Lagniappe: January 2014

Lagniappe Blog 3

After stopping overnight in Boca Ciega Bay where Greg climbed the mast to check out the anchor light, we arrived in Sarasota on New Year’s Eve. When we tried to go ashore on New Year’s Day, we realized the connector was missing on the fuel tank for the outboard. We had just bought the tank before we left home. So, we called West Marine and they were open. Greg rowed us in on the dinghy and we had a nice, long (about 3 or 4 miles) walk through town on New Year’s Day to go to the West Marine. Oh well, we got our exercise. Wayne (an employee at West Marine) kindly gave us a ride back to the bayfront where we were anchored. We ate at O'Leary's Tiki hut on the beach and had a great fish (Mahi Mahi) sandwich one day.

Had to wait a couple of more days for good weather and then we headed south again. We stopped just north of Charlotte Harbor in a little place called Cape Haze in Gasparilla Sound where we anchored in a little “cul de sac” surrounded by some very expensive homes.There were some awesome homes along this part of the ICW.

We saw lots of dolphin some of which swam along with us for about a mile and splashed us to get our attention as we continued our trip to Ft. Myers Beach on Estero Island the following day. Finally found some warm weather and a beach with nice white sand. Sadly we passed right by Captiva and Sanibel islands on the way and didn’t get to stop there. But we knew a front was coming in on Monday, the 6^th and wanted to be in a more protected harbor. We tied up to a mooring ball in Ft. Myers beach and took the dinghy in to check out the town. Mike and Tammy who keep their boat near us in Mandeville and left Mandeville the same day we did had made it to Ft. Myers before we did and were still here so we got to see them again and had dinner together at a local restaurant. We had last seen them in Ingram Bayou in Alabama in early December. Saw a beautiful sunset on Ft. Myers beach the first night but then the front came through and it turned cold again.

Finally! some sun and white sand!

Talking to Connor from the chair outside of Nervous Nellie's restaurant.

Beautiful sunset at Ft. Myers beach.

Our boat on a mooring ball in Ft. Myers beach.

The front coming in as we were making our way back in the dinghy to the boat. This is why we wanted to stay an extra day to wait out this weather before heading on toward the Keys.

We’ve met several cruisers here with anywhere from 2 months experience to 10 years of cruising. We have gotten lots of information on good anchorages and routes to take and even some recommendations on best times to go to certain destinations. All of which has us re-thinking our plans to go to the Bahamas in a few weeks. Apparently March or April is a much better time as far as the weather is concerned. So, we may stay in the Keys a while longer and head to the Bahamas later in the Spring. Got some thinking to do.

We left Ft. Myers and went out San Carlos bay and had a great sail from Ft. Myers Beach to Marco Island on Wednesday, January 8^th. Finally free of the ICW!! The wind was blowing about 20 knots so we reefed the mainsail and made great time. We left the next morning for Little Snake River about half way to Marathon (in the Keys). Another great day of sailing and met up with Tammy and Mike just as we were going into the river to anchor.They had gone through the back way from Marco Is. but we sailed offshore because we have a deeper draft and couldn't go through the little waterways they were using.

Mike and Tammy's boat.

Little Snake River, looking out toward the Gulf, late afternoon.

We all left early the next morning to head to Marathon. (just after sunrise) Had good wind most of the day but had to motorsail for a couple of hours. Hated the noise but at least it charged up the batteries.

We even got to fly the spinnaker for a few hours.

LizAnn adjusting the sextant to practice her celestial navigation skills.

Taking a sunshot.

Packing up the spinnaker after a good long reach to Marathon.

Marathon is a great harbor. Lots of friendly people and those musically inclined get together for jam sessions and the rest of us untalented people get to sit there and listen to the great music in the evenings.

So many boats at anchor in Marathon, it looks like low hanging stars at night with all the anchor lights.

Our friend Mike playing at the jam session.

Greg and LizAnn with mike and Tammy.

This guy on the fiddle was great.

We anchored the first night and then were able to get a mooring. But we only used it for one night because we wanted to head to Key West and meet up with Greg’s brother and sister-in-law, Patrick and Cris. We met a couple from Toronto who were anchored near us and he has the same boat we have only his is 3 years older. They spent a few hours with us on our boat comparing things we’ve done with his boat. They were planning to go to Key West also so we left together on Saturday morning. We had great wind and made over 7 knots almost the whole way. Unfortunately, Dave and Tricia's boat couldn’t keep up so we got there about 2 hours before them.When we were coming into Key West, we saw a schooner, Jolly Rover II that had a Saints flag flying from the top of the mast. We yelled “Who Dat” back and forth. Too bad the Saints lost to Seattle a couple of days before.

Dave's boat at anchor in Marathon before we left to sail to Key West.

We are having a great time in Key West. Spent a couple of nights in Pat (Greg's brother) and Cris’s RV. It is truly nicer than most hotel rooms we’ve ever stayed in. AND MUCH BETTER “room service.” We visited the “southernmost” point in the continental U.S., took the Conch Train tour and had a great tour guide, Engineer Bob, aka SpongeBob. He was very entertaining. We also toured the Truman Little White House where President Harry Truman spent 11 “working holidays.” He came here to rest after several exhausting months at the end and after WWII and kept returning.Our tour guide there had been a 12 year old kid when Truman was there and delivered newspapers to the Navy base and ran up to Truman and got to sell him a newspaper. Imagine if a kid tried that now!

Celebrating our arrival in Key West with Pat and Cris.

The "Christmas tree" was still up in Key West.

We got the new radar and Greg and Patrick installed it and it WORKS!! Yeah!!

Went to Smokey Joe’s bar one night with Pat and Cris and met up with Dave and Tracie and listened to a great band, The Doerfels. They are a family of 10 kids (9 boys, 1 girl, poor soul) and the 15 to 25 year old boys play several instruments each and put on a wonderful show. They had a local girl, Nina from Key West playing keyboard and singing some of the songs who was also very talented. These boys are serious musicians. The younger kids come on for a song or two—breaking in slowly to the stage, I guess.

The Doerfels at Smokey Joe's

Old Lighthouse at Key West.

Chickens run wild in Key West. Apparently they were brought here years ago and there is an ordinance that you can't kill them and they are allowed to run free. They are everywhere.

Pat and Cris are in their RV on Sigsbee Island on the Navy base. This is in the camping area.

Pat and Cris at Sigsbee.

These fish would jump out of the water as we motored in the dinghy back to the boat at night in Key West. One night one actually landed in our boat. We threw him back after we took the picture. They are ballyhoo. Never knew that was a fish.

We also ate delicious pizza at the No Name Pub on Big Pine Key and then drove to No Name Key to see the Key deer. They are quite small and are endangered but we managed to see FIVE of them. Apparently that is quite unusual. Too bad that's 5 more than Greg saw last year when he was hunting in Mississippi.
No Name Pub on Big Pine Key: the walls are papered with dollar bills. Someone said they estimate there is $60,000 on the walls and ceiling.

We went to No Name Dr. on No Name Key to find the Key Deer.

There is a lot of beautiful tropical foliage and interesting architecture here. It reminds me a lot of Uptown New Orleans in style though not as many big mansions and even smaller lots than in Uptown. We happened to be here for Key West race week so we got to see some of the mega racing yachts and watch a little of the regatta one day.

We have eaten ourselves silly in Key West between Cris and Patrick’s great cooking and the abundance of restaurant choices. Headed back to Marathon on Tuesday Jan. 21. Got caught in some rain as we were coming in the harbor but not too severe. Had to anchor out but waiting for a mooring ball as we plan to stay for about a month.

We are enjoying meeting new people and getting to know the other cruisers. There is a “cruisers net” on the VHF here every morning at 9:00 and they let people know what’s going on in town and have a buy/sell/trade session. We listened for the first time this morning. Very informal but interesting.

More later………..

Lagniappe

We got back to the boat late in the afternoon on December 17^th. The next day Greg installed the new, bigger alternator and pulleys and serpentine fan belt that he had ordered and picked up while we were home. Unfortunately, one of the pulleys was too big and we had to call Balmar and have them overnight another one. So while we waited for the new one to be delivered the next afternoon, we walked around Port St. Joe along the Bay walk and to the Constitution Convention Museum. Florida’s constitution was written in old St. Joseph. Hurricanes and Yellow Fever dessimated the town in the 1840’s.

Sunset at Port St. Joe Marina

Erosion of the tree roots along the Bay walk.

We left Port St. Joe on Friday, Dec. 20^th and motored along the ICW to Saul Creek about half way to Apalachicola. We anchored in the Creek near a little old floating cabin. Maybe a hunting cabin. Lots of hunters came through in their boats the next morning.

Cruising along the ICW between Port St. Joe and Saul Creek.

Floating Cabin near our anchorage Friday night, 12/20/13 on Saul Creek. Heard owls and loons during the night.

We left the anchorage Saturday morning and motored down the Apalachicola River to Scipio marina near the mouth of the river. It was not a nice marina but there was no where to anchor in Apalachicola. We had to wait for a good weather window for several days to be able to make the 130 mile offshore crossing from Apalachicola to Tarpon Springs. According to the weather reports from NOAA it looked like Christmas day and Thursday would be good weather for crossing. We went to Mass on Christmas eve at St. Patrick’s church in Apalachicola and left the marina at 7:00a.m. Christmas day. The weather offshore was predicted to be 10 to 15 knot winds and 3 to 4 ft. seas. Then it was supposed to decrease to 5 to 10 knots with 2 to 3 ft seas. They LIED!!!! Our engine with the new alternator and pulleys ate another fan belt and we had to anchor just at the end of the channel coming out of Apalachicola and change it again. Then we motored through the channel to Carabelle and as we passed the sea buoy, we turned into the wind to put up the sails. The engine stalled but we got the sails up and kept going. We had a northeast wind and were on a broad to beam reach most of the way. However, we also had rolling seas on the beam the whole way. And they were about 4 to 5 to 6 feet. NOT comfortable!! By 4:30 in the afternoon, LizAnn (who wisely had not eaten since breakfast) was sick. Greg ate a late lunch and when he got sick it was worse. Thank God for our autopilot and our cockpit enclosure we had just had made before we left! By 5:30 we had 19 knot winds and put in a first reef and lowered the jib and put up the staysail. At 7:30 we put in the second reef because the winds were up to 22 knots. We spent the rest of the night lying down in the cockpit. LizAnn was out of commission and Greg was raising his head every 20 to 30 minutes to check the course and the radar. We never saw another boat the whole time. By the next morning, the seas had subsided and we made it to the sea buoy off of Anclote Key around 10:00a.m. We got into the harbor at Tarpon Springs about 11:30 and showered and then slept for several hours. It has taken a couple of days to get back to feeling totally normal.

We adjusted the pulleys and that seems to have resolved the fan belt issue. We also cleaned/replaced the fuel filters because the bouncing around in the swells stirred up a lot of junk from the bottom of the fuel tank and that (we think) is what caused the engine to stall.

We have enjoyed Tarpon Springs: great Italian and Greek restaurants. We’ve made new friends with some people next to us at the dock who are here on their trawler from Rhode Island. Dave is 72 and his wife and sister-in-law are travelling with him. They have a car they rented because they are here for a month and he kindly took me to the Laundromat on Friday so we could get some stuff cleaned after our crossing. We also met Jim and Pat who are on their catamaran and are friends with Frank and Carmen who we met in Port St. Joe. Brian is another new friend with a Tayanna sailboat who helped us out by having his engine guy check our work and he gave us the OK. The dockmaster, Mick Poppa was also very nice and helpful.

Monday, December 30^th we headed to Boca Ciega Bay near St. Petersburg. Wished we had a big “Who Dat” flag to hang out after the Saints beat the Buccaneers on Sunday. Greg went up the mast this morning to figure out why the anchor light wouldn’t work last night but couldn’t find anything wrong. It is working tonight. One of life’s mysteries, I guess. Today, New Year’s Eve we made it to Sarasota. We can hear the fireworks but can’t see them from our anchorage.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of our friends and family!