Hellooo, Key West

Our short run here from Marathon was a fine day to be at sea. Mild winds and low seas were astern giving us an occasional unwelcome whiff of diesel exhaust, but otherwise it was just a very nice day. We got underway at 0900 and were pier side here at Boca Chica by 1430.

I kept the engines at around 1500 RPM trying to save a little fuel because we had plenty of time. There was very little oil in the port engine's drip pan; so my Permatex fix on the valve cover gasket seems largely effective. It will almost be a shame to pull it of again to put the new gasket in place.

As one would expect of a military base, the marina here is well run. You might say they run a tight ship. Every rock and brick is in its place; the bathrooms are capacious and clean; the concrete piers appear new and are clean; there is plenty of water and power; the laundry room is well equipped. They even have a small bar and grill.

One of the first things we noticed as we pulled in here was the amount of air activity. There were Air Force or National Guard F-16s as well as Navy F-18s in the pattern by the bunch. I also saw a lumbering P-3 (4-engine turbo-prop patrol plane), a C-130 transport, as well as an F-5 "aggressor" jet. I imagine Key West is a magnet for every military pilot who has any excuse to drop in here. Anyway, it got a little noisy yesterday afternoon as they all came home to roost.

When we checked in last night, we were told we could stay as long as we like because there are no reservations behind us to trip the normal five-day limit for transients.

We bit the bullet last night and hauled the laundry off the boat. We got it done while enjoying dinner and a drink next door at the grill.

Now we are ready to sally forth and get our hands on the rental car! Mary says we have been leading a primitive life style sans four wheels.

Ready for sea

After a run ashore for lazy book reading in the park (is there such a thing as a lazy book?) and late lunch, we returned to Calypso, hoisted the dinghy inboard, ran some fresh water through its engine and threw the cover over it.

I ran forty gallons of diesel per side through the fuel polisher from storage to service tanks. We have 520 gallons of fuel remaining, sufficient to get us all the way home with about 200 gallons to spare (that 200 gallons was bought in Fort Myers Beach). It is MIGHTY FINE to pull into a marina and respond negatively to the inevitable question about the need for refueling.

We are finding our water needs to be about 20 gallons a day; so our 240 gallon capacity is good for almost two weeks. I love the looks on the faces of the sailboaters when I go out and sprinkle down the hand rails to ge the salt off. Most of them have the ubiquitous blue 4-5 gallon plastic containers on deck or in their dinghies they use every trip ashore to replenish their water supplies.

Our other equipment is checked, stowed, and otherwise set to go for what COULD (but hopefully won't) be a rocky ride tomorrow for 36 miles of open Atlantic Ocean en route to NAF Boca Chica.

We have seen several boats departing today as the winds have definitely died down. In contrast to the brisk winds we have had all day for three days running, the breezes are quite mild this evening and from the west as predicted. The wind should be out of the north tomorrow which is good for us because we will be skirting the southern shores of the Keys.

When we decide to head for the Dry Tortugas in a week or so, I'll look at the predicted winds and go either north or south of the shoals and Marquesas Islands to avoid the worst of what may get kicked up. Ideally, our trip out there will cover a five-day period with reasonable weather predictions allowing us visit a couple of days and then run the 100-plus mile track directly back to the mainland at Naples. Once out at there, we will have little information on weather coming directly to the boat. We will have to look at the NOAA weather bulletin posted daily by the rangers at the visitor pier to get an idea of what to expect. Maybe will will find a sugar-daddy out there with a big satellite dome mounted in the top hamper of his big yacht where I can go begging for a real0-time update. Another thing to get when we win the lottery - that list is getting awfully long.

Cruiser clog

We have pictures of the mooring field here in Boot Key Harbor, but without a wide angle or panoramic view shot, it is difficult to convey the density of the boat (over 90% sailboat) population here. So a shot of the dinghy dock gives an idea about that topic. This was an uncrowded day. There are hundreds of people living on hundreds of boats here, and this is in a down economy.

Mooring balls allow for closer spacing of boats than do simple anchoring grounds. The chaos that must have reigned here before the recent advent of the mooring ball field must have been nothing short of epic. Imagine yourself trying to find a spot to drop the hook not too far from or two close to neighbors in all directions of the compass. THEN you must be sure to set the anchor with the engines, and if you drag even a little doing this, you run the risk of getting too close to another boat and/or picking up somebody else's anchor. Then guess what happens to some boats when the winds shift and pull their anchors from the bottom? Yikes!

There was a lot of yelling by long-term squatters and others who paid no fee to have their boats here year-round when the city put the field in and started charging 21 bucks a day to moor to one, but the security of hanging onto a ball hooked up to a giant concrete weight on the bottom versus letting your own anchor corrode in the sea is certainly worth it.

This place tends to collect cruisers in a blood clot kind of way. They drift here with intentions of jumping off across the Gulf Stream to cruise the gin-clear waters of the Abacos or Exumas in the Bahama chain and then hang here as do drips of water on the end of a stalactite avoiding the forever last fall. Several have told us of being trapped here since December by the weather, but I wonder about that.

Cruising the Bahamas to me means few if any marinas with highly expensive and extremely limited pier space, little to no connectivity to the US unless you are willing to pay lots of money to BATELCO (a ripoff corporation run for the benefit of the well-connected in Bahamas), third-world level of living by the inhabitants who look at the rich cruisers with obvious envy, poor medical care if you get sick or injured, and no infrastructure. Fine for those who wish to hang out and do little other than swim and look at nice remote beaches and islets. Been there, done that, got really bored doing it.

Mary and I agree about one thing regarding cruising, and that is you have to CRUISE, i.e. MOVE. After a couple of days in any spot, we're really to hear the rumble of main engines beneath our feet taking us to the next destination. An old saying goes, "It's the journey, not the destination that is important."

We left the boat yesterday with no clear plan, and that's just what developed as we wandered over to a seaside restaurant after a late morning breakfast aboard and had pina coladas for lunch, well, a pre-lunch starter. Back to the dink, we motored across the harbor to the infamous Sombrero Marina Dockside Cafe for mid-afternoon hamburgers while we watched the denizens of this tropical reprobate haven drink their lunches and tell lies to each other. This place is a locals hang out and center of the Conch Republic-like opposition to the city of Marathon's harbor improvement efforts. It's one of this places you don't take pictures; you can just recall it in your mind's eye - sort of like the Wanchai District of Hong Kong or Olongapo in Subic Bay in 1968 at the height of the war.

