We're starting. Stop at fuel dock then out, along with S/V Contentment, when we can, doing radio checks and keeping track of each other. They have a longer waterline, so we will probably be slower, but we are starting earlier, so perhaps it will work out!
We'll be thinking of all of you as we go. Probably no Verizon service, so no updates until we arrive. Love and laughter to all.
(updated 11/10/2011) OK, here are the images and the trip account:
We used NOAA marine forecasts and www.stormsurf.com and Weather Underground to get a consensus view of what the weather would be on our passage. We started out from Apalachicola with the following forecast: TUES: NE winds 10-15 kts, inland waters choppy, seas 3-5' but decreasing to NNE 5 by afternoon, inland waters light chop to calm and seas decreasing to 1-2' overnight. Farther south, NE 10 decreasing to N 5 Wednesday morning into Wednesday afternoon (that part down in the Tampa Bay area), seas 1-2'. This sounded great, we would wait until just before noon to go and catch the calming conditions and the north-veering winds. Apart from a little motoring at the end to get into the twisty little passages behind the barrier islands, we'd be set. We have two 40-gallon diesel tanks and we burn between 0.6 (port) and 0.7 (stbd) gal/hr, so we were all covered for this trip, even if the wind died early or stayed too far east and we had to do a lot of motoring... so it seemed :-)
That morning, the watermen were up earlier than we were:
The "calm" was supposed to move south with us, and faster than us. We were just ahead of Contentment as we cast off and headed to the commercial fuel dock (Miller Marine in Apalachicola right by the bridge: a Chevron sign), which had good prices ($3.72/gal for marine diesel). Most marinas are over $4/gal, some well over.
Contentment filled their tank and we filled both of ours and a small jerry can (5 gal), and headed out the channel across the bay to Government Cut. Contentment had warned us to line up carefully for that channel, and by that time they were leading, we were following their wake, and we were both lined up well with the channel markers. Beware...
we saw Contentment just ahead of us slew hard to starboard and stop briefly, so we edged to starboard of where they had been, and even so, we bumped sand with a 3' depth before getting past it. So if you go that way, shade it well to starboard! Aprrox 3' patch comes in from the east (left, if outbound) at 29 37.25' N and 084 57.768 W -- this is inside the line demarked by the red buoys. Between the hard riprap, there was no such problem (out at the seaward entrance to the cut).
Once outside, we found it rougher than we'd hoped,
and the wind was not as far north and stronger than we'd expected, but we continued, knowing the forecasts. We wanted to sail, and Clearwater was very close to "on the nose," so we set a waypoint for Anna Maria Island (somewhere near there was where we were going, anyway) and started on 138T. Thus we began to diverge from Contentment, who were headed for Clearwater. At least we could do some radio and progress checks during the first part of the trip.
We put the jib up and were able to get some help from it, but we still had to motorsail to stay within the weather window. There was some moderation of the wind/seas in the evening. Grant ate and passed around some candied ginger and no one was seasick, although he felt a little nauseated (possibly by an attempt to play a computer game in the cabin with the boat whoomphing over the waves!).
The helmsman was taking spray in the face on occasion earlier in the day, but not so much as evening came on.
S/V Contentment made a last call, telling us they had seen the Green Flash (we, farther to the west and north by that time, hadn't), and that was the last we heard of them: a radio check at midnight did not raise them. With their longer waterline, I'm sure they made faster time toward Clearwater.
We had been relieved to see the winds falling a bit even though they hadn't gone farther north. But in the twilight they started to build again, and the seas as well, which made steering annoying.
Now for the sad part: when we calibrated the autopilot back in July, it was without stowed provisions. Apparently the stowed provisions changed the shape of the local magnetic field detected by the autopilot's compass, and even though we removed any metallic provisions from within 24" of same, our autopilot has to be recalibrated before we can use it. It was rough enough that we could not do that on the voyage, so we were stuck with hand-steering. For a single overnight, watch and watch, that's not too bad (do-able anyway).
Moonrise came: we were to have a wonderful nearly-full moon to light our way!
In the gathering twilight, two shearwaters flew close beside us; seems they were tiring of the winds as well, for at least one of them settled on the deck close by the portside windscreen, and slept. The other we could not see, and the one was leery enough of humans that he flew off when I tried to take a picture, returning when I went back to minding my own business. Finally in the predawn light he flew off to find his friends...
Dawn came:
We were pretty sleepy by then, but it was getting easier to hold our point -- the wind was finally going north and even moderating! We sailed for a while: here's Grant at the helm, making a fist of victory for his helming:
The problem came when the wind really died down and we started the engines again: first the starboard engine surged and died, then a few minutes later the port engine surged and died. Eek! We need those thangs to get back into the twisty little channels behind the barrier islands! Derek bled the fuel lines, he tightened the alternator belt on the port engine, he drained some accumulated goop out of the filter bowls on the primary filters, but the engines would come back only to sputter and die again.
Fortunately, we purchased the "unlimited tow" package with out Boat US membership at West Marine this year. $149 well-spent: we called TowBoatUS and they came out to tow us into the twisty little channels...
Much faster and better than trying to sail her in in N less than 5 kts, or using the dinghy as a tugoat (both of which we considered before we said, "Gee, we've paid for this, why not use it?!"). So the TowBoatUS captain towed us in under the bridge (nice new opening bridge at John's Pass) and right to the fuel dock:
Derek got to work on those fuel filters (he was suspicious, even though it was weird that BOTH could go within minutes of each other! Still... here was one of the primary fuel filters' bowls:
The other looked similar. The filters are supposed to look like this (see the clean white ruffles of filter paper inside?):
The starboard filter looked like this (see the non-clean ruffles of clogged filter paper?):
And the port filter looked like this:
Ahhh, much better: clean filters! Clean deck, too:
Notice the apartments in the background? That's all built on fill. There's a cute little park for the kids:
See that seawall? Although we were in a protected spot, we caught reflected wakes from everything going through the bridge! Ahhh, life at the dock...