Red Sky at morning, Sailor take warning? Nahhh...... rubbish!
5
Sarasota, Florida
We had a leaky fuel line, the auto pilot lost a feature, (shadow drive) but we disabled that and it was all good. Then when we arrived today @ 8am, i ran aground on the sand for about ten minutes. We were able to raise sail and bounce off and continue on (into the correct channel). It was a great trip!
Remember, Ship happens!
We started the trip after checking all of everything. No leaks, no runs, no errors. But after sailing about 2 hrs the auto pilot refused to turn on. The 'shadow drive' light kept flashing and it would not do it's job. A quick call to Garmin and they walked me through it, how to disable the shadow drive. It's perfect again. I replaced all 4 fuel lines while in Apalachicola and they ran fine. why this one started to leak is beyond me. (i tried to tighten it and it started leaking more, then it started spraying a fine mist.) i finally pulled the new one and put the old one back on, but it leaked. drip, drip, drip... We put a pail under it and collected near a gallon of diesel over the course of the voyage. (i need to re-replace that one, again.)(darn) But the sailing was great. Steady breeze and calm seas. Thursday night i was off watch - TRYING - to sleep. Cousin Rick was so excited with the sailing he was going as fast as he could throwing everything down below into a clanging, banging symphony. I was bouncing around in my bunk. I finally went up onto the deck to see what was up. He was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "I am running eight knots and even hit nine." (that's real fast for this boat) We slowed down some and it leveled off a little. I was able to grab a quick nap.
We are now on a mooring ball in Sarasota, Fl. I'm payed up through November and plan to depart for further south December first. Cousin Rick and i will be driving a rental car in the morning to go back to Apalachicola for his truck. Then i'm going to ride with him back to Kemah and get my car.
Pirates can drive cars too!
I hope you are enjoying your voyage?
-Capn Skip
QUESTIONS:
#1.) My Aunt Nona asks: Do y'all do four hour watches during the night? Are you sailing or motoring. Are you going to dock before dark tonight? Do you eat sea biscuits and water for meals.
Dear Nona - these are great questions. Yes we do 4 hour watches at night. (on watch 6-10p, sleep 10-2, watch 2-6, rinse and repeat) i awoke the other night confused and disoriented. i ran up to the cockpit and Rick sat laughing at me. i slept better last night and plan to set a personal record tonight! Mostly we motor with sails up to help stabilize the boat. Except this voyage the winds were great. they were from the beam, side, of the boat and strong steady all night. Plus we had the bright harvest moon. it really was great. The second night we turned off the engine and sailed only. we didnt make it to the shore before dark and had to slow to a crawl and wait for daylight. We came in today at 8am and had a fruit salad with 'one of dad's Jimmy Dean sausage frozen meals' for dinner. i'm running the water maker now, but i drank milk with my meal. again, great questions!
#2.) Lynn, the question sister, asks: I saw this morning that your boat turned and went the other way for a little while. I imagined all sorts of potential problems-- steering, mutiny, sea monster, pirates.
You're traveling very consistently. I'm having fun imagining what it's like.
You didn't mention how Rick will return to his vehicle, or what happened with Rod & Linda (hurricane issues?).
Xo, Lynn
Lynn; which time? When the autopilot acted up we did some spins. Plus when we were both down below - drifting - working on the fuel line leak we probably did some figure eights? Tomorrow Rick and i are driving a rental vehicle back to Apalachicola for his truck. THEN i'm going with Rick riding back to Kemah. *Lynn - YOU - and also all my other readers should have been on the boat these last two days. you will never see better sailing conditions and a monster Harvest Full Moon!
