Key West or Bust

December 28, 2018 / FloatsOurBoat / 1 Comment

We crammed an awful lot of socializing into one full day in Sarasota: meeting Skirt Sports friends for a run; brunch with Capt. Mike’s cousin; catching up with a college friend, Scott; and happy hour with Pat and Melana of SV Tapati. Scott even spent the night on Sanitas – our first overnight guest!

Then we got serious. It looked like we had a good weather window to cross the Gulf of Mexico in a direct line to Key West. We’d have very light winds during the day, necessitating use of the engine, but winds were expected to increase, allowing us to sail overnight. Planning an average speed over ground of 5 knots, we’d make it in about 35 hours, or before sunset on the second day. So we’d need an early start from Sarasota.

Capt. Mike and I had our first fight of the season (we’re getting a lot of firsts out of the way) The Siesta Key drawbridge bridge is about 1.5 miles from the mooring field and it opens every half hour starting at 7am. We were all packed up and ready to leave at 7am, but Capt. Mike kept putzing around belowdecks; making coffee, looking for a hat, reading Facebook. He said, “We don’t need to leave until 7:15.” Well, The runner in me did the math, and knew that at 5 knots, or a 12-minute mile, we wouldn’t make it to the bridge before it opened. So I pushed for an earlier start, starting the motor, going up on the bow to release the mooring lines, generally nagging. Finally, Capt. Mike got his butt in gear and we were off. After leaving the mooring field and making our way back into the ICW channel, the clock said 7:22 and the drawbridge was not even in sight. Even at full throttle, we couldn’t get there in time, missed the 7:30 opening, and had to make BFC’s until 8:00. Believe me, there were a lot of “I told you so’s” on Sanitas that morning. Then we had strong current against us while trying to make the next bridge, at three miles away, so we missed the next opening as well. So much for our early start.

We exited “The Ditch” (aka the ICW) at Venice Inlet around 10:45 am on Christmas Eve, waving to all the families celebrating the holiday by fishing. Goodbye land! We’re heading out to sea!

The rest of the day was sunny, calm (completely no-wind calm!) and uneventful.

Except, in a sense of deja vu, we learned that when we ran our motor, it wasn’t charging our batteries. Exactly the same problem we had while sailing from St Petersburg to Key West last season! So once again, we had the unpleasant experience of running the generator while motoring, with all the noise and gasoline fumes that entails.

After a truly stunning sunset, Capt. Mike tried to nap in preparation for a long night, and I stayed at the helm.

Around 9:00 I noticed that the wind had changed direction and picked up speed, as predicted. Maybe we could finally sail! I unfurled the jib, and trimmed the sails to the new wind direction on a beam reach, and put the motor in idle. I’m sailing! I’m sailing! With the motor and generator off, we buzzed along between 5 knots and 7 knots for the rest of our trip. Right up until we entered the busy channel and cruise ship port of Key West.

Unfortunately, as we left land further and further behind, and crossed the open water west of the Everglades known as Florida Bay, the seas became much rougher. Waves were only 4 to 6 feet, but they came about three seconds apart, directly on our beam. And the size and direction of the waves was inconsistent or “confused” causing Sanitas to pitch and role instead of settling in of a comfortable heel. Apparently I hadn’t done a very good job of making things ship shape before the passage, because we now had bags, shoes, books, and pillows strewn all over the floor of the cabin. We both had a very hard time getting any rest while not on watch, because the motion was unsettling, and the noises of stress on the boat and waves crashing into the hull kept me jumping up and calling out, “Is everything ok out there?” We kept our PFDs on, and ourselves tethered in the cockpit. And when Capt. Mike decided it was time to reef the mainsail, he came below to get me because we have a rule – no leaving the cockpit at night without the other person watching. Although we don’t plan to ever have a man overboard situation, I’d sure want to know about it if it happened!

We were escorted by a ghostly flock of seagulls all night long. I speculate that our green running light attracted bugs or small fish, and the gulls kept pace with Sanitas diving and calling and eating until they were stuffed. They didn’t give up and leave us until sunrise.

Around noon on Christmas Day, Capt. Mike called out “Land-ho!” Of course it was a Costa Cruise ship at the pier, not actual land, but close enough. It took another three plus hours to make it through the Northwest Channel, around Fleming Key, and into the Garrison Bight mooring field where Chris and Stan of SE of Disorder welcomed us and helped us pick up a ball. About 180 nautical miles, and 32 hours of travel (most of it under sail) and we’d arrived! No fancy Christmas dinner for us, we were happy to nosh on baguettes, brie, and charcuterie, watch Love Actually, and go to bed by 8:30 to make up for a night of no sleep.

We’re Cruisers Again!

December 27, 2018December 27, 2018 / FloatsOurBoat / 4 Comments

When folks asked about our plans for this cruising season, I glibly answered, “Oh, we’ll spend a couple of months in the yard, but we’ll be cruising by Thanksgiving.” Even as I said it, I didn’t really believe it. Sure enough, Christmas somehow snuck up on us before we finally finished our projects, completed provisioning, and finally felt ready to untie the lines and head south.