Back to the dink dock again after a tour down Sister's Creek (the other outlet to the Atlantic) and then a bit of a walk up to Home Depot concluded our day ashore. There really is little to do here for active folks like ourselves unless we had our bikes ashore, and even then, there is nothing to really spark much interest ashore. Indeed, I had not planned to come here at all, but decided to do so when we realized that the Atlantic was going to be pretty rough for the required 36-mile run in it to Boca Chica Naval Air Facility Marina. I thought two days here would be enough to see the winds die off a bit, but it turns out the big change we are looking for will be tomorrow. We signed up for two days and then two days later, after further weather review, added two more for a total of four. It was always too much hassle to ferry the bikes ashore for two days. Had I realized we were going to be here this long, I am sure I would have gone through the bike-ferry drill.

So now we can say we have "done" Boot Key Harbor and hopefully are done with it. On to more interesting places.

Tomorrow will hopefully see us leave this place and get to the Key West area where we will have a pier berth with power and a rental car.

More daze at Marathon

Friday was a leisurely day here in Boot Key Harbor. I got an email from another member of the Trawlers and Trawlering email list who happened to note our arrival notice I had posted the day before. We ran over there to their buoy on the way in to shore this afternoon and met the crew of the motor-sailer Outer Reef. They have been here eleven days waiting for better weather to allow them to cross the Gulf Stream for a visit to the Exumas in the Bahamas. We may get with them another day for a meal - they have a rental car; thus, they are indeed cool.


We went ashore to walk the mile or so to K-Mart and Publix and to find a meal along the way. The Cracked Conch Cafe turned out to be a winner. I had cracked conch with the whole animal beaten flat and fried rather than the fried strips I usually get in the Bahamas - good.


Before we left the boat, I spent some time on the phone with the Garmin techie about how I could get my new radar to do contact tracking for anti-collision purposes (it's called MARPA in the maritime community). Back when I first entered the Fleet, we used a grease pencil, tongue depressor, and the sweep second hand of the bridge clock to calculate a contact's course, speed and closest point of approach to us right on the radar plotter face. Later I was aboard a more modern ship with the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS), which, with inputs from guys on radar screens in CIC, would do this calculations using a room full of computers. Now all this is done with the MARPA software in little bitty radars like the one I have.

When I tried to use the radar's cursor to acquire a contact and "do MARPA stuff" to it one day on the way here, I got an error telling me the unit needed heading sensor input to do the tracking. Well, I thought, I have a fluxgate compass on the boat which I use to double check the old fashion floating card compasses with, and it has output wires which have never had anything to send information to before

So I broke out the manual on the fluxgate compass while I had the tech on the line and read him off the function of each wire coming out of the compass. He said to grab this extra cable that came with the radar and plotter when I bought them and plug it into the back of the plotter and use two specifically colored wires of the fifteen dangling off the other end of it to connect to two specifically colored wires coming out of the compass and I'd be in bidness. And he was right. Next job is to get the AIS information input to the radar - work for another day.

During conversation with the tech, I discovered that the display part of the radar came loaded with pretty much all the navigation charts I need. I had not even bothered to look at the manual for the thing because I have been happy with my GPS-guided laptop navigation system. Nevertheless, I delved into the book (which is terribly inadequate) and played with the display to find out that yes, indeed, I do have a functioning chart plotter there with the capability of making and following routes on charts. I can even overlay the radar picture on the chart or display a split screen with radar and chart plotter sharing the screen.


I still prefer my laptop chart system because it is much easier to manipulate, but I will definitely make use of the radar /chart overlay and split screens on the Garmin plotter display.


I decided to NOT put up with any more oil in the port engine drip pan from the leaky valve cover gasket - even for the few hours of running time before I get a new gasket delivered by Fedex in Boca Chica on Tuesday. I cleaned the several inches of leaky area up with alcohol and smeared on some hard-setting Prematex.


As it did last night, the wind is howling outside and making us yaw about on our shyort tether like a drunken sailor. The weather is predicted to change dramatically for the better on Monday, which is when we will make a run for Boca Chica. We will likely remain there four four or five days doing some sightseeing in a rental car and fixing the oil leak (again).

Welcome to the Keys

We arrived at Boot Key Harbor in the city of Marathon (itself located on Vaca Key) at about 1430 today after a reasonably easy passage across windswept Florida Bay.

We had to wander about the mooring field just a bit to find our assigned buoy amongst the hundreds of buoys and vessels here. I like the mooring arrangement which has a small float attached to the substantial mooring line. The line is about ten feet long and has a large nylon thimble (hard eye) spliced into its end. After you get to the dock master's office for check-in, they give you a sheet with several recommended methods of attaching to the thimble, but I observed what several boats around us did and copied that. What is done is to run two independent lines through the thing from each closed chock (hawse holes to some), through the thimble and then doubled back aboard so you end up with four lengths of line going to and from the eye. If you just run a single line out through the thimble, you end up getting the line sawing back and forth through it. this way, there is no sawing action.

We went ashore and walked across Ocean Highway to the keys Fishery Restaurant, which is an open air affair overlooking Florida Bay where you order and the window and give them your favorite TV show which they use to announce your food ready to pickup. I gave them Dancing With The Stars for Mary. I noticed the table next to us with two little girls used Dora.

We then found a convenience store to get some needed groceries before returning to the dinghy dock. A harbor tour followed with interesting boats and homes and waterfront establishments to view.

Sunset saw the usual Keys celebration of the event with conch shells being tooted here and there. A lot of laughter emanated from the boat next door as a wannabe conch artist just couldn't seem to get a decent toot out of the object.

We have elected to remain here until Saturday watching the weather to decide about the 36-mile run in the Atlantic to Boca Chica. The few miles we did in it getting into this harbor were fairly rough.

Been out of touch for a few days. Here is some catch up reading.

Tuesday 24 March 2009
We left the Everglades City area this AM for Little Shark River not because the weather predictions are any better, but rather because the arrival of a large boat club with prior reservations forced us out to Russell passage anchorage with 11 other boats. We got up early and got u/w as dawn broke. Had we known there were NO crab pots out here, we might have gone earlier. Winds are still predicted from the NNE at 20 knots, but we have noticed what seemed to be a slack period before noon. With our track to Little Snake River being only 3-5 miles offshore, we are experiencing only the annoying 1-2 foot wind waves on the beam jolting us about in the mid-morning with two hours left to go.

Everglades City was fun for a day or two as we biked about from our position alongside the Rod and Gun Club seawall.

