Homeward looking angel

5/14/09

Carrabelle, Fl C-quarters marina. Slip 50.

Author: Doug

"Home is the sailor, home from the sea.

And the hunter home from the hill."

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Today was a bittersweet mix of emotions for me. It is about 60 nm from Stienhatchee to Carrabelle, but there is no protection so the run can be quite nasty. We had pretty weather though, with a 10 knot east wind making for nice following seas and Morgan rolled happily along, clicking off the miles. This trip took us the furthest offshore we have been since we crossed the Gulf Stream. It was nice, in a way, to be out of sight of land and the inevitable ending that landfall brings.

After three days of open water steering, Kyle has gotten the hang of it and he was able to take a lot of the work off of my shoulders. Even in following seas he left a nice straight wake, much improved over his early attempts when he was even swervier than Jack, our drunken autopilot.

So I puttered around the boat, fixing little things and thinking about our trip. It was a good feeling in many ways, I am proud of so many things, proud that my family is such a good and cheerful crew, proud that we all learned so much and got along so well, proud that we found that we could live with less, proud of our old boat and how she took us through 1,600 miles of sometimes rough conditions without a single breakdown. But I regret that the trip is all but over, I could have happily kept heading south. And as great a crew as Kyle makes, I missed Jen and the boys.

We caught another nice King or two on the way but really, it was another uneventful passage, memorable only in that it was the last of so many that came before it.

About 3:00 we saw the pines and dunes of Bald Point well inshore off the starboard bow, skirted South Shoal which was a pretty, bright clear green, and then raised Dog Island, our home beach, dead ahead. From there it was an easy run up the Carrabelle River to our home slip.

Everything was the same as when we left it, the dock lines were still hanging on the piling hooks, because of the familiar cross current I had to make my usual two tries before I hit the slip, and my friend Tom who lives at the marina, was waiting there with his dog Ellie to give us a hand. We had dinner at The Fisherman's Wife (no one does it as well as they do) and watched the sun set in its old familiar place behind the bridge. That's the real rub of cruising, everything was the same as when we left, but we had changed forever.

The next day Jen came down to the boat to take Kyle and I home and we spent a long morning cleaning up.

When we were back at Great Sale Cay we were concerned about running out of fresh water so our friends on Mucho Gusto used their watermaker to pump 12 gallons into our emergency jugs. As it turned out we didn't need it and as I was scrubbing the foredeck where our jugs are stored I realized that they were still full. It struck me that this was actual Bahamian water (albeit magically made fresh) and I thought foolishly for a moment of bringing it home and drinking it like some fine wine.

But I knew this wouldn't work, so I used it to rinse the soap from the decks where it poured out of the scuppers, mixed for a fraction of a second with our home waters, then disappeared into memory.

Total miles traveled: 1,572

Ports visited: 23

Diesel Fuel burned: 475 gallons

Dinghy Gas burned: 14 gallons

Nights spent aboard: 37

Nights at anchor: 26

Working our way up the gulf coast

5/11/09 to 5/14/09

Steinhatchee, Sea Hag Marina

Author: Doug

Monday, 5/11 we popped outside at Boca Grande Pass in the morning, passing through the swash channel right along the beach. There were about 30 tarpon boats in the pass, not as many as I expected, honestly for such a pretty day in May. The gulf was calm and nice until the early afternoon when the wind picked up from the NW. It was rough enough to be a little uncomfortable, so we went back inside at Venice Inlet and continued up the ICW to the Bradenton Beach where we anchored just south of the Cortez bridge. I have to say that I like the location of this anchorage, with its nice dinghy dock and tons of place to eat along bridge street but the permanent live aboard boats here are really seedy. Some of them give boaters a bad name as they are basically squatting here. Some of the boats even have gaping holes in the decks. Even though we had no problems, I'm not sure I'll stay here again. This would be a good place for a city run mooring field and no anchoring. We took the dinghy in to eat at a cool little place called the banana cabana that we saw on the way up. Unfortunately it was closed, so we went back to the boat and grilled out.

