Clearwater to Sarasota

We spent two nights at Treasure Island Yacht and tennis club.  The place was really nice, Emily worked on her ping pong skills, and both of the girls enjoyed cable TV for the first time since we left.  The most memorable line to me was "Didn't we just see this ad?"

Emily's birthday started early on the 22nd, when she opened presents, a cam corder, all of the necessities for a spa treatment, and the treatment from her sister.  Oh yea, and CHOCOLATE!  We really are taking some wind down time, it has been very busy getting here, which is not what it appears like when you see the boats anchored in the harbor. 

Need to get haircuts, and look into a nagging oil leak on the engine.  We found a stylist for the girls, and got a ride with from the marina, nice new full size van.  Apparently "The Club" at Treasure Island decided to build a mega club house for 5 million dollars, and when it got to 10 million the membership fell to 10 members, who did not want to foot the bill.  Then a billionaire, not sure which one, bought it and he keeps adding on.  While we were there they leveled the area around one end of the Olympic to put in a Grata with a bunch of hot tubs.  They had a free arcade, ping pong tables, a spa and workout area, etc.  The girls were sad to go. 
We motored to an anchorage off of Gulfport, a little town nestled between Treasure Island and St. Pete, with a nice wide open anchorage. 

They have a dingy dock for the mutt, and we can dingy to Publix supermarket.

Publix Parking Lot

  The engine leaked about a 1/4 cup of oil.  Everyone at Honeywell knows how I feel about leaks.  I think I found it!  It appears the rear camshaft seal is leaking, Lakewood Yacht Services (NASA Road One, Clearwater, Texas) had just totally rebuild this engine and they said, "you don't really need a special tool to put those rings in like is says in the manual...sometimes they just leak"  I believe they used channel locks (adjustable pliers) to install it.  I would fix it myself, but I don't carry channel locks on the boat. 

We went to the beach and played sand volleyball, had someone gotten a video of that, I am sure it would make it on U tube as a national favorite.  We played against some local folks, and we were significantly out weighed.

We had a great Thanksgiving on the hook at Gulfport, we had the usual fair, turkey, dressing, beans wrapped in bacon, rolls.  Michelle did as good as she did last year for Thanksgiving, when we were on the boat going the other way. 

We passed the Skyway bridge, which was the replacement for the old one that was hit by and ship and collapsed into the bay, killing quite a few people.  Note the huge bollards to prevent this from occurring again.

Saturday we motored to Sarasota, and anchored, staying in a marina around here is just a bit pricey, $2.25/foot/night.  Makes the dingy ride to shore a little  more pleasurable.  We had some rough looking weather come trough, but it ended up not being so bad, nothing like the Rigolots. 

To Port Saint Joe and Clearwater

Port Saint Joe to Flordia's West Coast

We spent several days in Port St. Joe.  The marina there is the nicest we have seen so far, and the customer service was excellent.  We used the marina tricycles to get to the grocery store, which was only about 2 blocks away. 

Everyone in the town was nice.  We did a lot of laundry, and took care of some of the projects we needed to complete.  We went to Radio Shack to look for a gift for Emily's birthday, and the owner tried to sell us the store.  He was very insistant that it would be a great deal and Port St. Joe would be a great place to live.  The pressure got to the point we had to leave.  Then we waited for what we thought was the perfect weather window. 

On the 18th we left at about 8, for a 200 mile trip across the gulf.  The weather was perfect, a north wind at 5-10 and a forecast to stay that way, or drift  slightly to the east.  The autopilot failed, so we were going to have to hand steer the boat across the gulf.

By nightfall the wind had shifted to due east, and picked up to about 15-20 knots, Michelle came down with an illness, and I was getting tired.  Hannah stepped up and took the wheel and drove for three hours while I slept.  That is quite a way to learn to sail, darkness and seas on the nose.  The night continued to get worse as the seas grew.  At daybreak it was tough, we had limited sleep and the seas were really choppy 5'at the upper end.  It did not appear we were going to make Clearwater, we looked at heading further South so that the wind direction would help us rather than hurt us.  So we cracked off, and got the boat up to about 7 knots.  After a prayer from Michelle, the wind shifted back to the north, and we were headed to Clearwater again.  We made it by about 4pm, 6-8 hours longer than we had planned.  We settled in, and had a good nights sleep. 

