Getting to Key West

May 05, 2012 — Key West, FL

Getting from Cabbage Key to Key West was interesting. Cita, who suffered a bad case of mal de mer between Venice and Cabbage Key had somewhat recovered. She was thrilled to be back on the ICW in flat water for a bit.

Fortunately, the weather was pretty settled. While Denise and I were looking forward to getting back into open water and sailing overnight, Cita quailed at the prospect. Getting out of Cabbage Key was a cinch. Nothing like the spin cycle we were in getting out of Venice. Once out of the channel, we broke out the sails, tuned a smidge east of due south, woke Otto von Helm (autopilot) and settled in.

The wind was light — 10kts out of the south east. The sails settled the boat. We meandered towards Key West at a sluggardly 3.5 kts to weather. Late afternoon, the wind dropped down to about 5 – 6 kts. We kicked in the engine and started motoring. While it would have been fun to putter along, this would have meant getting to Key West on the manana plan — which wouldn’t have worked since we were meeting Joe there on Sunday. Motoring it was.

Sunset was spectacular. I forget what we had for dinner. My guess is that it was a beans and rice combo with veges that seems to work well when under way. I am not sure that cheesy stuff like lasagne and pasta works well for this. Cita and Denise deserted me after a while, and I was left on watch by myself at the tender mercy of the stars.

And then it got fun. Around midnight, the wind started to pick up and veer to the West. It climbed from the 5 – 6 kts it was to 10 – 12 kts, and then to 15 kts. Wheeee! Time to break out the sails. I couldn’t resist. The sails came out, Pearl heeled a bit, the engine was turned off. I was back in my element.

The wind continued to build until it was 20 – 25 kts — my idea of a great time. Unfortunately, since we were fairly deep, the water got choppy, Cita and Denise came back on deck. Denise was happy to be sailing again but Cita was beginning to look a bit green again. It was, however, had to deny Pearl the wind.That, was fun sailing. Stars. Brisk wind.

We made it to Key West on Saturday afternoon. The sun was out. We came in on the main ship channel from the north, following a barge with a tow. We followed the channel in, took the dogleg at the harbor to get to the Key West Bight Marina. Voila! Key West, and off to the Schooner Wharf bar for a cold Beer!

 

 

Venice, FL to Cabbage Key FL

May 03, 2012 — Cabbage Key, FL

Key West, here we come! We were finally getting out into open water. Doing another ditch run to get us out of Sarasota was ok, however, I was dreaming of fair winds and open water. Getting out of the short narrow channel connecting Venice to the Gulf was like stepping from a bathtub in a washing machine on the wash cycle.

Cita, who is susceptible to motion sickness took about 5 mins of the wash cycle to turn green. Despite my attempts to get her to steer, look out into the distance, and otherwise do stuff, she averred and headed below. Big mistake, but sometime you just have to do what you feel like you have to do.

Once we got far enough from land, we unfurled the sails and headed south. This steadied the boat some, but we really didn’t make much headway as the winds were really light and from the south-south-east.

The further we got from land, the worse Cita felt got. Pearl’s pitching and roilling reall got to her. Hunkered down in the cockpit, poor Cita got the burps. Urrrrrrp! one-one-thousand-two-one-thousand … Urrrrrp! It seemed like she was burping every 15 – 30 secs on cue, like the mating call of a particularly persistent sea bird. Denise and I couldn’t figure out how and from where Cita generating so much gas.

After a while of getting nowhere slowly, we figured we’d furl the sails and motor towards Boca Grande, the entry point to Cabbage Key. As we approached the pass, we noticed a large fleet of sport fishing boats hanging around just off the main channel. The were casting vigorously for some large brownish fish or the other that seemed to come to the surface and do a little roll. At first I thought they were sharks hitting bait fish at the surface, but that wasn’t quite it. I was puzzled. And then it hit me. They were fishing for Tarpon — large, bony, spirited fish that need to breathe in air periodically.

[Curiously, the record for a Tarpon is something around 50 lbs, caught in Sri Lanka.]