The R&G Club itself has a long ways to go in the management of their seawall moorings. About ten cruising sized boats can fit comfortably alongside, and clubs from the Sarasota area south like to come down here during to cool no-bug months of March/ April. What with being a bit isolated, the R&G Club is a bit prone to having clubs show up on a "flexible" schedule; although the two clubs we saw showed up on time. Anyway, the staff there works three shifts and the pass-down is not very good between shifts. They do not monitor a radio, and there was nobody to assist in mooring when we showed up (that doesn't bother me because I hate dock hands pulling and pushing when I have control of my own boat). We ended up extending our stay by two nights and when the second club showed up (we were not informed of this reservation) we were asked to vacate and told to talk to the other shift about a refund for the last night. Being immediately out of reliable cell contact the moment we left town, I will now rely on the US Mail to carry my request for refund.

Before we vacated our spot, we were offered a temporary spot with no power and told we could remain there if they could not fit us into a powered spot after the boat club got settled. After getting two 42-foot boats moved to this location (it was high tide - the ONLY time to move a 4.5-foot draft boat around), I sounded around and found that we had about 6 inches under us, and there was going to be a 2-foot fall on water level as the tide fell lower in the next few hours. We had no time to dicker and promptly left for anchorage six miles away.

I am not pissed off or trying to paint a negative picture of the R$G Club (but don't eat there). We'll use them again if we ever pass this way again (you have to - they are the only mooring in town, anchorage is way off downstream), but you need to be prepared to deal with a "marina" way down the list from something like Marina Jack in Sarasota. It's part of their charm. It appears that if we had been able to predict our travels and made reservations before the boat clubs (over two months ago) we would have had prior claim to our spot, no matter how many boat clubs came in.

As for us, we are just as happy to be able to move on safely despite running through an area with small craft warnings. Our run to Little Shark River took about 5 hours, and we went about a mile and a half upstream to find a spot to drop the anchor. The tide was running in at the time but the wind was pushing us in the other direction. We put the clutches in neutral and let the two forces of nature figure out what they wanted to do with us. Then we turned the bow in the opposite direction from which we were moving and let go the anchor. We waited until the tide and wind were in the same direction to assess how well the anchor was going to hold us.

Another plus is the lack of mosquitoes and other noxious animal of the flying sort. This is a complete anomaly working in our favor, given what I have heard of the area from others.

We are miles away from ANYTHING, yet we get these small fishing boats flying by us from time to time. No roads show anywhere within miles of us on our state road maps, but here they are.

Mary is NOT happy that we have perforce landed in a place with NO connection to the outside world via cell phone. To get to “civilization,” she is willing to face the uncomfortable and possibly hazardous 20-knot winds predicted for the very open waters we must transit for 51 miles to get to the next destination (the Keys). I am not so sanguine about the prospect.

I spent about four hours in the afternoon tracking down and repairing the problem with my air horns; they had stopped working altogether after gradually getting crankier and crankier about doing their jobs. The culprit turned out to be the relay that somebody talked me into installing about twenty years ago. I took it apart and had Mary hold one end of a long thin piece of 400-grit sandpaper while I held the other. We sawed it back and forth across the contacts to shine them up. I bit of “adjustment” of the contact gap with my Leatherman and we were back in business. There was a lot of horn blowing out there in the wilderness as I ran various tests.

I finally decided to get on the radio to see if anybody else was in the area besides the two uncommunicative sailboats we had seen at the river’s mouth and was rewarded with an answer from a powered catamaran named Mega Marine, which had gone up another branch of the river just astern of us. During the ensuing conversation, he asked me if we were the ones blowing a horn at him – it had alarmed some of his crew making them think they might be standing into danger. We had not even seen them turn up that branch because we were below and busy.

Night finally descended upon us, and we were rewarded with the eerie silence of a moonless night in a narrow river. The occasional loud splash made us realize there are other animate objects out there in the dark.

Wednesday 25 March 2009
We remained at anchorage in the Little Shark River with me worried about subjecting Mary and the boat to bad weather (winds continue at 20 knots over Florida Bay) and her worried about what might be happening with her family and that they might worry over us. After my talk with the Mega Marine last night she had asked me to get them to relay a status message to Phillip on their way to Marathon. She was just getting ready to press the issue when the Mega Marine popped around the bend in the river headed downstream. They kindly took the message.

I decided to use the time sitting at anchor wisely and broke out my sander and varnish to work on some external spots in need of help. As I was finishing around noon, I noticed that after the most recent tide shift, our anchor had been deposited a good distance from where I had left it the day before. I thing the bight of chain hanging in the water between the bow roller and the ¾-inch snubber line hook had caught the anchor buoy (with heavy retrieving line) and dragged the anchor.

Since Mary wanted a change of scenery and I was considering getting underway early in the morning calm for the Keys, I decided to up anchor and head for the mouth of the river for overnight anchorage. Once there, however, I was less than impressed with the area and the threat of reversing currents to the security of the anchor. Looking out toward open water, I noticed the strong easterly wind had left a calm area o the western shores of Cape Sable and elected to snuggle up close to the coastline for the night.

As we were slowly exiting the river mouth I began to notice a repetitive squeak-like noise. It was nearly subliminal, but it was there. Had I heard it before? Was it shaft-related or engine-related? Slowing one engine and then the other revealed the noise to be from the port side. Placing the port engine in neutral and then revving it disclosed the noise was engine-related.

Close inspection of the running engine revealed the noise was in the area of the fan belt and that there was antifreeze droplets hanging off the expansion tank over the belt. I think I was hearing the belt squeaking because it was being wetted. The coolant leak was from the bass of the radiator cap neck. I added this neck (a recommended modernization of this engine) years ago as a means of enabling the addition of a coolant recovery bottle just like automobiles and truck have. The epoxy glue used in the installation was cracked and leaking. I cleaned up the area around the filler neck base and gooped on a bunch of JB Weld, a probably better type of glue. Six hours latter it should be good to go.

The final repair of the slight oil leak from that same engine’s valve cover gasket will have to wait until we arrive in Boca Chica where I will have American Diesel FEDEX a new gasket. For now a couple of rags in the drip pan soak up what little escapes.

Thursday 26 March 2009
We got up early this morning and got underway for the Keys at 0640. The wind howled a bit during the night making me think the trip was going to be ugly. So before we rounded the end of Cape Sable where the winds would have a long fetch to work up some nasty waves, we ensured we have breakfast cleared away and all windows shut.

Despite the 20-knot winds, the voyage across Florida Bay turned out to be surprosingly smooth. Mind you, it was not calm, and I am ever thankful for the RainX I applied to the forward cabin windows a couple weeks back because we got a lot of spray.

Our biggest concerns were shallow water and crab pots. The pots were hard to see looking up sun in the choppy water, and running along in water less than two feet under the keel for a few miles was indeed nerver wracking.

