The big trip 2016 (part 17)

I'm lying in bed now finishing this last post. Unfortunately I mean my the real bed at home, not the boat. This is a very comfortable bed but it's bitter sweet being back home.  Neither Amber or myself were looking forward to getting off the boat. Matter of fact we spent an entire extra day, after docking at Skeleton Key marina, just hanging out at the boat and the nearby bar.  Who would have thought 29 days on our 26ft boat still would not be enough.

We really enjoyed the 150 miles of the gulf intracoastal waterway even though it was completely by motor and handsteering.  I love being offshore and having sails up but you can't do that in the channels.  we got to see a part of Florida that we usually never see.

It wasn't all perfect. We hit some terrible weather attempting to go to Egmont Key when crossing the mouth of Tampa Bay.  Waves beat us at anchor to the point that we had ditch bags out and ready even though we were 200ft from shore.

This has definitely been an experience that none of us will ever forget.  And the best part is Amber and I survived 29 days on a small trailerable sailboat, didn't kill each other, and she still wants to marry me.  It's gotta be meant to be!

The big trip 2016 (part 16)

The tab that i grouped these posts in is laughably called "sailing the keys."  I should change that because the amount of actual sailing we did was pitiful. First it was poor wind direction, then ripped jib. We did a ton of motor/sailing in the beginning but not "real" sailing. I guess im feeling guilty about it. I call myself a sailor but i barely sailed at all.

Self loathing aside we are having an awesome time on the icw. Winding through the beautiful back channels of Florida's coastline we reached Sarasota bay and tossed the hook.  There is something magical about being anchored out with a brilliantly lit city scape as your nightlight.

Hailing and passing under bascule bridges, by the way, never gets old.

The big trip 2016 (part 15)

Im not sure if it's the medicine but the past couple days run together into a blur.  The same sickness that plagued Amber off the coast of the everglades now has me. (and the kids at home apparently)

I didn't sleep all day yesterday like i did the day before so i must be improving.

Pelican bay in Charlotte harbor was a great spot two nights ago. Quiet and protected. If we had a dinghy or kayak we  would have went to the state park area but there was no way in hell i was swimming. We fed the fish some bread off the back of the boat and that pretty much killed any chance of that.

Following our motorboating mantra we cut across the mouth of Charlotte harbor and entered what feels to me like the real intracoastal. I had to hold us in position for 10 minutes while waiting on Boca Grande bridge to open. Now we are deep in the channels with every fishing boat in existence crisscrossing our path.

It is really beautiful back here though. A totally different experience than taking the outside route. 

Happy Day seems to be not as leaky when she's just cruising the intracoastal. Maybe she gets scared when she's getting the crap beat out of her in waves and she pees a little.

For now we take it slow and wind our way back to Hudson. If this is all a dream I'm not ready to wake up yet.

The big trip 2016 (part 14)

Snook bight marina in Fort Myers has been our favorite marina of the trip so far. We made it there in good time once leaving from Rookery bay early in the morning. 

We sailed some with the main but the jib is toast. I may try sail tape for the hell of it because it will be a while before we drop 800+ dollars on a new jib from doyle in st. Pete.

We swam at the marina and then showed Austin and Aaliah around Fort Myers beach by trolley hopping.

The next morning the kids and I trollied into Fort Myers to rent a car to take them back home. I asked for a fuel efficient compact. The only car sitting in the parking lot was a convertible Ford mustang. 

Some of you may be thinking 'oh nice! Upgrade!'  But let me assure you i was not thrilled. From my street racing days the Ford mustang is the sworn enemy of of import tuners. They are notorious for being driven by people who want a "super awesome bad-ass car" and then they wreck into car show crowds trying to show off.

I'll admit it was a more fun ride than a Nissan Versa would have been, playing cat and mouse through traffic with various opponents, but it still felt wrong driving it. 

So after an 8 hour hiatus i was back at the boat.

Now it's the next day and Amber and I are motoring through the beautiful gulf intracoastal waterway behind Sanibel and Captiva.  