As we got inside of Boca Grande and headed south, we noticed a pretty bay off to the south east — Pelican Bay. It had a few sailboats at anchor and it looked idyllic. Further, it would get the boat stopped and let poor Cita recover a bit. It wasn’t to be. Pelican Bay is only for shoal draft boats ( ~ 4ft draft) and Pearl does not qualify. Needless to say, we ran aground in the soft mud.

At this point, I really didn’t want to mess around any more. I wanted to make Cabbage Key before dark and get the anchor set for the night, so we motored down the ICW once more and did just that.

Heading south from Sarasota to Venice

Heading south from Sarasota to Venice. Sarasota’s not been the best: lost wallet, glitchy head, dead battery, no pump out. Grrrr. Weighing anchor and getting underway felt good.My feeling about Sarasota wasn’t helped by the dour and unfriendly attitude of the staff at Marina Jack’s when we pulled in to purchase fuel and get the tanks pumped out.

Interestingly, the pump out facility — a large shop vac type thing that sucks sewage out of the (septic) holding tank on the boat — was broken. While there was were other installations at the Marina on other docks, most of the staff was utterly disinterested in offering assistance — with the exception of a younger dock hand who was helpful and is unlikely to last long at the Marina.

While I really wanted to get on the “outside,” into the Gulf and head for Fort Meyers in one quick run we ended up taking the ICW *again* because the winds were gusting to 35 mph, making the outside passage bumpy and uncomfortable. Another GRRRRR!!!

At least the scenery was kinda pretty. The closer we got the Venice, the nice it seemed to get.

Anchoring in Venice really wasn’t an option, so we docked at the Crows Nest Marina. The Harbormaster there couldn’t have been more different than the one at Marina Jacks — as you can tell, Marina Jacks really got under my skin.

I didn’t do a whole lot of exploring in Venice. I mostly stayed on the boat, did some boat projects, and fished a bit. Cita and Denise made use of the free bikes at the marina and did a little bit of touring around the area. The seemed to like it. I just wanted to get out of the whole Sarasota area and to a place where the water was a clear blue and warm.

In Sarasota: anchored outside of Marina Jack’s

In Sarasota. Anchored out at Marina Jack’s. Deployed the dinghy for the first time to collect Cita who arrived from PDX. Actually, as it turned out, we weren’t at Marina Jack’s exactly — a swank but *unfriendly* venue that caters to power boaters — but at the free city run anchoring field just outside of Marina Jacks.

This anchoring field, which we picked at for convenience in yet another late-night-early-morning landfall event turned out to be a GREAT spot. The $15 – $30/night marinas of the north and west have started giving way to $50 – $100/night Marinas. The free anchoring field was a welcome change.

Since we are at anchor, we finally had to deploy the yet to be named dinghy. The previous dingy was named Mini Pearl (a great name) but I am not sure that we want the boat name on the dinghy for this one. The theory behind if your boat’s tender is at the dock, you aren’t likely to be on your boat, making it a more interesting target for burglars.

Besides being downtown Sarasota, and walking distance to a groceries (Whole Foods and Publics), banks, boutiques, restaurants, and a GREAT old-time hardware store where I got some cables made, the anchorage comes equipped with a great beach-front tiki bar named O’Learey’s. If you go by the bar, say “Hi!” to Char and Kate, two of the bartenders. They’re great!

 

 

The Florida Hop

April 22, 2012 — Panama City, FL

While Pass Christian was fun and it was nice to buddy boat with Heaven’s Island and Shibumi, Denise and I needed to get to point Pearl at Florida if we were going to have any hope of picking Cita up in Tampa on the 23rd. While it would have been nice to hang out and explore Pass Christian a bit more, the 10 days we spent in New Orleans suggested that we get going.

The weather window for the jump to Tampa was questionable. The distance from Pass Christian would be around 500mi, about 100hrs by conservative estimate. Based on the weather reports, however, we’d need to be in Tampa by Saturday evening — about half the time we needed. A couple of fronts were headed in from West Texas. These were going to make the Mississippi sound and then the Gulf coast of Florida kinda bouncy through Tuesday, which was when we’d need to be in Tampa. Then again, storm systems  that had kept us “trapped” in New Orleans seem to have been slowed down by high pressure over the eastern gulf, so I figured we should take the shot.