The port engine tested fine this morning, and the radiator cap neck reseal job appears to be a permanent fix. Turns out my ear is well tuned to the goings on below decks because if I had not heard that slight squeak and not gotten curious, the outcome would have been an overheated engine.

For now we are slipping along in the aqua-marine hued waters of the Keys intending to moor at a mooring ball in Marathon in about two hours.

Stuck near muck

We are stuck near the Big Muck (everglades), held up by weather as it were. The long predicted strong northerly winds have finally overtaken us, but at least we are in a well protected haven here in Everglades City. Even so, the wind is literally whistling through the rigging of the mast, thin lines playing the high notes to the lower counterpoint of thicker things like the mast.

The bad part, as far as Mary is concerned is that she has no car (!!), and there is little likelihood Enterprise will bring one from Naples, 35 miles distant. I tell her that the enforced idleness is good for her and that she can catch up on her knitting. It's a darned good thing we didn't get to the electronic wilderness of the Little Shark River where her cell phone would have been useless and internet access is non-existent. Right now she is sitting contentedly at the other laptop cruising through items of interest to her on the internet.

For our major activity today, somebody had the bright idea of riding bicycles to the historic Smallwood trading post four miles away in a burg called Chokolsokee. It was connected to the rest of the world in 1955 by a three-mile long causeway, and if it hadn't been for the thin curtain of mangroves on either side of the road, we'd have been blown over by the winds. The town itself appears to be sustained by a series of condominium RV/travel trailer courts. We were told waterfront RV lots can go for $400,000 over there (with accompanying condo fees of around $800 per quarter) - go figure.

We toured the old trading post set up by Mr. Smallwood about a hundred years ago to trade with the Seminoles. The place was chock full of period items, and the man in charge was quite a talker. He and Mary engaged in a lot of talk about old time patent medicine cures, and he would open old bottles of the stuff to give us a whiff. Smells, being very evocative, brought back instant memories.

To fortify ourselves for the return ride, we stopped off for lunch at a Cuban cafe and then celebrated our successful return to Everglades City with a stop at the Everglades Scoop for some well-deserved ice cream - it's tough being on vacation, but somebody's got to do it. :)

We returned to the seawall at the Rod and Gun Club to find a 36-foot Grand Banks, the Great Idea, moored there. I wandered over there to introduce myself with the intention of inquiring as to which direction they had come from and what water conditions they had experienced. It turns out they had been at anchor "around the bend a few miles" in Russell Passage and had come over here because the winds were making them uncomfortable about being anchored out.

We were told at check-in by the desk person at the Rod and Gun Club that we would have to vacate by tomorrow PM because the Sarasota Boat Club had the whole seawall reserved, and I so informed the crew of the Great Idea, a couple from New Hampshire who keep their boat in Florida. Upon being informed that they had been told no such thing at check-in, I marched over to the office and extended our stay two days. Otherwise, we'd have had to go anchor some place out in the Ten Thousand Islands waiting for the winds to abate. It seems nobody in charge at the Rod and Gun Club now has any exprectation the Sarasotans will plow through stormy seas to make their schedule.

The winds do bring dry and coolish air to this neck of the woods, meaning we don't need air conditioning, AND there are no bugs. Nada, zip, zilch, none - hard to believe. Must be the captain's prescient planning and general all around handsomeness....

As it is, we have high winds predicted for a day or two more and uncomfortable wind speeds and directions into the foreseeable future after that. We may be faced with a small pounding Tuesday afternoon IF we head for Little Shark River. Running close to the coast to avoid some wind-generated waves may not be doable for the simple reason that the already shallow areas may be too shallow for us to run in due to the wind blowing the water out of Florida Bay. If it looks really ugly, we'll seek a sheltered anchorage for another day or two.

Meanwhile, we cope as best we can.

Runnin' through the bog in the Everglades

We arrived in Everglades City at the Rod and Gun Club quay, there being no slips as such, and moored about 1340 after splashing our way around Cape Romano. We are happy to find good cell and air card coverage (Verizon). No TV cable service is provided at the pier, and there is only fuzzy over-the-air TV from Miami.

The R&G Club dates back over a hundred years and its interior is all dark, varnished wood and hung with guns and trophies both aquatic and terrestrial.

We "spoke" a north-bound 34-foot trawler with 3.5 ft draft this AM, and they reported failure to get into Everglades City due to grounding. They stated that it was a low tide. We brought our 4.5 foot draft Calypso in here at high tide today (+2.25 feet) and saw really shallow water at marker 17 only, and that was about 2 feet under us. We carefully adjusted the Humminbird depth sounder to read depth under the deepest part of the boat using a lead line before we got into the channel; so our readings were within inches. Where the guide book saw shallow water between markers 27 and 29, we saw minimum 4 feet under our keel.

We rode our bikes all over town, and there are a ton of smallish eating establishments. The Rod and Gun Club is not on my list due to pricing.

There is one small market store for essentials, and I found a fuse and some butt connectors I wanted at the True Value hardware a quarter mile north from the market.

It is evident from a couple of people I spoke with that this place folds up in the summer. It seems a number of the workers and business owners are seasonal in their presence here.
One business owner pointed out a very fine looking piece of property across a branch of the river complete with many newly planted palms and boat slips. It is a high-end RV camp. Lots go for $600,000.00 and slips for a 32-foot boat would be around 300K. Only class 1 RVs under two years of age are accepted. Maybe some people are not affected by either the economy or good sense.

We will sit out the coming frontal passage here and will sail with the tide about noon on Sunday. We will probably exit this 6-8 mile long channel and poke our nose into Florida Bay to "test the waters" before deciding to mosey on down the road. If conditions are poor, we will reenter the channel and pick up an anchorage about a half mile in. We cannot come back here to the quay because the Sarasota Boat Club has the whole place reserved. However, with the windy predictions, they might be wise to cancel.

Where the ELITE meet to eat

Holy cow, did we ever feel like raggedy vagabonds last night! We entered Gordon Pass and took Claiborne Young's first suggested anchorage off the channel. It turns out we wandered through some of the plushest neighborhoods we have EVER seen. We ended up anchoring in a cul-de-sac about 150-200 yards wide in late afternoon as the rich folk were taking the evening air on their back lawns and patios. This has to be the place where the Fortune 500 executives came to retire starting in about the 80's or later. The evening was blissful with no insects (they wouldn't DARE disturb these folks) and no need for air conditioning and the resultant generator noise. We were as quiet as church mice and stole out of Dodge in the pre-dawn light.

I saw my first-ever tarpon rolling in the water around the boat as it fed, and I pointed it out to a nearby fishing boat. They had no luck that I could see.

