A Long Day, a Dance at the Dock and We’re Sitting Pretty
21 January 2016 | Platinum Point Yacht Club, Burnt Store Marina, Charlotte Harbor Florida
Jill
Fellow TYC members (well we were members, before we left Wilson) Bob and Myrna were at the get together Bud and I attended in December. Bob told us that we’d be welcome to come stay at a slip where they live. As a member he could get us one night free. Well, there’s nothing cruisers like better than old boating friends and free docks! So when we left Palmetto our plans included a stop at Bob and Myna’s at Burnt Store Marina. (That’s a bit confusing, because the community seems to be called Burnt Store Marina, and there’s a nice marina there called Burnt Store Marina, but the free dock is offered to members of Platinum Point Yacht Club, which is in the same basin as the marina.)
We figured it was about 55 miles from where we were in Sarasota, so we were up pretty early. The bad thing about being on a mooring ball is that we had use the dinghy to take Matey in to walk in the morning. We left the boat in the dark at 6 AM. We were back aboard and had the dinghy secure in the davits and everything ready to go by 6:50, but it was still too dark. We left just after 7. The good thing about being on a mooring ball is that it takes about a minute to pull the lines in and release the ball and take off.
It was a long day. The wind was (of course) on the nose, so no sailing. We stayed in the GIWW (Gulf Coast Intracoastal Waterway, which I think should be GCIW – but I see everywhere as the GIWW) and had to negotiate 10 opening bridges. Half of them were restricted, which means they will only open on a schedule, either 2 or three times an hour. So that means speeding up or slowing down to time your arrival to minimize the time you have to spend trying to keep the boat in the channel in more or less (mostly less) one spot waiting until the time arrives and the operator will open the bridge. This is especially difficult if the current is with you, so when you try to go very slow it pushes you along towards the bridge. Bud does all the helms work at the bridges. I am constantly checking position and computing times and speeds. We also had one bridge that was supposed to open on request that had to make us wait as an emergency vehicle had crossed out to the island. Happily it was only a few minutes until the operator told us he was clear to open. That was a narrow bit of channel and hard to hold in.
Bob and Myrna were not going to be able to meet us as they had a previous engagement, so Bob gave me pretty detailed instructions on finding the correct slip. I also looked on our chart and looked at a satellite view. Still, things are always a bit different when you confront them. We found the slips all right, but one looked too narrow and the next one looked like the dock would be too short. We tried the one with the short dock. A nice bystander grabbed our bow lines, I was actually able to get a line around a piling as we came in to the slip and it looked like we might pull this off. We needed to pull the bow over closer to the dock, as we’d have to climb off quite far to the front. Bud had told the nice man we were all set, but we weren’t quite, and I had to climb over the bow pulpit and onto a short piling to get down to the dock and adjust the lines. We found we had to have the boat way off on a diagonal in the slip to get the bow anywhere near where we could get off and on.
Bud looked at the narrow slip with the longer dock and decided he could get the boat in there and it would be better. So we untied one bow line. We retied the second bow line so I could release it from on deck, then Bud helped me climb up from the dock to the foredeck again. Bud started the engine and undid the stern lines. I released the spring line (line to the side of the boat0 and the bow line and fended off while Bud backed out of the slip. As he lined up for the new slip I re-led one of the stern lines. Bud came in the narrow slip as nice as you please. I lassoed the piling, put a spring line to the dock and then went forward to get a bow line. There was a bit of fun then, as the bow line I needed to tie first was on the far side from the deck. I could not quite reach it, but felt I didn’t have time to go get a boat hook, so I leaned all my weight on the bow with my feet on the dock. Had the boat moved back at all that could have been a funny story several days after I dried out and quit swearing. But I got the line, we got everything secured, Matey and I surveyed our new spot and now we are sitting pretty right in front of the lovely Platinum Point Yacht Club. Oh, and we can step right off the boat through the gate in our lifelines and onto the dock. Lovely.