November 29, 2013: Last Day – The Places You’ll Go

With that succulent bird basking before us, it didn’t take long before plates started clanging, corks were popping and knives were pulled from their sheaths.  Yes, we keep them in sheaths.  We’re sailors, remember?

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See?  She is totally a sailor.   … Totally.

I whipped my sea-gull carver out of its holster and went to town on that turkey.

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I severed every single morsel I could off of her while the crew hauled the patio table in from the balcony (very classy) and set us a royal feast.

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We snapped a few fun shots on the deck and toasted the sunset while the last of the Thanksgiving goodies were baking.

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And, I can assure you none of us was donning anything that could be remotely considered a “skinny jean” for this meal.  Calories don’t count on Thanksgiving – or so I’ve been told.  Only stretchy pants and elastic waistlines would do for this crew.   And, if what they say about turkey is true, it certainly worked on Phillip and I:

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Within fifteen minutes of dinner, we were out.  (Although, it seems the turkey myth has been busted!  Apparently, they now believe it’s actually a combination of booze, bad conversation and boatloads of carbs.  Well, we had all of that too, so … who’s to say).  We were sleeping soundly, with little wishbones and sweet potatoes dancing in our heads.  And, John Besh.  He was definitely dancing through mine.  It was a great meal, spent with a great group and was a nice change of pace from the quiet little dinners Phillip and I had been cooking up on the boat during the voyage.  But, we were – as always – ready to get back on her.  We spent one more night on the pull-out at the condo, ran eight more loads of laundry (including the curtains) and started readying the boat the next morning for the last leg of our Thanksgiving Voyage.

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We waved goodbye to our sail groupies, tossed the lines and headed back out toward Wolf Bay.

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Dinghy in tow.

The wind was blowing about 25 knots that day, though, and it was some tight maneuvering through the ICW, so we couldn’t raise the sails for the day’s jaunt.  We had to motor, but I shot some Pulitzer-worthy footage of us braving the wind and weather that day.

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Video here.  A Chilly Happy Holidays!!

The sun was out, though, which meant the temp was decidedly tolerable, and we weren’t suffering from frozen phalanges and snotsicles.  This time.  We motored from The Wharf back to Fort McRae and decided to drop anchor at one of our typical haunts, Red Fish Point (just west of Fort McRae), to enjoy one more peaceful night on the hook.

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We curled up with some books and a few choice cocktails and took in our last sunset of the trip.

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Great view of the pink horizon from inside the boat:

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Although we had been out there ten days, it seemed to fly by.  I couldn’t believe the trip was coming to an end.  Getting a bit sentimental, I even made Phillip suffer through a shamefully embarrassing “selfie” to memorialize the event.

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And, for those of you unfamiliar with the term:

Selfie:

A picture taken of yourself that is planned to be uploaded to Facebook, Myspace or any other sort of social media networking website.  You can usually see the person’s arm holding out the camera, [or a shadow of the camera itself] in which case you can clearly tell that this person does not have any friends to take pictures of them so they resort to find internet friends on whose pages they can post pictures of themselves, taken by themselves. 

Ouch.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that doesn’t apply to us.  All evidence to the contrary (i.e., me, posting a selfie on the blog), we do have a few real friends.  But, the term was apparently awarded the high honor of word of the year in 2013, with the best selfie shot going to this chick:

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Who totally earned it with that heroic display.  Click!

It even appears our esteemed president finds himself in the ‘selfie’ mood on occasion.

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Perhaps Nelson Mandela’s memorial service was not the right occasion (even Jon Stewart says tssk, tssk), but if the president does it, then I don’t feel so bad about it.

After our selfie shoot wrapped and the sun set, I got creative and baked us up one last Thanksgiving treat – some fresh homemade pumpkin bread.

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A box mix is still considered homemade, right??

It was delicious regardless and we savored the setting, the silence of the evening and the sanctuary of our last night on the boat.  And, as it usually happens, the best is somehow inexplicably saved for last.  The very last day of our 10-day ‘voyage’ turned out to be the best sail we’d had since the last leg of the Gulf Crossing.  And, I’ll bet when I start to say “another great day of sailing on the Plaintiff’s Rest … ” many of you glaze over and check out, and while I get it.  I do.  At the same time, I hate it for you.  I know it’s just because you don’t know how freeing sailing really is.  I hope, with this blog, and my meager words, over time, I can change that.  I can give you a glimpse of what sailing means to us.  At the very least, I can try to take you along with us, transport you, plant you right there in the cockpit beside us, one hand gripped tight around the Jenny sheet, the other wiping a splash of salt water from your face, as you watch the sails pull taut and get that roller coaster feeling in your gut when the boat heels over.  Hold on to your drinks kids, we’ve got plenty in store.