Low and slow we go with no good way to sail anyway and a few alarming leaks popping up in the bilge and from around the ballast tank. We are monitoring this closely to make sure it doesn't get worse.  We took a good beating in those storms and i know the centerboard trunk had damage in it i had attempted to bondo before. Still, not cool brah.

The big trip 2016 (part 13)

Two grueling days of putting miles under Happy Day have us resting peacefully in a backwater channel between Marco Island and Naples.  The journey here was not peaceful or uneventful however.

Day 1 started well enough except for a very unfortunate case of pink eye and illness Amber picked up and struggled with all day.  She struggled through but was essentially bedridden.

We had made it out of the keys, raised sails, and motor/sailed north.  The evening brought about an inevitable Florida storm. We prepped early and entered the storm with a double reefed main and a (perhaps not quite enough) double reefed jib. Austin and I had life jacketed and harnessed ourselves.

In the ensuing chaos we lost a batton in the main and our aging jib sang it's last song, splitting horizontally.

Luckily the storm passed relatively quickly and we only had wind to deal with.

Now the race was on to reach our only option for safe harbor, little shark river, before sunset. We pushed hard calculating an arrival of 5 to 10 minutes after sunset. We made it but didn't anticipate three other boats seeking shelter in the same harbor.

Quickly losing light i chose a spot the furthest in and Austin dropped anchor. Not before nearly being carried away by an everglades native, the mosquito.  In the span of two minutes, just enough time to drop anchor and set not nearly enough scope, we were bitten 20 to 30 times each.

We had anticipated bugs and already had mosquito netting in place so we dove inside the cabin and slapped each other around a bit.

Once we purged the interior of the boat off all living things, except the 5 of us, we enjoyed a relaxing rest of the night bug free.

Except for Amber who had a raging fever and did not even remember conversation or anything the next morning. Thankfully her fever broke in the middle of the night because the next day was no pleasure cruise either.

I exited the cabin at 6:30 only to be greeted instantly by more flying bloodsucking fiends. I wasted no time, fired up the motor, and we bounced out.

Out of the harbor we were greated with strong 10 to 15 mph winds and 1 to 2 foot waves coming at our broadside. This may have been ok but without a jib and even with a double reefed main the boat was horribly unbalanced. It was not long before the tiller pilot was no longer an option and it was handsteering only.

Handsteering is ok in calm conditions or in bad conditions for short bursts but we didn't arrive in Goodland until 3:30 that afternoon. I was a grumpy guy. It's aggravating to me when the tiller needs so much attention that i can't do anything else. Like pee, or brush my teeth, or check navionics. Amber (who thankfully felt better today) took over steering a couple times but she agreed it was a nightmare trying to keep Happy on course.

Aaliah was not a fan of the waves when the boat would come crashing down or veer off course from a big gust but overall she did very well. After finally getting the nerve to put on her life jacket come into the cockpit she got to enjoy watching out and calling out the big wave set. 

Austin spent a good portion laying in the cabin and actully sleeping some too. Lucky...

Finally we arrived in Goodland and everything was right as rain. We pushed through to our current anchorage in rookery bay and tossed the hook.  We were all thrilled to have two 13 hour days of solid movement behind us.  Tomorrow is a relativly short hop to Fort Myers.

The big trip 2016 (part 12)

The blur is over. I think. Or maybe its just beginning. The entire week has been a blur.

We have been going non-stop and we are thoroughly exhausted. The cherry on top is that Austin and Aaliah were suppose to have returned home via automobile but due to a "miscommunication" they are now having to sail with us from Plantation key to Fort Myers. This is no easy trip and there is not a ton of space.

This will be the first long distance test for them. Hopefully weather work with us and hopefully we won't kill each other on our floating world in 26ft.

Our time in the keys was great though! We did the standard Duval crawl in Key West. We boated off Islamoada. (I can't call it fishing because there were no fish out there. We did some awesome snorkeling. Lots of drinking. All and all a great time.

Now we have spent all day today (Saturday) provisioning and we are starting the retun trip 1st thing in the am.

The big trip 2016 (part 11)

It been a couple days since a post because its been a couple of crazy days.

