THE BIGGEST AND BEST SAIL OF OUR LIVES!

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28 & 29 -

And what a sail it was!  178 statute miles, 25+ hours, average speed 7 knots (8 mph) SAILING with a NE wind of about 12 to 15 knots the whole way!!  That is what you can call awesome sailing.  Our GPS shows a max speed of 11.3 knots (13 mph) which is pretty much impossible but must have recorded that when we were surfing down a wave or something. Here's some video that is indicative of what kind of sailing we had.  This is of Blue Moon sailing just to our port side.

We left Carabelle at 9AM with 2 other sailboats, Blue Moon and Morning Star.  We motored out of the bay, set the sails and off we went. 

Our sailing buddy, Blue Moon

Seas were 3 to 4 feet with occasional ones to 5 right out of the gate.  We had given Molly Dramamine at around 7:45 and it helped but she still got a little sick.  The good news is that then she went into the little comfy bed I had made for her and she slept for almost the entire trip. 

We left a little earlier in the morning than we intended as the other 2 boats felt strongly they wanted to go then,  We thought  it best to kind of run in a pack so we could stay in radio contact.  We knew we would be out of range for any one on shore to hear us so having other boats to buddy up with was great.  We just met them the day before; in fact we didn’t even know the first names of people on Blue Moon until after we got to Clearwater and they dingied over to say hi.  We were faster than either of them and actually had to reduce sail and slow down to stay with within sight of them.  We ran on the same tack all the way to Clearwater, could not have asked for better wind.  About 8 hours in, the waves tamed a bit and made for an even nicer ride.  The sun set about 5:30 and we had twilight for another hour or so. 

Sunset over the Gulf

Then it was dark and the stars came out.  All 3 boats turned on our running lights and our anchor light (the one at the top of the mast) so we could keep track of one another through the night.  Lots of stars, wow, what a show!  Falling stars, just amazing.

The winds and waves picked up again about 3AM and on we went.  Blue Moon was about 2 miles off our port side and Morning Star was about 5 miles behind.  We talked on the radio to each other every 3 hours just to see how everyone was doing and make sure we were all running the same course.

We ran the engine twice just to keep the batteries charged as we had been using the auto pilot quite a bit but kept on sailing all the while.  The wind was supposed to switch E and then go SE which would have put a damper on sailing but it never really clocked around and we did not take the sails down until we reached Clearwater Pass. 

We had been warned to watch for crab pots when we got to about the 30 foot depth line outside Clearwater.  Turns out that was actually 20 miles offshore and so for 3 hours we had to diligently watch for those little buoys.  There were everywhere – it was like weaving your way through a maze and that was after 22 hours of sailing – wow!  We have heard horror stories of boats hitting these crab pots.  They can get tangled around the keel, but even worse their lines can get wrapped around the prop and/or rudder and incapacitate the boat.  We couldn’t get through the crab zone soon enough!  We had to reduce speed again towards the end of the trip to time it so that we would not go through this area in the dark.  The buoys were hard enough to see with the sun coming up right in our faces, but in the dark it would have been impossible.

We had intended to go to Dunedin and stay at a marina we had heard great things about but got pushed off course a bit and it made more sense to enter the ICW through Clearwater Pass instead. 

Blue Moon taking down her sails

Blue Moon said they knew of a great anchorage close by and we elected to do that.  We were ready for the journey to come to an end by that time and we would have had to motor back up the ICW to get to that marina.  Canceled the reservation and followed Blue Moon into a bay right next to Clearwater Yacht Club. 

You know you are in Clearwater when you see something like this...

They grounded a couple of times on the way in and had warned shoaling in the area was a possibility.  To their credit, they just backed up and tried her again.  Then after the 2^nd time getting stuck we saw a sailboat coming out.  We watched how they did it and talked to them and they said we’d be fine if we stuck right next to the green markers so in we went.  Dropped anchor and we are here!  YIPEE!!!  So glad to be here!  It was 11:15 am by the time we sat down.  What an adventure this particular voyage was.

Thought we’d be dead tired as I had slept 2 hours and John only about an hour but we actually felt pretty good.  Adrenaline must have been coursing through our veins.  We were a little punchy but doing just fine.  Our friends Steve and Dee Brachman from Minneapolis are here on vacation so we called them when we got in and they came down to meet us and took us to Crabby Bill’s for lunch. 

A nice couple of birds on the beach

Nice to put our feet on terra firma. 

Had a great afternoon with Steve and Dee

Went for a walk on the beach and they took us back to the boat.  How fun to hang with these guys down here.  Now it was time to relax and get back to Molly.  We were all in bed by 8:00.  Gotta say it felt good to hit the sheets!!