April 5, 2014 – Keys Log: Day 3 – Don’t Mind the Weather

It’s funny how things tend to work themselves out when you’re sailing.  We had a follower tell us a while back (and rightfully so) that the most dangerous thing you can have on a boat is a schedule.  While time is decidedly always an issue – if only we all had an infinite supply we could go anywhere we want and stay six months – but the weather and wind and the sun also play a role in where you end up by boat.  It’s often a place you didn’t expect to go; rather, it’s a place you chose when you thought the weather wasn’t “working with you,” but once you get there, you often decide it is most definitely a place at which you’re glad to have ended up.  And, then you start to wonder whether the weather had it in mind all along …

So, the wind, in our minds, had not been “working with us” since we started off on this venture.  It was directly out of the southeast, dead on our nose, for the entire first night and day of the trip.  For that reason, we didn’t make near as much ground as we would have liked toward Clearwater, and with a known storm coming into the Gulf in the next day or two, we decided to pull out and head into Port St. Joe.

Log book:

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We had never been there before by boat, but we had heard great things.  It wasn’t originally in the plans for us, but, that’s the thing about plans.  But, as soon as we changed our heading toward St. Joseph Bay, we found ourselves on a perfect beam reach, making great headway, and doing some of our best sailing of the trip yet – right into the black abyss.

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The wind has a wicked sense of humor.  But it was like she was congratulating us on such a wise decision.  We were sailing along so fast, we were going to reach Port St. Joe before sunrise, and – as many of you fellow cruisers I’m sure follow the same rule – on the ole’ Rest our goal is never to come into a new Pass at night, so we actually had to turn around and sail back out into the Gulf for a bit to make sure we didn’t beat the sun in.

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It was a strange feeling to have worked so hard to make way forward for a day and a half, only to now turn around 180 degrees and sail for a few hours at 5.5 knots in the opposite direction.  Like I said … funny how things work out.

But after an hour or two of sailing back out, we finally turned around again, and sailed back in to St. Joseph Bay right around sunrise.  The fog was still so heavy we struggled to find even the flashing bouys.  Markers you would typically see miles out would now only reveal themselves at about 100 yards.

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I sat up at the bow and squinted through the mist to try and find them.

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“There’s one!”

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As the sun finally started to creep up and melt away some of the fog, we caught our first glimpse of land on the horizon and it turned out to be a beautiful morning.

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Thankfully the inlet into St. Joseph Bay was an easy one and we made it into the marina and docked up without issue.

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Between you, me and the fencepost (well, and all followers of this blog, I guess) I still get a little nervous every time we pull up to a dock because you just never know what’s going to happen.  I have failed to lasso a stern pole, jumped off the boat without a line, and a-many other docking mishaps I have failed to mention on this blog that still cause me a little heartburn when we start pulling our big beauty out of the open blue and up next to treacherous pilings and other fiberglass beasts.  A little tip – I always call ahead to the marina (despite the occasional eyeroll from the Captain) and ask them every time to send out a dock-hand (I’m assuming that’s a sufficient title) to help catch a line.  I mean, it’s a big, expensive boat, our most prized possession, I’m not ashamed to ask for eight hands on deck to help save her.  The marina at Port St. Joe has a reputation for being the “friendliest marina in all of Florida,” and I’ll say I have to believe it.  They sent a young chap right out who proved to be an excellent line-catcher and he helped us get tied up and gave us a quick tour of the facilities.  I can’t say enough good things about the folks at the Port St. Joe Marina.  They all went above and beyond.

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Plug that baby in!!

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The Captain … always doing a double-check.  (Rum drink in hand … )

Once the boat was secure, we set out to check out the marina office and get checked in.

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Even the pets at Port St. Joe are friendly.  We had a lovable white lab welcome us right in with a soft pant and a smile.  (To my good friend Anna – he reminded me of Tugg!!)

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The dockside bar there at the marina, looked the perfect place to try out the local Port St. Joe cuisine, so we settled in for some fine oysters and fish tacos.

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Yum!