Clearwater beach was very nice, we were about two blocks from Peir 60 which is a really nice area.  The marina accomidations were marginal, and the most expensive so far.  We went to the sundown show, and saw a couple of street performers. 

The water is so clear that it is hard to see where the beach ends and the water begins. I spent part of the day trying to diagnose the auto pilot issue, along with an oil leak from the diesel.  With possible solutions to both problems we set out for the Treasure Island Yacht and Tennis Club, where another cruising family is located.

Mobile to Port St Joe

We had a fun evening in Fairhope the night before heading out.  We spent the evening at John and Donna Ballard's beautiful home on the bay, Michelle's friend Trisha's Parents.  Michelle was able to visit with Trisha as well as another close friend Ashley.  It was fun to see all of our kids get to know each other.  We had a very enjoyable evening!

We left Mobile early the next morning, even though we did not need to, kinda a habit.  I think a good one. Just before we entered the Intercoastal, the engine oil pressure spiked up, and the only thing I could think of was that there was an oil viscosity problem because the engine was doing it when we entered mobile. We paid a mechanic there to tell us, "gee I don know".  I thought about changing the oil, but it just didn't make sense.  I opened up the engine compartment and checked the connention to the pressure sending unit and tighten up the connection, wala, perfect oil pressure.  Lakewood Yacht Service had failed to tighten them properly.  With the oil issue behind us we were on our way.  We past Lulu's, which is Jimmy Buffet's sisters place, we are getting into cruiser territory.  The intracoastal opens up into a bit of a sound then.  We anchored with several "loopers" in Ingrams Bayou for the night, I would say the best anchorage of the trip to date.  There were dolphins jumping around us, and a great place to take the mutt to the beach.  The girls made sea turtles in the sand, and we had a very restful night on the hook, and a very happy 20th anniversary.

We left a little later in the morning, with only about 20 mile to get to Pensacola, and planning on spending a couple of days there.   We anchored in about 15 feet of water, well away from the cut, where there were about 50 boats anchored.  Our cruising guide said "local knowlege" is needed to get in there. 

The knowledge we have determined is to look for darker water and stay there- not to go to the shallow areas.  The Pensacola air show was going on.  We saw the Blue Angels perform two days in a row, and got to see a lot of the other aircraft from the boat.  Hard to get pictures

 We also toured Fort Pickens, making a lesson of it for the girls.  The interesting thing was not the barrel vaulted ceiling, but the fact that the floors are barrel vaulted as well to keep the fort from sinking into the sand.

The water is getting pretty now, and you can see about 5 feet down. 


We left early for Destin, which also requires local knowlege, but we were confident.  The trip was fantastic!  Emily wanted to fish, so we through out some mega jig, no luck, so we changed to a big lur, and within about a minute she had cought a fish.  We needed to determine what kind of fish it was, so we looked at all the books and determined that it was a Blackfin Tuna.  I butchered it immediately, and we put it in the fridge for the evening.  I use the term butcher, because it was not a Wallyee, or Northern Pike like I was used to cleaning. 

The wind and out speed picked up, so the lur would not stay in the water any more, so we switched to some tackle my brother sent me as a parting gift.  We left it out even though it did not appear to be doing anything.  Just as Emily got her lunch fixed, bam, another hit and another Blackfin Tuna. Plenty for dinner.  We blackened half and grilled the other half with a tereaki merinade.  We all agreed the blackened was the best!  

We got into the busy harbor early.  It was the busiest anchorage we have been at, and we had to anchor closer than I ever have, but I had confidence in the weather forcast of south winds, 5 mph all night and the next day, how could they get that wrong?  We awoke to north winds at 5 mph, but the 180 was not a problem. 

We left for Panama City early in the morning, and were making good time.  So about a third of the way there, we started considering Port St. Joe, another 20 miles down the road, so to speak.  We went for it, and ultimately, I think it was the right choice, even though you second guess yourself coming into a port in the dark with the minor problem of having to go to a backup running light.  The marina is great, and cheaper than Panama City.  We can walk or take one of the several courtesy bikes provided by the marina to the Piggly Wiggly!  We are contemplating our crossing to St. Pete from here, rather than a 100 mile trip to Caribelle.

New Orleans to Mobile

New Orleans to Mobile
Headed out a little later in the day because of a short run.  We were a little concerned with the weather, but it appeared nice and calm.  The railroad bridge took almost an hour, we are glad that is the last one for a while.  We passed the new New Orleans levee, a massive structure that appears almost the same size as the Delta Works in the Netherlands where we used to live. 

It is still under construction, but traffic has been established on channel 18. Its the first time traffic has contacted us, rather than us calling over and over to get their attention, they were also very polite. 



We arrived at the Rigolets at about 3, and set anchor.

 We were in for a rough night.  The wind picked up to about 30 knots after dark, we layed down about 9 and at midnight Michelle woke up hearing what sounded like the anchor hitting the boat.  It was.  The wind and the tide had balanced so that the boat was
headed down wind, in line with the current, and the anchor was under the boat holding the bow off the wind.  This is a funky place to anchor because of the current.  We moved Emily up font and I layed down, eyes glued to the chart plotter.  I nodded off several times, the last just before sun up, Michelle woke
me again, we were draging toward the intracostal, and almost in the channel.  A barge was coming.
We got our bearings and decided we needed to lift anchor, and reset it, in the darkness.  We managed to get the anchor up, in 25 knots of wind and got it reset without incident.
 
The winds are supposed to be gale force today, so we decided to stay here for the day.  It was a funny feeling in the morning, nothing I had to do.  School and to do lists, and a nap.  We questioned our decision in the morning the winds appeared to be much calmer than was forcast, Wunderground had prediced about
15, which would be fine with us.  About 10am, the wind pick up to gale force, and we were glad we stayed. I finished the Hunger Games, one of the girls books, it was interesting, kind of the Running Man from a girls perspective.   Calmer now, about 10, its time for dinner and rest.

Riglots to Mobile
We made good time getting to Boloxi and decided to stay at the Maritime museum.  A guy there said the tide runs 11 knots, not even close, it was only running about a knot.  They opened up the laundry room for us and we spend the evening doing laundry and watching another beatiful sun set.

We headed for the ship channel in the morning and hit the bottom right in the middle of the cannel, I guess that explains why the dredge was in the channel across from the marina.  We headed out to Mobile, one of the best days of my life, the boat was doing about 9 knots in the right direction, for about 8
hours, we thought we would make it to Fairhope before dark, but we were wrong.  The slog up the bay was rough, it took about 4 hours and it was rough, it got very dark when we arrived at Eastshore Marina on Fly Creek.  We came in slowly and found the slip we were assigned, it was a relief to be tied up.  The tide
was very low in the morning so the boat is hard aground, and up about a foot.

Some friends of Michelle met up with us the next day.

Morgan City to New Orleans

October 27  Morgan City to Houma- Then the Barataria Waterway
Left out after sunrise heading to Houma.  We were surprised to see many bald eagles along the way , about 35-40 in total!  Most were seen flying in pairs.  Really neat! The rest of the day was uneventful. The lock was open, and we made it though everything fine.   The number of bald eagles was incredible.

We came up to the city dock in Houma, and there was Texas Dreamer. They had stayed an extra day.  The only spot we could float was the end slip, and it was taken. So we went around, hit the mud, and tied her off.  I made a couple of trips to the convenient store, Watched a movie and went to bed early. Next morning, powered off the mud, went to the Barataria Waterway and tied up, does this sound like the movie Marely and Me?  Texas Dreamer anchored about 5 miles from the waterway.  I know this is a bit dull, but at least there are pictures on the blog.


Halloween
Set out and after we cleared the bridge, there was Texas Dreamer, right in front of us.  They took the lead today which is a good thing because we were having radio problems.  With about eight lift bridges and two locks to go, it would have been a tough day without them. The perfect day for going through New Orleans, no wind and very little current.  Last time it was running 6 knots, today it was about a half.  Spending the night at Seabrook Harbor tonight. We cannot get to Lake Pontchartrain because the Industrial Canal is closed for a year starting last week.