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

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:

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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:

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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!

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Yeah baby!

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

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

  

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.
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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:

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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?

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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.

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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:

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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:

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Length of Boat +  [ (Rode )– (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:

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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.”

September 11, 2013 – The Money Shot!

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That’s a great shot, but that’s not it.  This shot – the money shot – is stellar.  Not only does it capture Phillip doing something totally awesome (but when does he not do things that are totally awesome?) but he did it right in the front of the boat, the glistening Plaintiff’s Rest.  This shot is supreme.  Trust me – but we’ll get there.  First thing’s first.

First we had to get that beautiful boat out there on the hook as often as we could between boat chores.  Let me give you some highlights of our summer anchorages (and I would imagine this song is the right backdrop for this rockin’ photo montage):

Just about every Friday at 5:00 p.m. (okay, who am I kidding – NOON!) we tossed the lines and headed out for the weekend.  We often went west to Red Fish Point where we stayed for our first anchorage.

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We enjoyed some exquisite sunset sails over:

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And you know what happens when we start sailing?  For those of you who said “clothes come off!” you would be right!  But, we also drink!  We are sailors you know!  Every time the sun would start to dip, we would whip up one of our famous “Oh Shiiiit” cocktails or pour a fine glass of wine.

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Nope, that’s not the money shot either.  Not yet.  Stick with me …

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We would often head east too, over to the Pensacola Beach area to anchor out behind Paradise Inn or Big Sabine:

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And we did some serious sailing along the way – I’m talking wing-on-wing!  That’s where the Jenny and the main are on opposite sides of the boat – one pulled out to starboard and one to port.  Looks like this:

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It is a technique used to maximize the sail surface in light wind to allow us to sail downwind when the wind is directly on our stern.  Here is our Jenny and main, wing-on-wing:

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And … we sailed her like that under the Bob Sykes bridge!  *gasp*

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But the scariest part was, Phillip let me steer her like that!

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A look of total concentration.  I was in the zone!

Thankfully, we made it under, boat in tact, bridge in rearview and a big smile on my face.

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Whew!!  

We had some buddies sail along with us on occasion to get some great shots of us sailing:

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Awesome shot, too, I must agree – but that’s still not it.  Almost!

We cooked up some mean meals on the boat:

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Sirloin steaks with chimmichurri?  Yes, please!  But, the wind often blew so hard it would blow out the flame on our grill.  Have wind will NOT cook!  So, guess whose job it was to hold up a cover while the meat cooked.

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That’s right – you guessed it – the First Mate’s!

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But it was totally worth it.  I mean … look at that feast!  We really don’t eat well on the boat, I’m telling you.  Not well at all!

We blew up my new inflatable SUP!

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That thing was a beast to blow up.  Definitely good for the “gun show!”  We had a great time paddling around, though, once she was inflated:

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Then we deflated her and rolled her right back up.

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Great for storing on the boat, not so good for the back.  It is a wee bit of a chore but again – totally worth it – because we always finish our chores up with a drink (or four)!

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Nope, that is STILL not the money shot – although he is a sexy beast!  Don’t you just hate it!

We met up with some buddies and shared a case of PBR:

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Then they passed out!

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And their little dog too!  As did we!  Day-drinking is hard.

Our “Sail Groupies” (Phillip’s folks) often came out to hang out with us on the hook:

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They eat a lot!  But we don’t mind.  We feed them so they’ll take us out wakeboarding:

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And, they helped us get it.  Yes, IT.  The Money Shot.  Phillip’s dad pulled him right around in front of our boat and Phillip threw up a “hang ten” sign so I could snap this sizzling number.  I give you – The Money Shot:

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Oh yeeeaaahhh!  That is money.  Looks like the opening trailer for a bad-ass movie to me.  I believe this is the appropriate accompaniment: Big Pimpin’

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Life on the hook is hard.

April 17-23, 2013 – The Crossing: Final Chapter – Did He Say Curly Fries?

We all stood helpless, watching the boat inch closer and closer to the Catamaran.  I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth (the only thing I knew to do at the moment) while my mind conjured horrific images of boat crashes:

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Okay, not deadly, fatal crashes, but pricey ones all the same.  I was sure the boat was going to come out of it looking something like this:

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If not worse:

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But, just as I was bracing for the worst, I felt a tug on the anchor line.  It had caught.  Finally.  I gripped hard and shouted to Phillip.  We didn’t want to yank it up so he said it was best to let some line out and let it dig in a bit.  A dicey proposition when your boat is headed straight for one three times the price, but it wouldn’t help anything if the anchor slipped.  I let some more line inch through my hands as the boat slowed.  Finally.  We eased up to the Catamaran with just enough room for the guy to push us off of his glistening gem.  We handed him a line and he helped us walk our boat over to an empty spot at the dock and tie up.  The relief of having the boat stopped and secured made us forget momentarily about the engine.  At least she was tied up and not going anywhere.  (Ted Bundy would be so proud!).