This year, we had a flurry of friends seeing us off! Our friend Pat, from Siesta Key, joined us for the trip from St Petersburg to Sarasota. He and his family have been real supporters of our adventure. I think he finally understands what sailboat cruising is really like: it took an hour from him to drive to St Petersburg early on December 22nd, and it took us seven hours to bring him home by boat!

The trip down the ICW was fairly uneventful, until we were circling to wait for the next draw bridge opening. I was at the helm, and Capt. Mike was below decks getting a snack. He called up, “You doing ok?” And I said “Sure!” And then the depth reading went from 9 feet to 8 feet to SHALLOW WATER ALARM!!! And our boat speed went to zero. Darn it! Tried a quick burst of reverse to no avail. Mike had already heard the alarms and leapt into the cockpit. Now he loosened the mainsheet and swung the boom way out over the port side and called out to Pat for help. “Come on Pat! We’ve gotta hang our fat butts off the side!” With that strategic distribution of weight, Sanitas tipped over just enough that I could rev the engine, jam it into forward, and turn us sharply to starboard into deeper water. Hooray! We were moving again, and still had barely enough time to make it to the bridge for the next opening. (Ironically, we had just passed another sailboat aground just a quarter mile back. The drifting sand and shoaling in this part of the ICW is pretty tricky! Apparently you really need to be in the center of the channel!)

It was also a bit tricky timing our passage under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Three cargo ships were passing through at about the same time, and they are gigantic! If it came down to a game of chicken with a cargo ship, Sanitas will lose every time. Discretion is the better part of valor, so we slowed down by tacking upwind and let them go right on ahead.

Lots of traffic at the Cortez bridge on a sunny (but cold!) Saturday morning!

After picking up a ball at Marina Jack’s, we celebrated our first day back on the water with cocktails at Louies Modern.

Thanks for keeping us company, Pat! Come back and sail with us again any time!

A little drama in the marina

December 10, 2018 / FloatsOurBoat / Leave a comment

I know. For the past month, all of my posts have been drudgery. Boat projects, hard work, blood-sweat-and-epoxy. But we had a little bit of excitement yesterday. No great photos, but that’s how you can tell things were exciting – if you don’t have time to take pictures, it must be a good story.

I was on the top deck of Sanitas, working on my latest teak refinishing project. And I heard a bit of yelling across the way at the St Petersburg Yacht Club fuel dock. I checked it out, but decided to mind my own business. Couples yell at each other while docking at the fuel dock all the time. None of my business, right? So I put my headphones back on, and cranked up the volume on This American Life, and got back to work. (Totally worth it! Look at that newly refinished hand rail!)

Oblivious to my surroundings, I heard much louder shouting. RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! I leapt to my feet, ripped the headphones off and dropped them on the deck, because a sailboat was about four feet from Sanitas’s bow and blowing right into me sideways. I jumped up the the bow pulpit and assumed the position to fend off this massive amount of inertia. And screamed “Mike! Get up here!”

Folks who normally live in a slip about four boats down were apparently moving to a new slip across the marina. Some of the boats that live here are in, harrumph, less than perfect working order. This one didn’t have a functional motor and was trying to move out of one slip, across the harbor, and into the new slip. Completely under sail. For those of you who aren’t sailors, this is not an easy maneuver! Especially since this couple might not have left their slip since they bought the boat.

When Capt Mike made it above decks, the couple asked for a tow over to their new slip. My first thought was “Bug? The smallest dinghy in the marina, with the smallest 5-horse power motor? Tow this big fat boat?” But Capt Mike went into superhero mode. He leapt into the dinghy, released the painter, and went to the rescue. Now it wasn’t a perfect rescue attempt. For the first ten minutes, Capt Mike and Bug made a valiant effort to tow the sailboat from the front. It was not a success. There was quite a lot of random drifting and close calls with all of the very expensive boats docked at the Yacht Club. Then Allen, a salty old guy why also lives on the dock, wandered over to watch the show and started giving me advice. “He shouldn’t be pulling the sailboat. He should be pushing from the stern.” So I repeated it all, just a little bit louder. “Hey Mike! Stop pulling. Push from the stern!” Allen knows his stuff.

So he tried it, and Bug saved the day! Lashed to the stern of the sailboat, her little outboard motor provided plenty of forward momentum. The woman who owned the boat could steer from the helm. And they putted their way across the marina to their new home. Did they shower Capt. Mike with thanks and gratitude, and maybe a spray of champagne? No. They did not. But he had the satisfaction of being a Good Samaritan. And Bug has a new friend who comes visit her at sunrise- a gorgeous grey sand crane.

We’re committed to the nomadic life now!

December 10, 2018 / FloatsOurBoat / 1 Comment

On Thursday, we sold my car. Talk about a bittersweet moment. I’ve owned this cute little VW convertible since 2010, and it’s taken us on many adventures; including moving all of our belongings to Florida, and two more cross country road trips this past summer! More importantly, it’s given us the freedom to do whatever we wanted while living here in St Petersburg. Early morning trips to the YMCA? No problem. An afternoon of errands and massive provisions runs to Sam’s Club, West Marine, Home Depot, and Trader Joe’s? Piece of cake. Invitation to spend time with friends in Siesta Key an hour’s drive away? Don’t mind if I do.