Tuesday, 5/11, we went out into the open gulf past Eggmont and had a really nice easy run all the way outside to Tarpon Springs. There was bait showering everywhere and Kyle caught a nice king. We got a bunch of Spanish as well, enough that we finally decided that we needed to get in the lines so that we could make better time. Tied up at Anclote Harbor Marina, nice enough people but just an OK stopover. It is a really long walk to town. We had dinner at a tiki bar (forgot the name) that was filled with smokers, gator fans and other undesirables. A couple of guys borrowed our fillet knife and gave us two AJ fillets and two Red Snapper Fillets as a thank you.

Wednesday, 5/12, today was a long day, 13 hours, to Steinhatchee. It was a little rolly in the morning but calmed down as the day went on. We cleared the Stienhatchee sea bouy a little before sunset and tied up at the Sea Hag. They have a great floating dock here (easy to hit, I like that) but the 50 amp power plug is a jury rig, and pretty corroded. I figured Kyle has more kids than me, so I took the risk and plugged us in. It was that or no air conditioning, not really an option as it is hot this far up the river. Kyle made an awesome glaze from blackstrap rum, Matouks hot sauce and sugar which we painted on the grilled fish. Best dinner of the trip.

Cabbage Key

5/10/09

Author: Doug

Pelican harbor, Cayo Costa

My buddy Kyle Reed drove in from West Palm (after flying from Denver) today and we pulled out of Fort Myers and started the delivery trip north to Carrabelle. Since we left about 1:00 we just made a short three hour run up to the North end of Cayo Costa where we anchored in Pelican Bay. This is a really great and very popular anchorage, due to it's good protection from all winds, large size and close proximity to the pretty sands of Cayo Costa state park.

Kyle and I went swimming from the boat, then launched the dinghy and ran it to Cabbage Key. I went around the key the back way, probably a mistake, as it was super shallow, even for the dinghy, and mostly an idle zone. But since I had managed to run us up on a flat to shallow to idle on, I took the chance and ran it on a plane, giving a ton of redfish the fright of their lives.

Cabbage Key is a very cool place, and since they sell Mount Gay rum, we took the opportunity to have a few.

Back at the big boat (took the deep route this time) we grilled steaks and watched the sunset. Not quite the Bahamas, but still pretty good.

West across the OWW

5/4/09 through 5/10/09



Peck Lake to Fort Myers



Author: Doug


We had an uneventful, though long crossing from Peck Lake near Stuart through the Okeechobee Waterway, very different from our trip East. In the time we were gone the weather changed from winter to early summer. The devil's mud puddle was calm, instead of short steep 4 footers and the locks were still instead of wind tunnels.


This time we stayed in Clewiston at Roland Martin's Marina, an OK place, there were three or four other boats tied up there. The water level was down to 5 feet in the channel and we had to wait for both the St. Lucie and Franklin locks, as they were on restricted openings to conserve water. There is a really nice lock master at the Franklin lock which is near Fort Myers. He remembered us from our East bound trip and spoke with us for a while about our trip and traveling with kids. The Caloosahatchee river was packed with rolling tarpon.

Jen and the boys drove back home on the 7th and I stayed in Fort Myers, catching up on work and doing boat tasks.

We had been having issues holding a charge on our new house bank, so I rewired the alternator on the port side (necessitating a ten mile round trip bike ride to West Marine) thinking it was the problem then found out that that alternator wasn't putting out power at all.

I also adjusted the hinges on the fridge which seemed to help. Then I did an oil and filter change and changed the fuel filters on both engines. Since clean fuel is so important to diesels, I was really glad to see that the fuel filters were very clean after 150 engine hours, much of it in rough water which would stir up anything in our tanks if they were dirty.


The day we packed the boat to head for the Bahamas I stood by the bulkhead dividing the forward cabin (where the boy's sleep) from the galley, "the mess stops here, no mess aft of this bulkhead," I said, "but you can do whatever you want with your cabin." Well, they took me at my word, in a remarkably short time the two shelves (one for Bryce, one for Simon) in their clothes locker had merged into one, and they were wearing each other's clothes, no mean feat for Bryce who is 4 years older.