The Catamaran guy was a big help, though, and quite understanding.  Turns out he had also had a boat that was broke down on the other side of the river.  It seems engine problems are common in the boating community.

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Boat humor with a legal spin … man I’m on fire today!

We joked that there must be something in the water, but that was actually a legitimate concern.  We checked the fuel pump to see if it was clogged and preventing fuel intake or wasn’t separating the water from the fuel, but it seemed fine.  We checked the impeller (where the boat pulls in sea water as a coolant for the engine) to make sure it wasn’t clogged, which could have caused the engine to overheat.  But, no dice there either.  We simply had no answers.  We had checked and filled the oil that morning, checked the coolant, gassed up, and she had cranked fine.  She was running fine, up until the moment she wasn’t.  We felt like the guys on King of the Hill, just standing around scratching, and drinking, and wiggling a wire here and there, with no real progress.

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A lawn mower focus group if you will.

We tried to crank her a couple more times at the dock but she wouldn’t even turn over.  It was almost like she had a dead battery, but we knew that wasn’t the case because the house batteries were full and running fine.  We were at a loss.

So, Phillip had me get on the phone and try to find a mechanic that could come out and take a look at the engine.  The bad news was most of them were located in Apalachicola – a good 30 minutes away – without the resources or time to make a special, emergency trip to the Carrabelle River to check us out.  But, thankfully, after a handful of calls and some groveling and pleading, we were lucky enough to find a willing victim.  Turns out he worked out of a marina just around the bend in the river from where we had docked, which he had been operating out of for over twenty years, and his family owned a local restaurant on the Carrabelle River.   In those parts, he was the diesel engine guy.

Coincidence?  I think not!

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The mechanic’s name wasn’t Bailey, though, it was Eric.  And he looked nothing like Will Ferrell, in case you were wondering.  He had a big job on a barge to get to that day so he told us he’d stop by on his way out to see if our problem could be fixed quickly and he could get us back on our way that day.  Eric arrived within the hour, and he was super sharp.  He immediately began tinkering and turning bolts and troubleshooting and crossing items off of his differential diagnosis.  We were glad to see him roll up his sleeves and go to work so quickly, but not pleased with the fact that he, like us, kept coming up empty-handed.  We continued our super-helpful practice of standing there, watching, scratching … and drinking, but apparently it wasn’t enough.  Eric came up greasy, sweaty and shaking his head in defeat.  He was going to have to take the engine apart to figure it out, but he had to get out to that barge.  He said he would send his guys back out in a couple of hours to get to work on it.

Unfortunately, we were approaching high noon, a very hot high noon, and we were tired and drained and just … weary from the passage.   Phillip and I sat on the dock, baking in the heat, frustrated with the situation, waiting for the engine boys to come back, both of us thinking of any place we’d rather be than stranded there on a hot dock with a broke-down boat.

Perhaps lounging in soft hammocks on the beach:

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Enjoying cocktails at sunset:

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Or back at the helm of that beautiful boat, a gentle breeze blowing over us:

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Anywhere but there.  But we had a tough decision to make.  It was already noon, on Tuesday, and we had at least another 48 hour passage ahead of us, assuming the engine could be fixed on the spot.  The possibility of even making it back to Pensacola by the end of the week looked grim.  We talked it through and decided we had to call it.  We were going to have to leave the boat at the marina in Carrabelle and make the four-hour drive home by car.  We were truly disheartened.  Phillip and I wanted to make this passage, to bring our boat back to its home-port, once and for all.  Make the dream a reality.  But we just didn’t have the time to spare, especially with the status of the engine currently a complete unknown, and any solution hours, days, maybe even weeks away.  We hated the thought of leaving her there, alone, miles away from home, without any answers, and we hated the thought of coming back to Pensacola in some crappy rental car, when we were supposed to sail in on crystal green waters, in our shiny new boat.  Phillip and I sat somberly on the dock, one apologetic hand on the boat.

Unfortunately Mitch, however, wasn’t sharing in our mood.  He bounded up to us like Tigger at the circus, all giddy and goofy, and said, “You know this restaurant here opens at noon.  Do you think they’ll have curly fries?  I could really go for some curly fries.”

Phillip and I exchanged a pointed look: Did he really just say curly fries?

I swear, if we didn’t get that rental car soon, I was going to shoot him.

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