The morning we head out to Marco Island we motor out into the biggest, nastiest (for us) waves we have incountered in our boat. It was remnants of tropical storm Colin and we would not have went out if we knew it was that bad. We must have misinterpreted our weather apps.  We had life jackets on (and the dog), harnessed ourselves to the boat, and prayed for our lives for four hours. Not cool.

After having to do an emergency fuel tank refill in eye level breaking waves right before traversing the rock lined inlet to Naples we were treated to beautiful rustic Florida canals that winded their way down to Marco Island. We skipped right over this and went to Goodland, FL.  We were drawn to goodland's laid back small town fishing atmosphere. The coon key marina was very friendly and accommodating as we provisioned in the morning.

Friday at about 10:30, and after triple checking every weather app we have we struck out towards the keys.  We covered 80 miles in 17.5 hours before we decided we should throw out the anchor. If we knew more about traversing the waterways in the keys we may have attempted it in the dark but the small channels you have to slip through do not look fun at 3am. Nor was it comforting picking up a crab pot line at 1am. We now have a bent prop to get fixed before we head back north.

The sun woke us at about 7am and off we went. Another 30 miles is all that seperated us from Plantation key.

Finally after 13 days of traveling we arrived at our marina. Our first visit to the keys!

 

The big trip 2016 (part 10)

So we left Snook Bight Marina a little later than expected but it didn't matter anyway. We waited at Big Carlos Pass bridge for what we thought was a passing band that turned out to last all day. We did not want to head out into the choppy gulf conditions, so we didn't.  We had a lazy day.

Even in a protected bay we had a "fire drill" that evening.  We were inside reading and watching laptop videos when we noticed that we were getting alarmingly close to an island in the bay. Our anchor was dragging.  I tore down the hatch boards and in my haste to get the motor and rudder down I busted my pinky toe on a latch im the cockpit. Only a little blood but it hurt like a sob.  It definitely made the situation 10x worse.

We tried tossing the anchor out again (which had become tangled while retrieving) but it didn't hold again. 

We motored aimlessly up the channel until we finally found a spot that was deep enough to anchor and had enough space around us.  Luckily the anchor held this time and we made it through the night.

Now hell or high water we head out to Marco Island.

The big trip 2016 (part 9)

Essentially just elaborating on the last post but the weather crept up on us quicker than expected. Sunday morning we decided there was no way we were going out in the washing machine conditions out in the gulf. After combing through our crusing guide and phone apps we settled on Snook Bight Yacht Club & Marina on Fort Myers Beach.

Today is now Tuesday and we couldn't be happier with our choice of marinas.  The staff is courteous and professional. Everything is clean and well maintained.  They have nice showers (which feel fantastic after a week of solar showers), laundry, pool, etc.

We have spent the past two days hanging on the boat, taking the trolley into town to shop and bar crawl, visiting with our awesome neighbors mike, lee, and marvin, and sleeping with no worries of impending death as tropical storm colin roared over us.

Now the plan is to leave first thing in the morning (wednesday) for Marco Island and get ready for the big jump across to the keys.

The big trip 2016 (part 8)

The rain has settled to a steady pattering on the cabin top of the boat.  I am awake at 2 in the morning because one of the first serious bands of tropical storm Colin has blown through.  For a short period it seemed to be chaos.  The wind and torrential water just above our heads may have been what stirred us but the slow drip of a leak from the hatch right above Amber definitely sealed the deal.  Water gets through the damnedest place you wouldn't expect.

So while trying to figure out the leak above our heads the wind is busy pounding the crap out of our bimini top like it owed the wind money.  We suited up in our rain gear, waited for a lull in the wind and rain, and shuffled the hatchboards out of the way to face the weather.  I'm not a fan of going outside of the boat in stormy weather but if you priced new bimini tops you would do the same.

The fact is the storm kind of snuck up on us.  We knew It was coming in on Monday but we didn't think that meant 12:01am Monday.  The weather wasn't bad when we went to bed so we got caught off guard.  