The folks at the marina office gave us a great welcome packet with maps and flyers and coupons and told us we would have a paper delivered to the boat every morning, with free muffins on Sunday.  I mean, who doesn’t like muffins?  (Especially free ones!).  The book swap was excellent, too.  I had blazed through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and I was looking for some new material.  I scarfed up another Jack Reacher saga and a James Patterson,

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and Phillip found a Hemingway novel he’d been meaning to read for a while – The Paris Wife.

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We were definitely pleased to be in this Port.  Great food, excellent facilities and our boat was nice and secure.  We were plenty happy to spend a day or three here to wait out the weather.

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While we hadn’t planned it, it all seemed to work out.  Like I said, perhaps the weather had it in mind for us all along.

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

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:

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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:

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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).

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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,

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

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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:

To the Keys

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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

November trip

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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.

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

May 23, 2013 – The Crossing Finale – Oysters and Beer

The day finally came.  May 23rd, and we were headed back to Apalachicola to finally bring our boat home.  We hitched a ride again with our sail groupies – you remember these guys – Phillip’s fabulous folks:

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We loaded up the truck again with all the tools, supplies and food (aka, the “provisions”) we would need to make another passage.

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I also had the pleasure of opening a few little gifts on the drive over as it seemed yours truly had a big “day” coming up.

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That’s right, I saw fit to grace this world with my presence during the early morning hours of May 28, 1982.

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“Delivers only the best … ”   You’re damn right they do!

The gifts were great.  I certainly do enjoy birthdays.  I  couldn’t help but notice, though, they were all different versions of soaps, scrubbers and other self-cleaning products.  Perhaps Mary was trying to tell me something??  She’ll be glad to know I put them to good use on that trip.  For five minutes after each of the 1.5 showers I took during that 5-day passage, I was fresh as a daisy!

We stopped back in Apalachicola before making our way over to Carrabelle to check on the boat and spent a delightful afternoon walking around downtown, poking our heads in quaint little shops and, basically, just smelling the roses.

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We came across some neat old relics:

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Some creative artwork:

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And some fitting words of wisdom:

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That Ben Franklin sure was a smart guy.  Alcohol always makes me happy!

But, we had a lot to do to get the boat ready for the last leg of The Crossing, so it was off to Carrabelle to check on her and get her all packed up.

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How’s that cockpit looking Mary?  “It’s ready to go!”

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How about the crew Paul?  “I don’t want this one to go!”

As I look back through these photos, it seems Phillip did most of the “checking” while me and the groupies just engaged in a fun photo op.  Sorry Phillip!

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Yeah, that’s me, doing wildly inappropriate things behind Phillip.  Very mature … 

We did meet with Mechan-Eric to take a look at the transmission he had put in and saddle up, of course.  Funny thing how they want to get paid after doing work.  I mean …   Eric was great, though.  He had done a good job for us and had finished up the job just in time for us to sail her home.  He walked us through what all he had done and cranked the engine.  It was the first time we had heard her turn over in a month.  She grumbled and sputtered and started purring!  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more glorious sound.  She was running!  Eric showed us the transmission, which he had painted a bright, cherry red to match the signature color of the engine, and shifted her through the gears (drive, neutral and reverse) so we could see the transmission at work.  Everything looked great.  We gave it the old Roger Ebert and we were ready to go!

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We decided to celebrate and polish the evening off with some oysters and beer (is there any better way?) at Eric’s family’s salty sea bar across the river – Fathoms.  And, I tell you, I’m not really an oyster fan.  I mean, they look like snot rockets in a shell, but I have to say, these were the best darn oysters I’ve ever slurped down.

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Not snotty at all!

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The oysters, that is.  These two here are pretty snotty!

We ate our fill and admired our boat across the river.

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Yep – that’s her!

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I swear I could see her little stern wagging.  Like a sad-eyed puppy at the pound that had finally been picked!  We were going to scoop her up and take her home with us!  First thing in the morning, too.  And, I do mean first thing.  Phillip and I were planning to get up and going before sunrise, so we needed some rest.  We bid our sail groupies adieu, enjoyed one last Carrabelle sunset in the cockpit and shut her down for the night.

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