High Speed, Long Distance Run

If you consider 6 knots or 44 nautical miles to be high speed or long distance.

After yesterday’s great cruise, I checked into St. Andrew’s Marina. It is a municipal marina and the services were great. The people were really nice, too. It's inexpensive and they give a $0.10 per gallon discount to US Boat members. Yeah, it was only 70 cents. But, I plan on burning about 5,000 gallons.

I met a whole bunch of really nice people there. Bill and Deb showed me their houseboat. Then, Bill took me in his car to do some grocery shopping and get some necessary electric conversion plugs.

Had a great night’s sleep. Up and out early for my HS/LD run. I filled up with diesel and headed out. My destination was Wimico Lake. I plotted two alternate destinations, just in case. I throttled up to nearly full power and my GPS told me it would be about 6 hours to arrival. I’m learning that I need to add about an hour to the estimate. There is the wind variable, the current variable, and a couple of “no wake zones” (you have to slow to a crawl due to docked boats or erosion prevention).

En route, I checked my alternate destinations. They were both viable, but I wanted the miles. There were so few other boats to be seen. I’m just amazed at how little traffic there is in this part of the intra-coastal. I arrived on the lake and set my anchor. It was a little choppy, but not bad.

I made some dinner, filled out my log books, plotted my next course, and hit the bed early. Looks like another long day tomorrow.

Through the Cut

Apparently there are a couple of names for the 15 miles or so of the intra-coastal waterway that connect Choctawhatchee Bay to West Bay. I've also heard "The Grand Canyon" and "The Ditch". Regardless of what it is called, it was beautiful.

Traveler Through The Cut

So, Butler Cove this morning was a completely different place from Butler Cove last night. The wind was coming from one direction and the waves were coming from a different direction. I spent a lot of the night rocking and rolling on the waves. I got some sleep and it seemed to start to settle down around 4a. I got up to see if the anchor was holding and it was!
This morning, with no wind, it was flat calm water all the way through the ditch and across most of West Bay. It was a great cruising day. I found my way to St. Andrews Marina in Panama City. Nice place. Much less expensive than Baytowne and they even have floating docks. Should be a snug, comfortable night.

South side of The Cut

A Little Good, A Little Bad

After a couple of days of high winds, I was finally able to get back out on the loop. So, it was a pretty good day for travel, but not much of a day for other things. I was having my morning coffee when I decided to check my email and Facebook. Couldn’t do either. It seems my mouse died. Reboot, reset, swap batteries, nuthin’. I got to take my first Uber ride. Nice driver. Ten minutes to Walmart and ten minutes back. Quick test of the mouse and all is well. But, now it’s later than I wanted it to be. I wanted a bit of an earlier start.

I went to the dock master’s office to pay the bill. Wow, just wow. It was about twice what I expected. I’ve just about spent the month’s budget for docking fees in one place. Oh, well.

One of the dock workers offered to help me untie and shove off. The wind was still blowing me toward the dock. After two attempts, I got off the dock, but I sliced a two inch gash in my dinghy. Not sure if it’s going to be reparable. I’ve got a kit, but I think I might try to get professional advice.

I snubbed the dinghy up close to the stern of my boat and figured on towing it slowly. I pulled around the marina to the fuel docks and got a load of diesel and had the holding tank pumped out. Finally, back to moving again. I had plotted a course to Butler’s Cove.

It was a slow tow and the water was pretty rough. After so many days of high winds, I suspect that it will take a while to settle back down. Eventually, I got to Butler Cove. It was supposed to be a quiet sheltered cove. But, I’m bobbing around like a Champagne cork in a frat party swimming pool.

Anyway, I got the anchor out and it seems to be holding well. I decided to look at the dinghy. I thought that the gash was high enough on the tube that water wouldn’t be a problem. Wrong! I had a hell of a time pulling the dinghy on-board.  It took all my strength and about an hour of hard work to get in the boat. It was like wrestling a dead walrus. But, it’s on the boat until I can get it looked at. On the plus side, I can increase my speed a bit. I was planning on cruising for two days to get to Panama City. I may be able to make it in one shot.

Night of the Howling Wind

The forecast for high winds came true. I went to bed last night at about 11p. I don't think I was in bed more than about 10 minutes when the wind shifted and increased in velocity. I had been tied up to the lee side of the dock, but with the wind shift, I was being hammered into the dock. I thought that I might alleviate the situation by removing all of the side curtains. They seemed to be acting like sails. It didn't help.
I started pushing the boat away from the dock with my arms and after about half an hour or 45 minutes, my arms were screaming. A dock hand came by and I asked him for help. He said he only had a minute because another boat had snapped several of its lines and was at risk. He pushed the boat away from the dock while I jumped up on the dock. I started fending the boat off the dock with my legs. He said he'd be back as soon as he could. For the next 2 hours I kept the boat from hammering against the dock. When the dockhand came back, he was carrying a large, round, orange fender. He positioned it at the bow of the boat. The wind continued, unabated. But now the boat was squishing a ball instead of beating itself to death on the dock.
I got back to bed around 2:30a. I am ever grateful for the help of a guy whose name I don't know. I slept, fitfully, until about 8:30a. And the wind is still blowing. My arms, legs, and back really hurt. Good thing Gina, my P/A, gave me a prescription for a bottle full of 600mg ibuprofen.
Looks like I'll be here another night, possibly 2, as the forecast is for continued high winds.