Last year, we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to store the VW at Drew and Sharon’s house here in St Pete, knowing we planned to return after the cruising season. This year, our plans are less firm. We want to have the freedom to continue cruising, without having to make the long trek back to Tampa Bay. So it’s time to cut the cord and truly become cruising nomads.

We put it off as long as we possibly could, and until every hold of the boat was FULL of provisions. Then we began the Craig’s List and Facebook Marketplace dance. Is this a real person or a robot? Will he actually show up for our meeting? Will he offer me some kind of ridiculous low ball price? After several “interesting” showings, we connected with Maggie of Das Auto Haus in Clearwater who offered us less than we asked, but more than the VW dealer, and we had ourselves a deal. Goodbye trusty Volkswagen! Thanks for everything!

Yesterday, I did my first round of errands as a walking person. Grocery store, post office: it really makes you think if you need BOTH almond milk and bottled water at the same time – heavy!

I live on a Sailboat…. Again

November 16, 2018 / FloatsOurBoat / 6 Comments

It’s been a week since SV Sanitas splashed into the water of Tampa Bay after her summer vacation in the boat yard, and I guess I can finally say we’ve moved back aboard. We’ve slept in our tiny V-berth, cooked some simple one-pot meals in the galley, and unpacked box after box after box. At first, I couldn’t figure out why it takes so long to unpack such a small boat, but I think I figured it out – there’s no basement you can stash a pile of boxes in and forget about them for months. Or even years!

The past week has been a reminder that everything takes longer than anticipated when you’re living on a boat. We were scheduled to put Sanitas in the water at 9am last Thursday…. which turned into the last thing before the yard closed at 5:00. So all the things we planned to do in the water (inspect the mainsail, load new and very heavy house batteries, check all the engine systems) moved to Friday morning. Eventually, we got those tasks done and motored the 3 miles from Salt Creek to the St Pete Municipal Marina Friday afternoon and tied up to the transient wall. Since we are staying for a month and because we have a very low freeboard, we’d requested a slip instead of the wall, but no one in the marina office could find the request until sunset. Then we were told come back tomorrow, and we’ll move you into your slip on the West Dock. So instead of having 3 days of overlap between the marina and our apartment to give us plenty of time to move in, we did it all on Saturday: moved everything we’d been living with for the past two months from the apartment to the boat, then moved everything from the storage unit we rented for the summer onto the boat. That’s a lot of stuff! Did it grow and breed over the summer? Suffice it to say, there wasn’t an inch of room to move on little Sanitas.

As Capt. Mike was hiding things away in the storage hold under the bed, I heard him shout, “We have a problem! We have a problem! The hold is filling up with water!” Now I interpreted that as we are sinking, and starting trying to remember where the wooden plugs and the waterproof repair tape got stashed. But luckily (?) it just meant that the hose to the forward water tank was leaking and 45 gallons of water were flooding the place where we had just placed our belongings. I turned on all the taps to take some of the pressure off the hose, unloaded everything back into the cockpit where it had started the day, and we dealt with the mess. Eventually, the tank ran dry, we bailed it out, set up fans, spread out our soggy belongings….. and got a cheap hotel room for the night.

Stuff floating in the “under the bed” storage hold…

Capt. Mike actually fit in the hold while repairing the hose. If you ever wonder where we hide the dead bodies….

Installing protection around the hose fitting, so we don’t do THAT again!

Sunday went much better! We put our bed back together so that sleeping aboard was possible, set up the composting head, and did some more unpacking. Then we rewarded ourselves a day of rest – a visit to Pat and Darby in Siesta Key, and walking over to Vinoy Park to see the Barenaked Ladies in concert at Rib Fest.

Since then we’ve been continuing to unpack and get settled. We’ve given Sanitas a good bath after the boatyard. (Do you think they call it the poop deck because so many birds poop on it?) And we finally put the jib and staysail back up. We took them down so Keith at Advanced Sails could inspect them and do some minor repairs, and to have as little canvass as possible up during hurricane season. While we were at it, we replaced the sheets on those sails with nice shiny, clean, and snag-free ones.

We’ve also done lots of minor projects that don’t sound like much, but will hopefully improve our comfort and happiness in the months to follow. Such as installing lights in the cupboards and head, installing a small shelf in the bilge to keep our stores on canned food above the water, fixing that darn forward water tank hose and installing protection around the fitting, repairing latches on doors, fixing the squeaky companionway stairs, repairing the brass wall clock….You get the idea. In the process, we’ve made many trips to the dumpster, recycling, and Goodwill; made a bit trickier by the fact that our new parking space is about an eight-minute walk away. I hesitate to post pictures yet, because we aren’t yet organized and ready for prime time. Oh, ok. Since you insist. Here’s what living aboard looks like one week later: