Dinghy piloting styles

Our mooring is just off the channel leading to the marina and dinghy landing area. All of the people that go into the marina from the west side of the mooring field have to pass right by our boat. Being retired and all, we have a lot of time on our hands to just sit and watch them. This retirement gig is pretty neat, you all should give it a try. Mostly we just sit around all day on our fat asses and talk about what's for dinner. The conversation mostly goes like this: "what ya want for dinner tonight? I don't know what do you want? I don't know babe what do you want?" and that continues for a good hour, but I digress.

Anyhoo, the dinghys all drive by us. Most people sit on the side towards the rear of the tube in an inflatable or on a seat in a hard dinghy and handle the tiller from there. If there significant other is onboard they either sit in the front on the tube or seat. That is what we do when we go dinghy. Now there are a surprisingly number of individuals, couples or families that have a unique style. There is the Navy Seal secret mission style where they lay completely down in the dinghy floor with only there head showing. I actually saw a family of four doing this one. Dad, mom and two little kids all flat in the bottom. Then there is the Chariots of Fire style where the person stands up towards the front of the dinghy and uses an extension handle to steer. One couple had everyone beat with this style. They were both standing in the front of the dinghy cruising along with there chins held high, Looky us, looky us!! I can't wait to see a nice wave come by and knock them overboard. And of course there is the Look ma, no hands style. That is where they lock the engine so it won't turn, set the tension on the throttle and let it go. I actually saw a man that had combined the Chariots of Fire style and the Look ma, no hands style. He was standing in the front of the dinghy with no control of the outboard motor. He was steering by using his weight to go either left or right. Damn if he wasn't doing a good job at it also. I can just see him in the water and the dinghy heading for never, never land. And last, but not least there is doggie style. No, not that doggie style. You wouldn't believe how many boats have dogs on them. Some have multiple dogs. When the dogs are in the dinghy's they point the way. They are always standing in the bow or hanging over the bow to catch everything that is coming their way.

Well, so much for observations at the mooring field. Honey, what do you want for dinner tonight?

Florida Sea Grass

Florida is very proud of their sea weed, uh, I mean sea grass. So proud in fact that they value it above human life. There is a patch of sea grass just to the north of us. It is below the surface about 2 feet when the tide is at high tide and it is exposed when the tide is at low tide. The other day a Hunter 29.5 sailboat crewed by an older couple ran aground on the sea grass. The tide was up so it wasn't visible except by the color of the water. There are buoys marking the area and the helmsman did not heed the buoys. They were hard aground and could not back off. A couple in a hard dinghy came by and was using their dinghy to try and push the sailboat out to deeper water. At this time the harbor master comes out in a boat and we thought he was going to lend a hand to tow them off. But, no. All he did was yell at them and tell them they could be fined for being on the sea grass. In fact people have been fined tens of thousands of dollars for messing with the sea grass. It didn't appear the harbor master cared one bit about the boat or the couple on board.

Here are a few photos of the sea grass at low tide. When the wind is from the north we get a very strong odor that about chokes the breath out of you. Imagine filling a plastic bag with seaweed, dead rotting fish and putrid water. Now stick your head in the bag, close around your neck and take a deep breath. That is what it is like.

If you are coming to Florida, beware of the sea grass.

View from the boat in Marathon

Here are a few photos taken from the boat in Marathon. We are on a mooring ball pretty close to the marina.

You can click on a photo to enlarge it.

This is what the mooring ball looks like. It is a big plastic float that has a line running to a auger that is stuck in the bottom. It has a pennant with an eye that we put a line thru and attach to our forward cleats.












This is a view to the east. The mooring field goes for about a half mile in that direction. There are 255 mooring balls total and there are boats on everyone of them.









Looking west.









This is looking to the north at the marina. This is where we go in our dinghy to get to shore. They have two large areas to park the dinghy. There are also restrooms, showers and a laundry room available.

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.