Slow Progress

I did spend a peaceful night in Little Sabine Bay. Slept fairly well and got up around 7a. I had coffee and some breakfast. I did my engine checks and the engine started right up. I'm still worried about my batteries after all the initial problems I had with them. I still don't know what their limit is, so I'll just try to be real disciplined about electric use while at anchor.

First minutes underway. Photo courtesy of Amy Batton

I set a course for Fort Walton Beach. It took me nearly six hours to get there. It was a great cruise, though. I ran the length of Santa Rosa Sound. It was early afternoon when I reached the municipal marina in FWB. Nice docks, but no amenities. I tossed my lines to a woman sitting on the dock. She was nice enough to assist me with tying in. After I got everything shut down, I walked into town. I treated myself to a nice Mexican dinner at Sotol Tequila & Mezcal. I had a quesadilla with carnitas and refritos. Great food! After dinner, I walked over to a Publix and bought some groceries. Got back to the boat and settled in for the night.
I got up on the morning of the 3rd and spoke to one of the dock hands. He told me that there were severe storms in the forecast. I decided to spend the day tied up at the marina. I don't feel like risking bad weather. I spent the day reading. I also learned a ton more about my Garmin GPSMap and Radar. Using the GPSMap almost feels like cheating. Plot the course, follow it, done!
Got up on the 4th to a calm but cloudy day. The water at the marina was like glass. After breakfast, I used my dock lines to pull myself our of the pier and get the boat pointed in the right direction. That worked so well, I'll do that again. Backing up is difficult with a single engine boat and the whole operation is complicated by the fact that I've got a dinghy behind me.
I had charted a course for Baytowne Marina near Miramar, Florida. It was just a short hop, but I needed the amenities, shower, laundry, shopping, etc.
So, that brings me to today and tomorrow. Today, there were more severe thunderstorms in the forecast. I decided to stay. Got some laundry done. Got some reading done. Scraped some barnacles off of the port side of the boat. Looks like tomorrow will be mostly the same pastimes. No thunderstorms, just high winds with gusts above 40 mph. I hate to lose another cruising day, but better safe than sorry.
It's really funny sitting here tied up to the dock in Baytown. People can't see that I'm sitting here when the canvas is in place. Most of the comments are really nice. The most common is, "Isn't that a cute little boat." One comment on the dinghy's outboard today was, "Looks like a weed-whacker with a propeller."

Day 1

...is, as they say, in the books.
I flew back to Pensacola on Tuesday. My friend, Kasia, picked me up at the airport and, after a quick dinner, delivered me back to the boat.
I spent Wednesday trying to do all the things I thought needed to be done. I spent Thursday, in the pouring rain, buying all the tools and materials I needed to complete all the work. Another expensive day!
So, I spent all day Friday working. I replaced the joker valve (don't ask). I finished changing the oil. I modified the engine's water pump. I painted registration numbers on the dinghy. I programmed the VHF radio with its MMSI. As required by the FCC. I hung my spare anchor on the bow rail. I emptied all the accumulated trash. And, when it was all done, I showered and took myself out to dinner. Got back to the boat and crashed... hard.
I got up this morning and took my time getting ready. I checked out of the marina. I made another trash run. I got the decks and the cockpit cleared and tied down. With lots of help from the neighbors and a gentleman who had just checked into the park, I got the dinghy hooked to the back of the boat. We cleared the lines and I cast off.
I backed into the channel and loosened the dinghy so that it would tow properly, tooted the horn, and throttled up to about 75% power. Cruising!
Based on the advice of my friend, and neighbor, Amy, I headed for Little Sabine Bay. I had programmed the route into my GPS Map. I just followed it along and after about 4 hours of cruising, here I am. Calm waters, a little breeze, and friendly neighbors. Two guys just approached the boat in a dinghy and asked me about my boat and what I'm doing. They thought it was a great little boat, that's why they decided to pop over. We chatted for a minute and they left. They are on a sailboat celebrating one of the wives' birthdays.
I just called my kids to let them know of my first success. And here I am. Hoping for a peaceful night and another cruise tomorrow.

Phase 3: Complete

I successfully dragged the trailer home! I was pretty worried the whole time I was on the road.  I almost got stuck in a motel parking lot. A little extra gas got the trailer to jump the curb. The lane was really narrow. I've never towed anything that big or that heavy before, but my little CR-V rose to the task. Even making it the last two miles to the house in the middle of a snow storm (with lots of thanks to my neighbor, Doug). 
I'm home for about 2 weeks. Getting my taxes done tomorrow (3/20/2017). That's always fun. I've got several doctors appointments to attend to. But, the boat is never far from my mind. While I'm here, the same guy that installed the GPS antenna and the auxiliary bilge pump will be installing a Garmin radar set and a board on which I can mount my little outboard motor. I want to mount the outboard on the big boat so that I won't have to tow the dinghy with the motor clamped on.
I've been trying to get this update posted since yesterday. But, I keep getting interrupted. This last interruption was good news. The radar is on-board as is the motor mount for my little outboard. Progress!

On left: Radome on mast  Center: Outboard on swim rails  Right Outboard from above

Click for bigger pictures.

I'm still on schedule to fly to Pensacola on Tuesday (3/28/2017).