebrows raised with that one. It’s about a four-day passage offshore, if made straight. That’s 96 hours of solid sailing, which means someone always at the wheel, even with auto-pilot, you still need to keep a lookout and stay close to the helm, particularly at night. This means, for four days, you only get to sleep in one-to-two hour snatches. It’s fun, don’t get me wrong. There’s a certain sense of freedom, adventure and accomplishment when you finish a passage, but it is also a very tiring stint at sea, even in the best of conditions, exhausting and harrowing in the worst. If we made the four-day passage straight to the Keys, we would need a day or two to rest and recover and that would leave us about one day to enjoy the Keys before we had to start meandering back, two or three, perhaps, if wanted to make another four-day epic passage back across the Gulf. But that would put us on a tight schedule, and we learned the hard way during The Crossing that you can never be on a tight schedule when sailing. You have to build in a cushion for the weather. It’s just part of it. We hated to push the Keys trip back, but it had to be done. Trying to squeeze it into the tight travel window we had this winter was not going to allow us the time we wanted to truly enjoy the Keys. Plus, there were plenty of places we wanted to cruise locally and enjoy. We decided we would make the trip to the Keys in the spring (after skiing season – of course – that’s a must!) and stick around these parts in November.

Phillip and I decided to head East to Carrabelle.

That’s about a two-day passage straight. Forty-eight hours, assuming a good weather window. If you recall, our boat spent some time over in Carrabelle when the transmission went out, and we really enjoyed poking around the sleepy little mariner towns around there, which feel like they’ve been preserved in time, when sea-faring sailors roamed the streets, rum bottle in hand. We wanted to head back and spend a couple of days immersing ourselves with the old salts and eating some of the best fresh oysters I have ever let slither down my throat.

We then wanted to take our time heading back inshore, protected along the Intracoastal Waterway (as much as we could … we would have to pop out into the Gulf for several stretches where our mast height (50 feet) won’t allow us under the bridges). We pulled out the charts–and the snapper–and started plotting our passage.

And, what meal is complete without fresh homemade bread and salad? … None we know of.

The plan was to hope for good weather, so we could head straight for Carrabelle, spend a night or two there boozing with the locals, then mozey our way back to Apalachicola for some local fare, another night or two to booze again and get our fill of fresh oysters. Then, we thought we would check out Port St. Joe, a great littler marina there, Cape San Blas (lots of cool anchorages there, too), head back to Panama City in hopes of catching another sighting of our Lady Legs-a-Lot (you remember those heels!), then make the twenty-four passage offshore back to Pensacola.

Even with a few extra days’ cushion for potential bad weather, this trip, even taken leisurely, would still easily fill two weeks. We planned to leave November 15th and return on the 29th. This was going to be a significant passage for the two of us – heading offshore for a four-day passage. While I may have proven some creative gumption and gusto in surviving the dinghy debacle and transmission fiasco during The Crossing, this was going to be my first true offshore voyage as First Mate. I started glossing over our old sailing books again, working expletives back into my everyday conversation, upping my rum tolerance and practicing my knot-tying skills on empty wine bottles. Oh, and watching weekend-long MacGyver marathons. That helps too.

A two-week passage in the blistering winter? Done. I was packing all my gear.

Aside from the mullet, MacGyver ain’t got nothing on me!

October 22, 2013 – A Dirty Job

December 6, 2013December 30, 2013anniedike

Actually, I don’t think “dirty” covers it. I need another word. Stick with me and you’ll see what I mean. Delve into our head for a moment, will you?

Yes, that one. The throne. The John. The almighty porcelain God on our boat. Also the one that had decided to stop keeping the shizz in the holding tank where it belongs, but, rather, let it flow back up in the bowl. Some God!

Sad but true. And, unfortunately for us, it meant we were going to have to crack her open and replace her ailing parts. I decided to call in a specialist.

I got a job for you Mike!

