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.
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