It could be worse though. We could be out in the gulf. Instead we are tucked into a slip at Snook Bight Yacht Club & Marina.  A sweet place to say the least.  We shopped around a little bit while anchored in Sanibel bay this morning.  The weather forecast had shown the weather approaching sooner than expected and we didn't want to get caught halfway to Naples or Marco Island in a serious blow.  So now we are tied to a dock in Fort Myers Beach riding out the storm with access to showers, and laundry, and a full marina store, and a pool, and a Publix, and a very nice restaurant, and a very nice outside bar, etc etc. Things could be worse.  Unless the weather is too too bad we may ride the trolley into town tomorrow and check things out. In rain gear of course. :)

The big trip 2016 (part 7)

The better part of the day was spent motoring today. Directly into the wind i might add. There was only a brief period that we actually sailed while i added gas to the tank. The wind in our close hauled direction was only enough for about 2 mph though.

We made it to Sanibel riding up and down big (for us) oncoming swells and enjoying beautiful weather.

We did stop and anchor a 1/4 mile off Sanibel's beautiful beach and do some swimming but the boat took a bit of a beating in the waves to do it.

As we rounded the southern portion of Sanibel i discovered we were faced with a decision. We wanted to get to the Sanibel marina and our timeframe to get there was dependant on us being able to go straight around to tip of the island.  I now saw that the tip of the island had sections of "deep enough" and sections of "i think we just lost the centerboard."  I'm sure i would have cut through the bar somewhere but if we took the safe route around the bar it would add about 6 miles to our journey. Which is over an hour at our pace.

I was about to go for it and ease my way over the bar like the fishing boats were doing when a thought struck me. The vhf radio. We always have it on but to be honest we never use it.

I radioed asking for someone to give me advice on going south around the light house.  I was immediately responded by a guy from Tow Boat U.S. who, after a change to his working channel, buzzed around Sanibel to escort us.  This did not take long since he had twin 225's strapped to his stern. He was awaiting a dispatch and said he didn't mind helping. He guided us through the closest path that was still safe for us. He said if we had went the path closer like the fishing boats we would have hit something for sure.  What an awesome guy!

So then we continue around and head to the Sanibel marina. Unfortunately we were greated with an extremely narrow channel, strong side wind, and a narrow parallel parking spot between two towering motor yachts. No thank you!

We decided to spin around and just anchor out for the night.  Salt, coffee creamer, etc is not worth sliding against a million dollar yacht.  A little bit of it is my lack of skill and confidence with the maneuvering ability of out boat.  We have a rudder but the motor is not set in line with it like a normal sailboat. Our outboard is in a fixed position and is to the side of the rudder. This makes any prop walk, or prop wash maneuvers impossible. I avoid tight/high wind areas like the plague.

Now I'm sitting up at 2am typing this because the wind and waves are slapping us around pretty good and there is an important decision looming in the morning. There is a nasty tropical storm coming in starting tomorrow night. We only have tomorrow to get to whatever marina we want to be at before we are down for 2-3 days.  Depending on slip availability we may stay here in Sanibel or push south to Naples while we still can.

Decisions decisions.

The big trip 2016 (part 6)

Yesterday started out well enough. We woke up in a quiet harbor in venice, FL. Although it turns out it was a watersports area and we probably weren't supposed to anchor there.

We left venice and cruised down to Boca Grande. This sounded like a lovely place. In fact we have friends with a vacation house on the gulf side so it must be nice.

We hated it.

First the channel is ridiculously long and for next to no reason. We were going to go out to the channel entrance but we kept seeing boat after boat ignore the channel completely.  Finally we cut the channel in half and had no problems at all.
We just happened to catch the channel on the way to low tide. Since Charlotte harbor is such a massive body of water there is a massive amount of water that must move through this opening at tide changes. We are estimating the current to have been around 3mph. It took us forever to get into the bay.

On the way in there were hundreds of crabs swimming by and fishing boats were scooping them up left and right. We also so some kind of hawk/falcon dive into the water, come up with a nice size fish, circle around our boat, and then carry his prize over the crowd of fishing boats just to rub it in their face. Pretty awesome.