We set of by around 9:00am with clear skies and light breezes. Negotiating the channel out of Pass Christian was less nerve wracking than it had been the previous day. After finding our way back to the ICW, we turned south  along the Mobile Bay ship channel accompanied by the many dolphins in the sound who decided to investigate Pearl as we passed by.

Denise traded her customary attire for a modest two piece swim suit she calls a bikini. I was in my swim trunks. It was hot. There were islands with palm trees visible. It was nice to spritz using the cockpit shower to cool off. Denise and I chortled at each other about how the sailing life sucked. This was a really rough life. Ha-ha!

Traversing the Ship Island we did a drive by at Fort Massachusetts, which has been described as the Plymouth Rock of the Gulf Coast. Apparently, it also served as the base for the Union fleet when Admiral Farragut’s attacked Mobile and New Orleans and has a bunch of history that would have been fun to check out, but … Tampa beckoned.

Sailing out the Ship Island Pass, I had a momentary twinge of anxiety, watching Fort Massachusetts fade into the distance. This was my first multi-day blue water overnight run with Pearl. Not a big deal. I was comfortable with the boat and our ability, but still….

The rest of the day we motored towards Tampa on a heading of about 120. Conditions were calm. The wind was too light to sail. No issues. Pearl’s 3 cylinder diesel was purring as usual pushing us along at a good 7kts turning 2200 rpm. Pretty comfortable, I decided to head below for a nap with Denise on watch.

When I roused myself at around 7:00pm, the wind had picked up. It was on the nose. The seas were mildly confused. There was weather coming in from behind and from the south. Denise had been holding our course well. We made a minor adjustment to 110 for a better line to Tampa. I fired up the radio and pinged Joe with an update. All well.

As the sun set and night drew on, the weather became less settled. We started seeing storm clouds and lightning to the west and the south. It seemed far enough away that it wasn’t a problem, but merited watching. Denise heated up a lasagne for dinner. We ate and kept track of the storms which seemed to be heading ENE in general. After dinner Denise shut down for the evening having had a long afternoon on watch.

At about 11:00pm, the weather was looking quite threatening. I was on watch, there was a nasty thunderstorm to the south with lots of forked lightening. This bothered me. A boat feels like a giant lightning rod stuck in the water. Not my idea of a good time. If we kept on our heading, it looked like we would intersect the storm track in about 3-4 hrs. Badness. New plan required.

I checked the charts. Our best bet was to alter course and head for Pensacola or Panama City. Pensacola would entail getting back into the Mississippi sound and would also put us close to the storms that were scheduled to be rocking Mobile Bay. Panama City seemed like a better option. Perhaps the storm system would pass behind us? Course change: heading 95.

The rest of the evening the seas got too sloppy to let the Otto the autopilot steer. So I had steered Pearl. This was partly to give me something to do and keep me awake, and partly to avoid overstressing Otto.

Dawn was a welcome sight. The center of the southern storm seemed to be behind us. The lightening had more or less disappeared. There was, however, a large cloud bank that was closing in on us from the south. While we’d made good progress overnight we were still about 60 miles from Panama City. The wind was a bit flukey — it kept backing and veering. The seas were confused, but manageable. I roused Denise, gave her the wheel, headed below for a nap and sent Joe a “all’s well” message reporting our position.

After a short nap, I was roused by the boat pitching a little more animatedly than I would have preferred. I got on deck to see what was going on. The seas had built a bit and were more confused. Denise seemed to be be having fun trying to surf the boat, but it was time to pull back on the power to give Pearl an easier ride over what were very confused seas. The winds were high but manageable, 20+ gusting to 30. Of more interest were the squall lines that came in dropping visibility to less than 100 ft. With me back on deck, Denise headed for her bunk and some shut-eye.

The weather eased up the closer we got to Panama City. When we got on the shelf into shallower water (80 -100 ft) the seas calmed down a lot. This surprised me as the general rule fo thumb is that deeper water offers an easier ride. This isn’t true in the Gulf. The deeper water was like a washing machine — confused and all over the place.