Some notes on our trip so far.

When we left Mobile Alabama it was cold for the time of year. That had been our experience the entire time we were in Mobile. We titled our trip leg to Panama City the "Freeze your buns off sail". The route down the Mobile ship channel was very easy. We only encountered two ships the entire 25 miles. When we sailed in Galveston Bay the ship traffic was much heavier. Once we reached Dauphin Island and the entrance to Mobile Bay we saw a whole bunch of oil platforms. They are not marked on the charts but stick out and are easily avoided. A person we met in Mobile that had left before us called to tell us about them and said you would have to be a moron to run into them, even at night. We had some dolphin visits in the bay. It seems like they are coming up next to the boat to look at the people. They are as interested in us as we are them.

On the course to Panama City we sailed mostly at night. The sky was as clear as can be and we could see stars all the way down to the horizon. They were so bright that you had to keep looking at them to make sure it wasn't another boat or ship. We were traveling from about 10-25 miles off the coast. Most of the way we could see lights on shore from the radio towers. When we passed Pensacola we could clearly see the Pensacola light flashing. In the morning as we approached Panama City we could see the highrise condos from about 16 miles out. They look so close but it still took another 3 hours for us to get there. The pass into Panama City was an easy one to transit, well marked with plenty of depth. The Panama City marina was very easy to get into. The restrooms and showers were very clean, it was upscale compared to the bathroom and showers at Turner Marine in Mobile.

On the trip leg to Clearwater the winds were mostly behind us and the seas were making the boat roll from side to side. No one got sick or even a little queasy but you had to plan your moves between the rolling. The first night out I was on watch from midnight to 4 AM. I was watching a couple of fishing boats off the port side to keep track of where they were going. I looked forward and there was a bright yellow light right in from of the bow. My heart really started to race, in other words it scared the crap out of me. there are huge yellow weather buoys out there and I knew there was one on our route. I looked through the binoculars but still couldn't make out what it was and it was getting bigger. I turned off the auto pilot and started taking evasive action. That's when I realized it was the moon cresting. I just sat there and laughed, what a relief. The next night I checked the Garmin to see when the moon rose and when it came up I was happy to see it.

We could see the lights from Clearwater from about 25 miles off. Sandy said she kept seeing this huge string of lights but could not figure out what it was. It turned out to be the Clearwater Causeway bridge. We were headed right for it which was a good thing because we had to go under it to get to the Clearwater marina. The Clearwater inlet was also very easy to enter and has a well marked channel all the way to the marina. We were in Clearwater for a week and walked around to see the sights. The beach was beautiful and crowded with spring breakers. Dale especially liked the hard bodies. Can't say that I minded them either! We ate the local grouper catch at a seafood restaurant right on the beach. The weekend after David arrived there was a huge beach volleyball tournament going on. There were at least 100 volleyball nets set up. The prize money for first place was $5000.

One the way to Marathon the wind was also from behind but we were able to sail 95% of the way. The boat motion was very rolly at some points. We had many more dolphin visits on this leg. We traveled from 15-20 miles offshore. There are lots of shoaling down around Marco Island and Cape Sable and we wanted to be sure and miss that tour. We crossed Florida Bay at night and had to be right on our navigation course to miss several shoaling area that come to within 2 feet of the surface. The wind wasn't giving us much speed if we kept on our course so we motored for about 7 hours. When daylight arrived it was raining but the visibility was still good so we didn't have any problem picking out the buoys. If it wasn't for the rope in the prop incident it would have been a good, but rolly, passage.

We spent a couple of nights on the sea wall at the Marathon City marina. David was supposed to leave on Friday the 19th but his father went into the hospital with heart problems on Thursday morning. He was able to change he flight arrangements and fly out that afternoon. Dale had to catch a shuttle to the Miami airport at 3:30 AM on Friday morning for a 7:00 AM flight.

We moved off the seawall and onto a mooring buoy Friday around noon. We are pretty close to the dinghy dock so it isn't a long dinghy ride. Some of the boats on moorings are up to a half mile away. We will be relaxing and exploring here for at least a month. We have to be north of Morehead City, NC by June 30th to satisfy our insurance requirements of being out of the hurricane zone during hurricane season.

Passage to Marathon in the Florida Keys

We left Clearwater on Monday the 15th around 11 AM and headed south to Marathon. It is located on Vaca Key in the middle keys. The winds were around 15-20 knots and the seas running 5-7 feet. The wind was from astern and we were rockin and rollin. The total trip time was 50 hours and we covered 243 nautical miles. We had good winds most of the way ranging from 10-20 knots. There were dolphins all along the route that breached next to the boat and played in the bow wave. There was an especially large pod when we were about 16 miles west of Marco Island that stayed with us for over an hour.

We crossed Florida Bay at night. The depths ranged from 7-30 feet and there are shoals everywhere one you get close to the Keys. The Garmin chartplotter and radar worked great showing us the way and allowing us to see fishing vessels and buoys at night. The auto pilot, with the new fluxgate compass, steered most of the way.

We were about to celebrate our passage just outside the entrance to Boot Key harbor, where Marathon is located, when our prop got fouled with a huge wad of poly line. It was probably from a crab pot that wasn't marked with a buoy. The engine died almost right away. We new something was in the prop from a prior experience with a line getting wrapped around the prop. We dropped the anchor right away. I donned my wet suit and snorkeling gear and went in for a look. That is when I first saw the wrapped prop. I had my dive knife with me and began the task of cutting it loose. That took me about 10 or so dives down to it. Once I was back aboard we raised anchor and entered the harbor where we are now tied up to the sea wall waiting for a mooring to become available.

Dale and David were great to have onboard and a big help in handling the boat. Going for 50 hours with 4 crew was tiring enough. With only two it would be tough. A lot of people do it though. Dale and David leave Friday to head home to Texas.

I have some photos and a short video of the dolphins that I will post later. We will be here for awhile exploring the keys before heading north to the Chesapeake Bay.

Some photos in Clearwater

Here are some photos of the boat in a slip in Clearwater Fl. I also included photos of the view from our cockpit towards the south. Click on a photo to enlarge.

We will be here until Saturday. David Dunagan is joining the crew Friday. The weather is going to be pretty rough in the gulf until Sunday or Monday. We will leave Saturday and go down the ICW for about 20 miles and anchor south of St. Petersburg. On Sunday we will head out for an overnighter to somewhere around either Fort Myers or Marco Island.

We are in Clear Water Florida

We left Turner Marine in Mobile Alabama on Thursday March 4th around 10 AM. We did an overnight run to Panama City Florida. It took us about 27 hours. The weather was pretty good for the trip. The wind was pretty low when we left so we had to motor sail down Mobile Bay. After exiting the bay we took a left and sailed a straight line right into Panama City channel where we tied up at the Panama City marina.

We had some auto pilot problems on the way. The fluxgate compass would not hold a course. I called the factory and they thought maybe it was having some magnetic interference. I did add some additional chain in the chain locker and that could be the problem. We moved that chain to a locker on the starboard side of the main cabin.

On Saturday we decided to leave for either Port St. Joe if the auto pilot was not working or head to Clear Water if it was. The pilot worked perfect so we headed south to a point 46 miles from Panama CIty to miss some shoals before turning southeast. After exactly 17 hours the pilot started doing S-turns again and then failed completely. We had to hand steer around the clock for the next 31 hours. You can't believe how hard that is when you have no land to point to. Luckily the wind was not to strong and the seas were fairly calm. The trip to Clear Water took a total of 48 hours. We had to slow down some at the end so we could run the Clear Water pass in daylight.

We will stay in Clear Water for a few days. I am ordering a new fluxgate compass and we are having another friend, David Dunagan, join us for the rest of the trip to Marathon. We hope to leave here Saturday weather permitting.

Final Preparations to set sail.

We are doing the final preparations to set sail. We hope to leave either this Wednesday or Thursday. We have a good weather window for sailing east and then southeast. We first plan to do an overnight sail from Mobile to Panama City, Florida. From there we will do a two overnight sail to the Tampa area. Will most likely enter the ICW through the Clear Water inlet. From there we will take a more leisurely approach to getting down to Marathon.

We are having a friend from Texas, Dale Bowman, join us for the sail to Marathon. Dale is a great boat handler and has sailed the Pacific coast and also across the Pacific from Chile to Tonga. Dale lives on his boat on Lake Texoma at the Cedar Mills Marina. We will also be picking up another friend from Texas, David Dunagan, in Clear Water. He will sail with us to Marathon also. David was our slip neighbor at Cedar Mills and is the owner of a Hunter 380, Molly Jean.

Photo of where we are.

