Monday, 20 April
It is a warm, moderately windy day, following a cold front moving through the Pensacola Pass area. We have decided to hold off until 1600 for our maiden voyage to Port Saint Joe, FL. Winds are forecasted to be 13-18 from the SW, pretty much ideal for an ESE course from Pensacola to Port St. Joe. By midnight, the winds were forecasted to drop to 10-15 from the West, then by 0400, winds North at 5-10.
So, first easy motor sail to the Pensacola Pass, accompanied by S/V Shaman (Don & Lisa Williams) escorting us to the pass. We get to the Pass and at first conditions seem normal, until Virginia notes that there are “Really BIG waves in the Pass!” Our additional crewmember, David Scruggs, Jr, says, “Eh, they look pretty normal!” I say, “Ah, nothing we can’t handle!” Little did we know, Virginia was much more accurate than we were. Without much warning, we are in 8-10’ swells, with a dwell time of approximately 1.5 seconds. We no sooner crested one wave and we are burying the bow 8-10’ into the next swell, only to repeat…again and again! Unlucky for us not to have foreseen this, as S/V At Last has two “sit-in” 12’ Kayaks mounted on brackets outside the lifelines…okay for in-water cruising, not wise for offshore! First swell okay, second swell, strips skirt from Port-side kayak, third swell, fills kayak full of water; fourth swell, slams kayak down on brackets bending forward bracket outward; fifth swell slams kayak down breaking bracket leaving kayak nose in the water; sixth swell turns kayak into water anchor and slamming against hull of boat, CUT IT FREE, CUT IT FREE! Our amazing crew, David Scruggs, did just that – super sharp knife, ive seriously got to sharpen all of our rigging knives! One kayak down in the Pensacola Pass! Sorry, Ron Bray, but both brackets were toast!
Sounds like a bad start right?!? Ha, ha, joke was still on us and I may never trust another off-shore forecast in my life! We never saw 13-18 Kt winds, much less that beautiful 5-10. We never saw 2-4’ swells with six second dwell time. Reality, 24 hours of 20-22 Kts gusting to near 30 Kts, seas confused as wind shifted from SW to NE in approx 15 minutes (winds didn’t even pause for 30 seconds)! We ended up pulling a “Chicken Tack”, even with a double reefed main and 50% Ginny! The rest of the trip was predominate swell from the west, gradually turning to predominate swells from the north, i.e. confused seas and at least 6-8’ with a dwell time of roughly 3 seconds. Thanks be to the weather/sea Gods and the Lord Almighty, we finally made it into Port St. Joe, After 14 hours of non-stop Helm work, I still couldn’t walk a straight line the next day when we departed for our second leg to Dog Island in Apalachicola Bay!