With Rowe on board, we donned our special dirty-job apparel,

and set to work. Now, let me teach you a little something about the shizz system on our boat. Here’s a birds-eye view of the layout on our boat:

Here’s where the shizz goes:

Real fancy. And, let’s just appreciate, for a moment, the rockin’ 70’s Hinterhoeller ad where I got this fancy layout:

That is one fine-looking skipper ladies. I’ll bet if you rub his pot belly, it brings good luck.

“Hey Velma. It’s tough standing here at the helm. Why don’t you give my calf a good rub while I hold the wheel.”

That was fun, but back to the shizz. This is the suction tube:

So, let’s think about it. If the suction tube wasn’t holding the shizz back in the holding tank, then where do you think it was holding it? Anyone? Anyone? In the tube! We had a big black tube full of shizz that we had to take off to replace it. Someone had to clean out the tube before we could remove it.

Rowe said “NOOO!!!”

So guess who the job fell to? That’s right. The first mate. I said “How?”

And, Phillip handed me the shop vac.

I hope you’re putting two and two together by now. Yes, that’s it. We did what you’re thinking. We took the shop vac,

stuck it in the toilet,

and sucked the shizz out. And, I wish this was some kind of interactive blog, or a scratch-and-sniff, at least, because I don’t think words can express the glorious smell that emanated from our boat that day. And, as if this job could get any funner, after the sucking was done, then where do you think shizz was? Yep! In the shop vac! Someone then had to clean that out.

Rowe said:

Me?

Damn you Rowe!!

So … I cleaned out the shop vac. (And, do, please, try to imagine the gentle care with which I carried that sloshing thing through the galley, up the companionway stairs, out of the cockpit and up to the dock. I kept imagining the little plastic clamps that held the tank on were going to break and shizz would dump everywhere. Please, do try to vividly imagine!)

With the shop vac purged and the tube cleaned out, we set to work on wrestling that thing off the head, which actually turned out to be a monstrous chore. What did Phillip akin it to? Oh yeah. Like wrestling an anaconda in an airplane bathroom. Something like that. And, I’ll have you know despite the suction wonders of the shop vac, we weren’t able to get all of the shizz out, so some of it was still oozing out while we were twisting and grappling with that stupid hose.

And, I’ll have you further know that yanking and pulling on a ripped, wire-threaded hose is NOT a good way to keep your flimsy, paper-thin vinyl gloves intact. It was inevitable:

“Take that Rowe. You big Nancy!”

I told you it was a dirty job. But, while it seemed the dirty part was over, the hardest certainly was not. It took Phillip and I about two hours to maneuver, tug, pull and curse that damn hose out through the vberth. Phillip was stationed in the bathroom trying to push and shove it through the hole in the cabinet under the sink:

While I was wedged under the mattress in the vberth trying to pull it out on my end:

“Push harder!!”

It was quite the chore. But, we finally got her out!

And, there’s a reason we have a rag shoved in the end. You don’t want any spillage!

After that, it really was a piece of cake. We replaced all of the rubber parts,

gave her nice wipe-down, and

cleaned up the last of the shizz,

Eewww.

Then put her back together, and voila!

And, the new suction tube:

was super sucky in the best kind of way. Everything went right from the toilet to the tank. Sccchllooop! And stayed there!

And, to prove it, I filmed the dumbest video ever to memorialize our monumental feat.

View HERE.

Superstar is right! We had just accomplished the dirtiest job ever, and documented the whole thing for your viewing pleasure. What does Rowe know about entertainment? Despite his lackluster performance, I let Rowe stay, though. Well, because, let’s face it.

The man looks good clean. Am I right, ladies?

October 10, 2013 – To See a She-Man About a Boat

December 3, 2013December 30, 2013anniedike

Now, I don’t really consider a dinghy a “boat.” I mean, I guess it’s a watercraft. It floats and carries people. You can paddle or motor around in it.

Okay, I get it. But, if our sailboat and the dinghy were tied up together in a slip, and someone said, “Hey, nice boat!,” I wouldn’t say, “Thanks, she’s a 2001 six-seater Caribe with matching oars.” I would, assume, like the rest of the world I would hope, that he’s talking about the sailboat. The real boat. (And, I will tell you, I was going to include a fun little Webster’s or similar dictionary quote here to prove my imminent brilliance, but every definition I found started with “A small boat that … ” — Bullocks!).