One day Jen, after working up the courage to pass the forward bulkhead barrier yelled out "it smells like a gerbil in here!" Instead of cleaning their cabin Bryce and Simon decided it would be easier to create an imaginary gerbil named Bob, who lived in Simon's pillow, thereby explaining the smell.

It took me a while, and quite a bit of cleaning spray to get the forward cabin clean.

My parents drove all the way home from North Carolina Saturday, arriving late that night and I was able to spend Mother's Day morning with my mom, a real treat for me.

Back in the USA

5/2/09

Author: Doug

After crossing the banks from Great Sale we pulled into Old Bahama Bay Marina, where they put us only one slip away from the spot they put us in when we were there a month before. The boys and Jen swam in the great pool they have there, while I did an engine check to get us ready for the Gulf Stream. I also gave the boat a good fresh water washdown, its first in a couple of weeks in this dry country. They charge you a flat ten dollars a day for water at OBB, so I made sure to get my money's worth. Right after I finished it rained like crazy. Go figure.

While we were there we met up with a few people we had seen in various anchorages on our trip, including Bill and Ruth on Happy Ours, a Krogen whaleback and Sheldon and Sharon on Toi Boat, a 62 foot motor yacht. We all talked about the great forecast we had for the next day's crossing. One of the best things about cruising is the sense of community we feel with other boaters, everyone helps everyone else out. The trawler people really stick together.

The next day we had an really comfortable stream crossing, the forecast was for two feet or less, 10 knots from the SE. For the most part NOAA was right on the money, though it was a little rough for an hour or so on the Eastern edge of the stream. It was calm enough that we went North with the flow of stream and came in at the St. Lucie inlet rather than Lake Worth, which made for an 11 mile longer crossing but meant that we didn't have to go up the ICW from Lake Worth to Stuart and shortened our trip by a day.

The Coast Guard was boarding boats about 20 miles East of the US coast, they stopped all three boats that left with us, but we somehow managed to slip through the net.

It was real culture shock leaving the slow, friendly, comfortable pace of the Bahamas then coming through the inlet passed, buzzed and waked by every sort of imaginable high speed vessel from huge sportfisherman and bleach jug boats down to center consoles. I was white knuckled.

About two miles out of the inlet we narrowly avoided a serious collision with some fool in a bow rider type cruiser. He wasn't paying attention and came up on us so fast I couldn't maneuver out of his way. He was approaching from our port so we had right of way, though I doubt if he knows, or cares about the rules of the road. I had to give him a blast with our air horn to wake him up and he swerved aft of us at the last possible second, missing us by maybe 10 feet. He hung both our trolled fishing lines. If he had hit us someone would have died, most likely him as Morgan weighs 25,000 pounds and her hull is an inch thick. There is a special place in hell for him, I'm sure.

We spent that night at Peck lake. Amazingly, the boys were too tired to go to the beach and just swam off the boat for a while.

Crossing the Banks

Author: Doug

5/1/09

Great Sale to West End

Had perfect weather for crossing the banks to West End, a 43 mile run. It was sunny, calm and bright which accentuates the air like clarity of this water and allows you to see everything that swims by or lays on the bottom.

Knowing that this was our last day in the "real" Bahamas (West End is a little too much like Disney to be the Bahamas) made this perfect run bittersweet for all of us.

This is not the end, we kept telling each other. We will be back. Soon.

On to Great Sale

4/28/09

Author: Doug

We left Carters early in the am and headed on the short, 15 mile downwind run to Great Sale Cay. While still strong the wind moderated just a bit so it was a really nice run. When we got in the lee of Great Sale it was actually really calm and nice, so we slowed down and trolled hard in this fishy area. Caught a couple Ceros and a couple barracuda.

Dropped the hook in the main anchorage on GS. We have spent a number of nights

here since '07 so we know it well. With our shallow draft we sneak WAY in, and even gain some South-SW protection. Not that we needed it this time, it blew steady from the East and it was perfectly calm in there.

No weather forecasts are available unless you have Sirius or SSB between GTC and West End, we have neither so we rely on other boats to help us out. For this reason and many others we were super glad to see our friend on Mucho Gusto roll in to the anchorage the day after we did.