As I type, the sun is coming up, and we are rolling along at 8.5 knots with a long, slow swell of about 2 feet astern providing an easy ride.

The heavy winds out of the north are still predicted for tonight and the following days, but with any luck we will be at Everglades City by 1330 this afternoon. If the weather predictions come true, we may learn lots about that place.

We continue to be quite alone as the only trawler around. We see other boats out in various pursuits upon the great waters, but none seem bound upon a journey. This is NOT a complaint, but one wonders if it is the economy, time of season (with most voyaging trawlers crawling up the east coast), or what?

We have been seeing lines of crab pot floats at an acute angle to the coast about every half mile or so making them relatively easy to dodge. It is understood that once in Florida Bay, they will be MUCH thicker.

Pyrates!!

Yes, by golly, there is a pirate ship a'winterin' the season hereabouts. Her name is Pieces of Eight, and she operates out of Salty Sam's Marina in Estero Sound. So beware as ye enter Matanzas Pass.

Calypso departed Legacy Harbour Marina at 0805 this ayem and headed down the Caloosahatchee River at out briefly into the Gulf at Punta Rassa, where the old crackers used to load cattle onto ships bound for Cuba.

While in Fort Myers, we enjoyed our walk to the Thomas Edison - Henry Ford Winter Homes Estate and spent much of the day there, returning to the boat via a nearby Publix. A short walk to The Morgan Restaurant in the downtown district finished us for the day. Given the kind of rainy weather we were having in Fort Myers and the crummy forecast, I might have elected to remain at Legacy Marina, but our underwater corrosion control system's meter was showing unacceptable readings in the red zone, and I was uncomfortable remaining. As it turns out, the decision was a good one because we are having fine weather on our run toward Naples.

After a couple of miles, we turned eastward into Matanzas Pass and found the channel is NOT exactly where the chart shows it; however, adhering to the buoyed channel got us through. Estero Sound is the body of water forming the harbor of Fort Myers Beach, and our objective, Ballard Oil deep in the environs of the sound was most helpful and hospitable as we took on 235 gallons of diesel at 1.899 (tax, tag, and title). That amount of full weighed us down an additional 1786 pounds. Giving is a grand total liquid load of 7,008 pounds. That should keep is from much bouncing around in open waters.

After refueling, we eased on down the channel about another quarter mile to Salty Sam's Marina where they gave us a temporary slip while we went into their Parrot Key Caribbean Cafe for lunch and then walked a mile and back to a convenience store.

Underway again found us out on the Gulf at about 1430 with the Pieces of Eight off pour port bow coasting along toward Matanzas Pass to offload her passengers. We "strafed" them with our loud-hailer as we went by crying Arrrrrr and avast and standby for a broadside. They waved and laughed - how humiliating. I should have had Mary wave the ship's cutlass ( a 15-inch used butcher house knife) at them, but she is busy using it to cut up a fresh pineapple - how humiliating for such a fine weapon of war.

It's a pretty clear day with dry air about 77 F blowing in one door and out the other. The seas at one foot are not noticeable, and the tall condo buildings stretch off into the southeast ahead of us until they sink below the horizon. We are almost three miles off shore and still only have 17 feet under the keel.

Unfortunately, the marine weather forecast for Friday and the following few days is kind of grim with winds in the twenty-knot region and 4-6 foot seas. We will likely be required to remain in protected waters for that time. That means staying in the Naples area (our present destination) or maybe sliding down a few miles farther southward through the inside passage from Naples to Marco Island. We will look at that possibility tomorrow if it appears to be too rough outside.

If we find the waters off the coast acceptable tomorrow, we may opt to run the almost 60 miles to Everglades City, which is around the bend of Cape Romano and sheltered from the expected strong northerly winds. The short term weather forecast will be our guide.

My quick resealing of the port engine valve cover seems to be working fine. No more oily smoke.

MOVING Day

My original plan of movement had us at anchor tonight some where in Charlotte Harbor not far from Fort Myers, but we have elected to go to Fort Myers "all the way in one play" today. That required a pre-dawn departure of about 0700.

Many of the people who read this realize that the admiral of this barge is NOT an early morning person, but luckily the winds were calm and the tide at a stand meaning no extra assistance was needed for the deckhand to get the water hose , and cable TV cable, and power cords, and six mooring lines aboard in time for a 0705 departure form Marina Jack in Sarasota. The admiral was informed shortly before engine start to avoid any unhappy repercussions as a result of sudden unexpected rumblings rumblings.

Our new radar was of assistance in guiding us clear of the marina. After which we encountered a number of manatee zones where slow speed was required.

After a couple of hours and several bridges, two of which had to be raised or swung clear for us to pass, we entered Venice inlet and passed out into a very calm Gulf for a faster passage of 27 miles to Boca Grande, the entrance to Pine Island Sound and Charlotte Harbor. After the last bridge we raised all masts and antennas and should not have cause to lower them again for quite awhile.

At Boca we had 34 NM to go to get to Fort Myers.

A day like this (typing as we sail along) on the Gulf tempts me to just aim a bit to the southwest and go straight for Fort Jefferson, but we will continue to adhere loosely to our plan. If we get to Naples in a few days and find a salubrious prognostication, we may indeed wing it and go straight on out the 109 NM to Fort Jeff with a 0500 departure to ensure arrival in daylight. The current long range weather forecast does not look all that favorable for such a run.

We are in Pine Island Sound and have just passed between Useppa Island and Cabbage Key. Useppa is an invitation-only type of place with some famous names attached, and Cabbage has a restaurant and is open to the public. The Skinners and I anchored their Vendredi hereabout in 1992, and I had the hot duty of changing the attached fuel filters on but engines that night. The diesel fumes were nasty, and so was I by the time I was finished.

One of my regular checks of the engine room revealed a bit of oil smoke coming from the port engine valve cover gasket area. I pulled the cover this evening and found the cork gasket had bowed inward between the hold down screws allowing the oily smoke escape. I cleaned up around the gasket and clipped the sagging sections to the cover after putting some hardening Permatex in between to hold the gasket. Tomorrow I'll goop it up good with non-hardening Permatex and slap it together and hope for the best.

Ah, sailors, whatcha gonna do with 'em?

Today, we got lazy and slept in before biking off to breakfast. realizing we weren't going to ride bikes 4 miles each way on narrow sidewalks alongside busy Highway 41, we grabbed a cab and went out north of town to the Ringling compound. This is a fabulous asset willed to the state of Florida by John Ringling of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus fame.

On the estate are the wonderful Ringling Museum of Art, the Ringling mansion Ca d'Zan, the circus museum, and a miraculous model circus resulting from fifty years of effort by a modeler.