Apparently, the boys in blue are equally correct in their definition of a “boat.” After a nail-biting ten minutes in NYC, Detective Whazzisname from the Pensacola Police Department finally called us back and told us they had been trying to track Phillip down back in Pensacola on behalf of the Fort Walton Police. Turns out it was the Fort Walton guys that wanted to talk to Phillip “about his boat.” A very important piece of information Sergeant So-and-So could have told us that wouldn’t have left us imagining Plaintiff’s Rest smashed into a pile of paint and epoxy at our dock back in Pensacola. But, apparently, he wasn’t at liberty to disclose such vital information. Phillip started to suspect then that it could be about the dinghy, although I was a little skeptical. I mean we cut her off in the middle of the Gulf …

I believe you all remember the “harrowing debacle.” When we had to literally hack the dinghy off the stern during The Crossing to save the boat:

“Afterward, we all fell into a heap in the cockpit, drenched and shaken, but feeling more alive in that moment than we had the entire trip. I doubt Mitch could even comprehend nausea at that moment. Our bodies were feasting on adrenaline. We sat there, our chests heaving in unison it seemed, gathering our thoughts and wondering if what just happened had really happened. Phillip shined a light out into the sea as it to confirm our collective inquiry and there it was. The dinghy. About 50 yards away from the boat, lines floating around her like spindly fingers reaching back for the boat. She was truly out there, detached from the boat and floating away. We had really done it. Cut her off. The damn dinghy.”

Now, what do you think happened to that dinghy? I imagined it floated along, finally free as a blue-jay, frolicking with the dolphins and dorados. Much like the wide-eyed cat in the psychedelic cat food commercial batting at little fish-shaped pieces of meat leaping about, as happy as happy can be.

Like when the family pet passes and you tell the little ones “No, honey, Brisco didn’t die, he’s living on a great big farm, chasing squirrels all day.” I envision it that way because that’s not the image I was left with when we sawed the dinghy off and watched her float away from the boat over big, murky waves, existing only in the single beam of our flashlight — until we clicked it off and turned our backs on her. And then what?

Then our dinghy floated herself all the way to Fort Walton Beach that’s what. Her journey had to look something like this:

I’m starting to think our dinghy looked less like the doe-eyed, frolicking kitten in the cat food commercial and more like this:

Cut me off of the boat will they? I’ll get those heifers!

Our dinghy wasn’t having it! She wasn’t going to let us leave her out there to drift aimlessly in the ocean. The cat came back! And, as fate would have it. Having floated freely across the entire Gulf, the minute she touched dry land, she ended up here:

Apparently she didn’t think to grab her papers before we cut her loose. Them’s the breaks!

Someone had apparently found her in the woods and brought her in to the station. Thankfully, we had registered the dinghy in Phillip’s name before setting off on The Crossing so they were able to track her back to us. But, they sure weren’t in a hurry. We learned the dinghy had been sitting there, staring sadly through a chain link fence, waiting for us to come get her, since July. July!? Yes, three months, sitting in a parking lot, out in the sun. But at least she’d made it back.

Phillip met with a stocky Fort Walton lady-officer of about this size and stature:

I heart you Melissa McCarthy.

She unlocked the gate and let us have a look at her. She had some nautical miles on her, but it was definitely our dinghy.

The outboard was nowhere to be found, but I’m sure that thing was toast well before she reached the shore. I remember when it crashed into the water from the davits, oil and gas flowing out of it like lava. I doubt it was salvageable. As we hoisted her into the trailer and strapped her in, I started to wonder what stories our dinghy could tell us about her adventure.

Perhaps she floated past Robert Redford in an ailing life raft, or an Indian boy and his tiger, adrift at sea. Or maybe she hallucinated the entire time and did bat at leaping, neon goldfish. We’ll never know. But, I couldn’t believe she had come back to us. All that way. The damn dinghy.