I was towing the boys in the tube behind the dinghy when they came in. They were all waving to us so we circled the boat (at high speed) to say hello. Picked up their fishing line. Nice move on my part. No harm done though and we pulled Tim, Jess and Jenny in the tube to make up for it. Had drinks and dinner on their cat that night. It was big fun.

Spent three nights at GS waiting for a window to cross the gulf stream. Caught a few bonefish, Bryce hooked, but lost his first bonefish ever.

Spent a lot of time on the beach there. This is where our friends on Happy Hours saw and photographed the strange wild cat in the first pic. They say it was a little larger than a bobcat. Can't figure out what it was. Any ideas?

Bonefish Missle Crisis Anchorage

4/27/09

Author: Doug

Allen's Pensacola to Carter's Cays.

Left Allen's Pensacola and had a two and half hour run to Carter's Cays. Very strong winds again.

Back in Green Turtle the Vienna Sausages told us about a seldom visited cay called Carters. They said the anchorage is well protected and that there is an abandoned missile tracking station there that the boys would love. Even though they get around using "a really great map with lots of colors and numbers and stuff on it" we took their word for it.

We trolled up some barracuda and a bunch of big Cero Mackerel on the way.

The wind howled on our beam as we crossed a very hairy shallow flat to get in to the tiny harbor. The whole way in Jen and I second guessed ourselves for trusting them. But when we finally got in, they were right, it was really calm in there. Other than some unattended commercial lobster boats rotting at their moorings we were the only souls there. In fact it seemed like we were the only people who had been there since the Reagan administration.

We took the dinghy and went exploring and found, you guessed it, a great little beach. At the top of the bluff above the beach were some abandoned military style buildings. I took the opportunity to fill the boys heads with stories about underground missile stations, and told them there were probably people tracking our every step. There was also a freaky little road to nowhere and a huge wrecked satellite looking dish thing. Dr. No lives. We also talked about the Cuban Missile Crisis and why a place like that existed during the 1960s and 1970s. It was a great history lesson, but the whole island still has a weird, spooky vibe.

It blew hard again that night, but the anchors stuck like glue. The next morning I found another bonefish flat (I'm making it sound hard, it was right next to the big boat, I could have swum to it) and went fishing. Almost a carbon copy morning of the day before at Allen's Pensacola. I got three more bones from 7 to 10 lbs. The first pic is taken from the big boat of me wading the flat. My second best all time morning of bonefishing.

Bonefish and Sea Glass

Author: Doug

4/26/09

We left Green Turtle in the morning and covered about three hours to Allen's Pensacola.

Still had very strong winds, they have settled into a pattern of Easterlies around 15 to 20 knots in the morning increasing to about 25 by afternoon. They lay down a little sometime after midnight. The good news is that we are heading west, so the seas are behind us, which is much nicer than having them on the nose like we did on the way here. Also, it has been sunny and nice every day for weeks.

We had a pretty nice run this day, hanging in the shelter of Green Turtle and Mun Jack. The Mun Jack channel was a little rough, but otherwise OK. We learned our anchoring lesson about Allen's Pensacola and took our time finding a really nice sand hole to drop the hook. We also set two anchors right from the start. Though it blew really hard in the night we didn't drag at all.

Took the dinghy back to our little hidden cove, the tide was way out, so the swimming wasn't as good, but we found a lot of nice sea glass and conch shells. I caught a tailing trigger fish on the flats by the beach, but no bonefish. We saw a big boat called "Toi Boat" there, they have tons of room, complete with a little motor cycle on deck.

The next morning I got up early and bonefished yet another flat at Allen's Pensacola. The flat was COVERED with big tailing bones, I saw 500 plus in two hours. I caught and released three near or over double digit fish. It was amazing, the best bonefishing of my life. At one point I had a fish on and a school of maybe 70 other fish swim around my legs. They literally parted and swam around me, without really spooking. Pretty amazing fishing. Jen and the boys got a lot of

schoolwork done, Bryce has been concentrating on spelling and Simon has been working hard on his journal.