Dinner at a local seafood restaurant was followed by a return to the boat ("bak sheep" as we used to say to the cabbies in the Orient back in the day).

We will get underway at about 0700 tomorrow in an effort to get to Fort Myers before 1900 tomorrow night. Fort Myers is about 90 nautical miles distant. Doing the math at a guestimated average speed of 7 knots through all the bridges and slow speed zones means almost 13 hours underway. If conditions warrant (and i think they will), we will cut out of the Intracoastal Waterway at venice, 14 NM distant, and run 27 NM down the coast to the next entrance at Boca Grande. This move bypasses a lot of slow zones and shallow water and leaves us 34 miles to go to get to Legacy Marina in downtown Fort Myers. Our average speed my be closer to 8 knots going this way. We'll never be out of sight of land.

We'll see how it all shakes out and report later.

On to Sarasota

We pried ourselves away from the Wright's pier this morning at about 0915 and arrived here at Marina Jack's in Sarasota about 1430 via the inside passage. It was a 20-gallon day as we covered 37 NM.

We got a chance to practice with our new Garmin radar in good clear weather where we could evaluate its performance. As it has its own GPS, I can now have the screen oriented to north as I was used to having from my Navy days where we had a gryo to keep everything properly oriented. We looked at several navigation markers and small boats at extremely close radar ranges as we passed them and are confident our new radar will be a very good "defogger."

North Tampa Bay we found the waterway narrow and heavily developed with lots of nice homes to look at as we passed by. Then we ran alongside the famous Sunshine Skyway spanning the bay for a while until we angled off tot the southwest in a bit of bumpy water as the southerly breeze threw some spray in our face.

Once across The Bulkhead shoal in the south end of the bay, we were back into calmer waters in Anna Maria Sound. The waters turned a very pale emerald, something I remember from my 1992 trip through here, truly beautiful. There were a lot of warning signs about manatees, but we have seen none.

After Longboat Pass, we entered much broader Sarasota Bay where that south wind began throwing more spray over the bow.

Here in Marina Jack's we have all the electricity and water we need plus cable TV. Mary is a happy camper. We did a load of laundry at the marina coin-operated laundromat and then had a meal in the marina restaurant.

Tomorrow we plan to get up to the Ringling mansion and art museum (free entry on Mondays!) and see what there is to see. I am trying to talk Mary into riding the 3.7 miles on bikes, but I think she is going to opt for taxi, rental car, or city bus.

While strolling along the pier, we noticed a boat named Light Heart, Jeff and Suzanne Wright's old boat. It is apparently on the market again as it has a for sale sign on it.

Sayonara New Good Friends

Dija ever meet people who you had such instant rapport with that you get the impression you've know them forever? We 've had such a run of good luck, or is it just that "boat people" are so attuned to the world. Jeff and Suzanne Wright not only took us in like long lost relatives, they also invited Paul and Brenda Schlecter (also of the Trawlers and Trawlering email list) over so we could all mee for the first time. What a great gathering. We hope to see Paul and Brenda on the water in their refurbished troller soon.

Waiting on the Wright's pier for us was the radar part Claire and Pete Mallory and Autry Hazzard collaborated on getting to us. I can never thank you all enough for that effort. Unfortunately, the radar remained inoperable in the low range bands. I made the command decision to replace the radar with something new ASAP, and Jeff was Johnny-on-the-spot with phone numbers and transportation. Being Friday the 13th, it befell Jeff to suffer a flat tire while we were out shopping.

The new radar, a Garmin GMR 18HD interfaced with a Garmin 4208 display unit (get that, Jim and Jackie) was procured at a userous rate and installed by me over the last day and a half. Jeff thinks I may have saved a thousand buck doing it myself. This new unit came with a GPS head; so I went ahead and installed it giving us a grand total of three installed GPS units and one portable that can plug into this computer. I think that's enough to get us where we are going.

Speaking of which, as we turn our bow once again to the south, we intend to make Sarasota tomorrow, distant some 37 NM. It will not be an early rising day tomorrow. In our journey, we will travel the inside route, at one point paralleling the Skyline Bridge acrosss Tampa Bay before angling off toward the approaches to Sarasota Bay. We had a lot of time the other day and so poked along so slowly coming down from Tarpon Springs that we only burned 10 gallons of diesel in the 31 NM trip. That's far better that our usual mileage. We have 480 gallons remaining on board.

Tarpon Springs

Today we rode our bicycles about a half mile to breakfast and 5 hours and 10.6 miles later we arrived at the boat in need of adult beverages. We didn't get lost, thanks to Mary's tourist road map of the area. The town of Tarpon Springs is a beautifully kept town similar in my mind to places like Naples, although probably not as opulent. We ran through many residential areas and saw some really picturesque waterfronts.

We visited a waterfront Greek restaurant tonight to be able to say we had Greek food in Tarpon Springs; or to avoid having to say we DIDN'T. Go figure.

John and Maxine Stewart (he is a fellow T&T member) of the tug Raven, moored alongside us, came down and visited this afternoon. We enjoyed their company and wished we'd had more time together; maybe on the way home...

Our radar problem wherein that wonderful device refuses to operate in the lower ranges below 12 miles was mostly not a real issue during our transit across the gulf because we were free of fog and saw only one contact all night - plus the sky was clear with a full moon. Being able to see zero miles out to 12. 24, or 36 miles is all well and good, but when you think you might have seen a brief blip at a shorter distance, you'd like to change the range scale down to 6, 3, 1.5, 0.5 or even a quarter mile scale to ensure there is nothing out there that could go "bump in the night." A couple of times I was sure I saw something at around 3 miles ahead on the radar screen for several scans only to have it disappear. At our 8 knot speed, that meant in 22.5 minutes whatever it was would be on top of us. Had I had a shorter range scale available, I could have "zoomed in" to keep a better eye on what turned out to be loons when the time ran down.

Talking with a radar tech here in Tarpon Springs yesterday left me with the impression that the problem with the radar is in the range switch on the box (called an indicator unit) next to the screen and not up in the radar antenna itself. Good news, because brother Jim shipped me his similar (not exact) model indicator unit some year or three back when he removed it from his boat. Bad news, because the indicator unit was resting on a shelf in my yard shed a few hundred miles back up our wake. Good news, because I have fabulous neighbors who have rallied to the cause when I got it into my punkin head that I had to have this radar working full bore and that that used indicator unit was a possible fix.

Our schedule calls for us to be visiting fellow T&T member Jeff Wright's pier tomorrow night in Treasure Island, about 30 miles south of here, and I figured if I could have somebody lay hands on the radar part and FEDEX it this morning to Jeff's we'd be set. But who to perform this task at nine o'clock at night? Enter, a fine set of neighbors.