So not all bad until we pulled into a little cove on Cayo Costa just south of Boca Grande. We were dying to swim after traveling all day.  The water was cloudy and dirty. We inner-tubed to shore and were greeted with a lovely smell, sea urchins, wasps, and best of all deer flies.

We hauled it back to the boat after discovering what looked like the path a large creature took to drag it kill back into the mangroves. Only slightly exaggerating.

We got back on the boat and motored almost a mile off shore. Still fighting off a deer fly we anchored for the night.

That night, right at sunset, we were treated to a doozy of a storm. We heard about it on vhf, comfirmed with weather apps, and started securing everything.

We got rocked pretty hard slamming into oncoming waves and trying to stop the inflow of water through our hatchboards and top hatch.

After what seemed like much longer than it was the storm subsided.  The rest of the night was better but still restless due to the strong current and strong winds fighting over which one would control the boat.

It's the next morning now and we are headed to Sanibel. Hopefully this experience will be better.

The big trip 2016 (part 5)

Yesterday was one of the first days for serious destination planning. We left from Anna Maria island, through a pack of about 40 boats fishing in the channel, and turned south.  Our destination was to be Sarasota but we discovered through our cruising guide, google maps, and navionics that the only marina that for sure had ice, gas, and supplies would be "marina jack." That would be great but it is 5 miles up the channel from the gulf.  A two hour round trip.

We changed plans and found we could spend that 10 miles traveling further south and make it to Venice, where there was a marina directly inside the channel.

So we pushed hard for 7 hours hoping to make it by 5 when they closed at 6. We were close reached motor/sailing hard and made it by 4:15. We were holding about 6mph headlong crashing into swells. It was quite exciting.

At the crows nest marina we got 4 bags of ice (our most important supply ) and figured out in the exactly 105 miles we have traveled we only used 10.5 gallons of gas, including a night running the generator.  I now realize the 29 gallons of gas i brought to be sure we had enough to get the hundred miles from Marco island to the keys was ridiculously overkill. But thats ok!

The big trip 2016 (part 4)

Looking back at day two I'm starting to understand that this is a marathon not a sprint. I've been doing my best to stay out of the sun unnecessarily, wear long sleeves, hydrate, not drink too too much.  But sailing uses your body in ways much different from regular life. Not better or worse, just different.

I'm feeling a little sun soaked and sore from banging against things, hauling lines, cranking winches, etc.

All this sounds negative but i assure you i am in my happy place.  Im anchored off of Anna Maria island with my beautiful fiance, frosty beverage in hand, and freshly showered from our hanging solar shower. Life is good.

The big trip 2016 (part 3)

The first day, i must say, was an overwhelming success. I could not ask for a better start.
 
Once we finally got fuel, water, and all our last minute things done at the marina we pulled out of our slip at exacty 11am. We motor/sailed a little over 20 miles to get to hurricane pass and the south side of honeymoon island.  If i would have take Ambers advice and stopped at anclote key we could have stopped in relatively clear water to scrub the hull and test out our new aqua lung dive masks and snorkels. When we anchored at honeymoon island the water was so cloudy you could only see a foot in front of your face. (Can't wait for the keys!)

Once we left from there we continued down looking for a suitable place to anchor. We had left the relatively shallow areas and we're forced to continue down until right off Indian Rocks beach where there is a small section of shallow water. This is good though because even with a late start and stopping to scrub the boat we got basically to where we planned to get to in the first day.

(We like to anchor in 14 feet of water or less. That gives us the safe anchoring scope of 7:1 with all of our line payed out.)

We traveled approximately 36 mile, getting roughly 10+ miles to the gallon. This is better fuel economy than expected but tomorrow we are going to sail more.  I needed one day for testing the fuel and making sure the boat would ride well with the extra weight from supplies. Overall everything was better than predicted.

The best part was while we were anchored there, during a blazing orange sunset, I asked the love of my life, Amber Henry, to marry me. I could not think of a more appropriate place than on our boat, anchored offshore, headed out on the biggest adventure of our lives. I only hope the rest of the days of our trip don't dull too much in comparison to this one.