Here is a photo of Turner Marine. I didn't take it and our boat isn't in the photo but you can get an idea of what it looks like. The Dog river is out the entrance in the upper left. You take a left and go under the bridge into Mobile Bay. It is about 25 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.



We have met quite a few couples and single men that are living aboard there boats. Some are just staying here and others are doing the same thing we are, preparing to leave for south Florida. There have been two boats leave since we arrived. One was a couple, Tom and Lynn, in there early to mid 30's that are fixing up there older boat as they go. They both have doctorate degrees and got tired of the academia world and decided to go sailing. They left last Thursday for Marathon Florida. They had come down the river system from Chicago and arrived here in November. We are going to try and meet up with them there. We are a couple of weeks behind them.

Right at the moment we are pretty much done with getting all the mechanical things ready to go. We still have to provision and we are waiting for a friend from Texas that wants to go with us. We are also going to pick up another friend from Texas in the Clear Water, Florida area once we get over there.

Taking time to relax.

We finally took some time to relax. We drove down to Dauphin Island. It is a beach and resort island about 25 miles south of the marina we are in. We did a tour of Fort Gaines. Fort Gaines is a Civil war era fort that was used to protect Mobile Bay. It is on the west side of the Mobile Bay entrance and Fort Morgan is on the east side of the Mobile Bay entrance. The fort was occupied by the confederates until a battle in August of 1864 when the northern Navy and Army overwhelmingly defeated the southern army garrisoned there.

We then went to a place near the docks where the shrimp boats come in and were able to purchase shrimp at a rediculously low price.

I need to get my camera out so I can start photographing our travels.

A really bad day

Today we moved the boat from the work dock into another slip. We wanted to back the boat in to give us better access to electricity. When we started there was none to very little wind. Once we left the work dock the wind came up from the south which puts it exactly cross wind to the boat. Now here we are with the wind pushing the bow off in a really tight area with other boats around. And of course because of other circumstances we haven't driven the boat since last August so we are somewhat out of practice. We did hit one other boat lightly but there was no damage. We changed our plans to go into the assigned slip forward. We get half way into the slip and discover the pilings are not wide enough for our beam and we stick between them. Also the depth is too shallow and we hit bottom. Thank goodness it is only soft mud. Yes, we did ask about the size before hand and were told we would fit. Another boater comes out on the dock and directs us to another slip next to his boat where we finally tie up.

Things like this really make you question if all this work and expense is really worth it. We sure hope things get easier and more enjoyable.

And then the bombshell hit. We received a call from Sandy's sister, her mother passed away today. It wasn't totally unexpected but is still a shock and saddens the heart.

It's a Clewie Clip!!

It's my party and I'll meow if I want too! It's my birthday today. I am one year old. I have been busy planning a party with my humans. I suppose I will invite them since they are bringing the refreshments. I got lots of gifts. A whole pack of mice, I just love chewing off the tails. I will definitely hide them from my sister. A new blanket and a cute pink collar. I can't wait to try them out.

I really think the humans are a little nutty. I question whether they know what they are doing. We were supposed to be in the warm waters of Florida by now and here we are stuck at the dock in chilly Mobile. It has been so cold that I don't want to go out and explore the deck. Besides that the deck is really dirty. At least it isn't as cold as Ohio was, and what's up with all that white stuff on the ground? Never seen that before. I overheard the humans talking to some other humans and I think we are out of here soon. On the sea again, I can't wait to get on the sea again! Well, I have never really been on the sea, I hope I don't get sick. I have lots of places to hide when it get's scary.

Well, it's time for a cat nap before the party. Bye, Bye.

Finally...Back on the boat

We left cold snowy Ohio on Sunday January 31st and headed for Mobile to get back to the live aboard lifestyle. It took a day of cleaning and getting things straightened up before we could move back aboard but we finally made it. The marina is much different than what we had at Cedar Mills. Floating raised docks can sure spoil you. Here we have pilings with a small finger pier to access about a third of the boat along one side.

The weather was great the day we moved aboard but it is raining now. I have quite a list of things to do to get the solar panels, electronics and other items running again. Also, the VHF isn't working now. It is a power problem that I will have to trouble shoot.

Once we get things finished we will be moving on. I was talking to some local sailors and it seems that crossing the bay to the intracoastal will be much easier than I had anticipated. There's a break! I am thinking we will be here for two or three weeks max. But then I thought we would be in the Florida Keys in earlier December. Ah. everyday is a Saturday when you are retired.