Autrey Hazzard keeps our keys and collects mail for us when we get these crazy ideas about voyaging. She will tell you right off she is the wrong person to ask to find a heavy piece of electronics in the night in a dark yard shed, but Pete Mallory is not timid and as a fellow retired naval officer and boater, he also knows what a radar looks like. Together, they retrieved the shed key from the house and braved the hazards of my disorganized shed to get the radar into Pete's wife Claire's hands so she could FEDEX it this AM. Thank you all so much. I will report if we have any success.

Paul Schlecter, also of the T&T e-mail list, wrote and wishing to be able to meet us as we pass through the area, and Jeff and Suzanne Wright have graciously set up a dinner tomorrow evening when everybody's schedules mesh. We will get underway from this place before lunch in order to arrive at Treasure Island before 1530 tomorrow.

Crossing the Big Bend sans Sans Chibli

Notes on crossing the Big Bend of Florida

We exited the pass at Dog Island between 1400 and 1430 and by 1500 had lost sight of land in the thin fog.

At 1500, the south wind is still creating a few white caps, and the southwesterly swell is coming at us at about 1-2 feet with an occasional 3-4 footer just to keep us on our toes. The ride is not uncomfortable with little roll and light pitching, and the boat tracks well into the seas on auto-pilot.

We are expecting a lot of moon and further calming of the seas as the night wears on. Our ETA off Anclote Key is around 0830 Tuesday.

The Sans Chiblis are manning their vessel on the flying bridge while we Calypsos prefer to remain below probably because the big bucks we spent a few years back on modifications have afforded us a very comfortable two-person elevated seat behind the lower station helm. The boat’s motion is amplified higher up and there is no climate control up there for when the night gets cold, as it will. Additionally, most of our alarms and other equipment, like radar are mounted below. I always tell people that I prefer to run the boat from the lower station, because that’s where the food is kept. I am sure we will be spending a lot of time up top later on as we traverse the confined waters of the ICW.

For now, Mary is asleep on the settee resting for whatever relief I will need during the night.

In the loose arrangement we have with the other boat, they have apparently decided to follow about a quarter mile astern of us. We have no other agreement except to start off together and stay within radio range. If they should breakdown or have some other trouble, there is little we could do but standby as moral support and energize our emergency locator, if we could not contact the Coast Guard on the radio. Should either boat go down, there is at least another one to swim toward. Anyway, being in the lead means I don’t have to sweat changing engine speed to match them. With their engines running at a reported 1729 RPM and ours at 1600 we paced each other perfectly yesterday. I don’t know what causes them to have to work harder to go my speed, maybe bottom smoothness – engines and props and probably trannies are identical.

At 1620, the Sans Chibli reported the lady of the boat, who wanted to try the crossing for the first time, is not faring well, and they are returning to port. We continue on alone with a point-of-no-return at about 2330 tonight. (A report from them a couple of days later said they had returned home to Gulf Breeze andwould drive to Fort Lauderdale to babysit their grand children).

About 1700, I backed off a hundred RPM to 1500 RPM to see what it would do to our ETA at a ;point off shore from Anclote Key, and the computer promptly told us it would slow us up from 0830 arrival to 0907 - big deal, but we’re saving a few gallons of fuel.

As the evening wears on, the winds have died off to calm, but we are still dealing with the 2-3 foot swell from the southwest, putting it on our starboard bow. Even so, we have only had two instances all day of spray coming over the bow.

Mary took the watch for a couple of hours before darkness fell, and then I sent her below to get some sleep about 2100. She will get another trick at the wheel a bit later on, but for now she is sleeping through the point-of-no-return.

At 2200 I was visited by a large pod of oceanic porpoise. They were smaller than the big guys we see off our pier and in the bay all the time. There was quite a crowd of them, and I played tag with them using the searchlight.

Up to midnight we have seen only one other vessel, and that was an AIS contact which first showed up on the computer and later on radar out at eight miles.

AT 0830 we anchored off the eastern side of Anclote Key and waited/slept/ate until 1230 for our slip at Tarpon Springs City Marina to clear. We are here in TS for two days. then on to visit with Jeff Wright.

Into the blue

This is not us, rather, it is a shot of the Sans Chibli as we pulled into Apalachicola yesterday. Actually, they pulled in while Calypso and crew blew through town in a hurry to get the anchor down off the eastern end of St George Island in a place marked as "Pilot Harbor" before sunset in order to properly enjoy adult beverages.

As we dropped the hook, there was a light breeze off the Gulf which died away to dead calm later in the evening, and that bodes well for a calmed Gulf after yesterdays fairly brisk winds off the water. Air temperature was such that we were able to sleep without the generator-powered air conditioners running. With the flat calm waters we enjoyed near utter silence broken only by the faint whisper of the muffin fans in the propane-powered refrigerator cabinet. While out on deck giving our emergency locator's GPS receiver a test, I could faintly hear the surf on the other side of the island.

March 10th:
Heavy fog again this morning. Checked over a nice 78-degree engine room this AM, and find conditions as good or better after yesterdays hard-run 90 nautical miles than a little run around our own bay. We are ready for some serious cruisin' now.

We will turn on the marine VHF ship-to-ship radio later on today to listen for call of the Sans Chibli as she steams by after noon to pick us up as their buddy boat for crossing the next 130 nautical (150 statute) miles of open Gulf.

I have been this way a number of times, the first of which was in 1992 with my dearest friends Hank and Ruth Skinner and son Stanford. Their Vendredi was a boat powered, as is Calypso, by a pair of the honest and dependable Ford-Lehman 120 HP diesels. On that trip, we had little to no contact with the outside world in nearly this same spot where I sit typing away on the internet and perusing weather websites. Back then, we got maybe a scratchy voice on the marine VHF weather channel for Tallahassee giving vague information about sea states. We ended up leaving in 3-4 foot head seas and a brisk east wind. Rather than run that rolly boat to Tarpon Springs with a beam sea, we headed eastward 80 miles to Steinhatchee and went to Tarpon the next day in better conditions. I think fondly of Hank and Ruth, my surrogate parents, who fed both my body and soul during some tough times, often is I planned this trip for my own boat.

For those of you lubbers (NOT a pejorative term, just an acknowledgemant of your unfortunate lack of sea experience) out there, I leave you with this bit of verse from John Masefield. This is the way sailors feel about it WELL after experiencing some of the worst the sea can throw at you:

Sea-Fever

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
and the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's faceand a gray dawn breaking.
I must go down to the sea again,
for the call of the running tide is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the sea again to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover,
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trek's over.

With our small vessel, we certainly hope for no such wild but will certainly sleep well tomorrow, but you get the idea.

Well, lunch is finished and here comes the Sans Chibli down the channel, and it's time to go.

Will write more from the "other side."

Dear Pier

We leave you in a fog and to the tender mercies of the elements until our return. We will miss your surrounding pilings and vinyl covering and ready fresh water and electricity. For some time now we will have to fend for ourselves as an independent entity. Rest well, for you labors will soon resume.

We got underway in heavy fog with a radar that would not work on anything under a twelve mile scale. Maybe I'll find somebody in SW Florida to repair it.

As I started this, we were just exiting Apalachicola, and now we are 4-5 miles farther on toward our proposed anchorage off St George Island. We had planned to go another few miles to Dog Island, but we can't get there before dark. Doesn't make an difference, since the pass we intend to exit into the Gulf is between Dog and St George Islands.

Were will have a "buddy boat" for tomorrow night's crossing(yes, the weather continues to look good). It will be a near-twin 1974 model Grand Banks 42 called Sans Chibli out of Gulf Breeze manned by a 76-year old couple. This is not his first crossing. They pulled out behind us from St Andrew Marina this morning, and we talked boats on the radio for miles. Sans Chibli will remain in Apalachicola tonight and fuel up in the morning before coming on the additional 20 miles to find us at our anchorage in the early afternoon.

They are going to Clearwater while we are going to Tarpon Springs. However, that won't prevent us from being within a mile or so of each other all night.

Last Minute Stuff

Mary went to Chipley today to visit with family, and I took Mom to lunch and a quick run into Winn Dixie.

After a few more hours of cleaning and polishing, Mary dragged me away for granddaughter Emma's baton recital after which we went to dinner at Red Lobster with Meda and her.

It's late and we need to finish taking the last things, including this computer to the boat and make our bed so we can sleep aboard tonight and get underway at 0700 Central Daylight Time.

The Great Onload

Sheesh! It's a lot of effort getting the boat out of the local, mostly ICW cruiser mode to coastal operations mode including crossing lots of open water. Our list of to-dos and go-buys is dwindling, and the waterline is at least and inch higher than it was a couple of days ago. I'm going to give the old boat a good bath tomorrow to clear off the last of the winter grime and work on polishing up the clear vinyl of the flying bridge enclosure so I can see where the heck we're going.

While the boat is relatively inactive, I keep a blind plug in the 2-inch through-hull where the depth sounder's speed and water temperature transducer fits because I don't want bio-fouling clogging the speed wheel. It's always a thrill of the negative kind to exchange the sensor for the plug, what with a head of three feet of water pushing through a 2-inch gaping hole in the bottom of the boat. Swapping as fast as I can, there is still a big ol' gout of water wetting me down for a second or so. Anyway, tis done so we'll have speed through the water as well as SOG from the GPS units.

Speaking of that miracle, GPS, what a wonder! Well do I remember being on the bridge of a destroyer one summer night in 1971 as we sneaked into the waters off the Vietnamese DMZ after a long ocean voyage with overcast preventing any celestial navigation. There was no electronic navigation other than iffy LORAN A, which was maybe good to within 5 miles. We ended up with an almost eight-mile error which had us running right into the large North Vietnamese coastal batteries on Tiger Island. Luckily, somebody discovered the error before the enemy did.

I am taking our computer router with us so we can have both laptops on line, if desired, giving Mary access to her email and other internet interests while the primary computer runs the chart plotting program, which will put us within a few feet of the arrival mark off Tarpon Springs on Tuesday morning.

Sail boaters would hate the weather forecast for Monday afternoon through Tuesday from Dog Island to Tarpon Springs; little to no wind (all on the nose) and 1-foot seas. Great trawler-crawler weather, though.

Once the idea of transiting the whole 90 NM to Dog Island in one day seized me, and it became clear that we would need to be leaving earlier Sunday than Mary's desired time of rising in the morning, she suggested we sleep aboard Saturday night. You see, Mary is well aware that I need no assistance in getting underway from our home slip, and you can guess the rest about where her "sea and anchor detail" station will be that day. This happened more than once while we were on our sojourn up the Tenn-Tom and Tennessee in 2006. You can see what sort of slave ship I run!

A Weather Window

Several websites, including NOAA Maritime Weather, are starting to show a pause in the weather action as an expected front is delayed into the later half of next week leaving seas as low as 1-2 feet out 60 miles into the Gulf on Monday night. If things still look this good Saturday night, we will complete our clothing and food loadout and get underway Sunday morning for Dog Island or Carrabelle, which is just four miles up the river.

This will be a 90-mile run for the boat and a good shakedown after a lot of sitting around this winter. If we had been running the boat a lot recently, I'd simply exit the St Andrew Bay jetties here and just head for Anclote Key, but prudence dictates a long hard day for the engines and running gear followed by a thorough going-over before stepping out on a 130-nautical mile run across the Gulf. Hopefully, some time toward mid-day Monday, we will get underway and arrive off Anclote Key near Tarpon Springs at mid-morning Tuesday.

According to the Verizon coverage chart, we will have good contact and online service if we anchor off Dog Island instead of heading into Carrabelle for the night.

Stay tuned.

How not to do it

As I busy myself with gathering up my charts and clearing out collected "stuff" from various lockers and cabinets on the boat so we can load it up for our trip, I am also aware of the unfolding events in the waters off Tampa where several men are still missing after their 21-foot boat was found overturned. While we will be passing through that area in a week or so, I want to assure the non-mariners looking in on this blog that there is no comparison between how those men went to sea and how we intend to conduct ourselves.

First and foremost, I will not subject us to sea conditions that would challenge Calypso's seaworthiness, as those men foolishly did with their small boat. A strong front had just passed or was passing through the area off Tampa creating very rough seas, and they decided to go out anyway - they challenged Mother Nature and lost. I am monitoring about five different weather and sea state websites to ensure as calm a passage as I can. If the water conditions I have pre-determined to accept are not met, we won't go into open water, period. That said, quite a lot of our trip will be in waters we could wade ashore in.

Secondarily, we are probably better equipped than that 21-footer off Tampa. When in open water, we have the inflatable dinghy ready for rapid deployment as a liferaft should we have to leave the Calypso. In the dinghy we have a water-proof box with flares and a hand-held marine transceiver. Most importantly, we have immediately at hand a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) which sends our exact position to the National Rescue Center via satellite within a couple of minutes of activation. Like having a lot of spare parts means you never seem to have to use them, I am confident I have "wasted" thousands of dollars on this emergency equipment. :)