Finally! Walking together on white sand beaches!

May 24, 2013  Friday ( I had to check my phone for that info)

                                    Happytat anchored off the beach with local wild-wife in foreground.

                                                    Our first "landing" on a beach with Titanic.

I am gently rocking back and forth on the boat as I write this. We are anchored a few hundred feet off Santa Rosa Island in sight of Pensacola Florida.  There has been a wonderful warm breeze ever since we got here of between 8 and 14 mph and the boat rocks up and down to the waves in a hypnotic way.  I find myself sitting silently for long periods on the deck, feeling the wind on my body and being rocked to sleep by the gentle waves.  Ordinarily I would have a book to read in idle times like these, but somehow I am just not interested in anything but enjoying the moment.  Many times I have driven or flown to a beach and have usually enjoyed the experience of walking or wading in the water, then going back to my air conditioned hotel room.  But it is quite a different experience for my "room" to be a boat sitting on the water.  I am a part of the wind and waves, not just a spectator or visitor.  And I worked damn hard to get here.

It is the fulfillment of another long held dream!  It adds to the pleasure that it has been a hard-fought-for achievement   I have fought head winds all the way here, literally and figuratively. Not only have I worked incessantly for a year for this moment, but the dream started many years ago.  And now it's here.  I've done it and it has been worth it all.  I'm reminded of a Beatles lyric: "For a man must break his back to have his day of leisure..." What a pity it would have been had I worked so hard and never had the reward of that day of leisure.  Many men have done just that.  There are still many experiences remaining, but if I never sailed another mile, I can say "The record shows, I took the blows and did it my way."

The past two days Alison and I have rowed ashore and spent wonderful hours at the beach. The day before yesterday, I got the sailing rig out and was going to finally take the Titanic out for a day sail.  So I let her down off the davitt, installed the mast and sail, slid in the centerboard and put the pintles in the gudgeon of the rudder.  I sailed only a few hundred yards before I suddenly lost rudder control.  I looked back and the pintle had broken off the rudder and I had no control over the direction of the boat.  So I rowed back to Happytat unhappily.  That night, I thought I'd try some trusty epoxy on it, so I carefully re-installed the pintle and glued it back in with a generous layer of epoxy.  Next day, I put the sail back on, the centerboard back in and put the pintle in the gudgeon again.  I got maybe 50 yards this time before my repaired pintle snapped off again, this time at a different place than the epoxy repair.  The plastic is just too fragile too repair.  Later that day, we rowed Titanic to shore and couldn't get the home made plywood center board to come out of its slot. When we got to shallow water, we pushed down on the boat to get it to come back out and it broke in two. So now Titanic has no centerboard or rudder.  Time to spend some more money!

About 1 minute after Alison took this picture, the pintle broke.  But it's a fun little boat to sail when it works!

Yesterday, Alison and I waded in the ocean and sat by it for a few hours; then we walked back to the protected side of the Santa Rosa barrier island and snorkeled some shallow waters near the boat.  In about three feet of water, we saw sand dollars and several dozen starfish.  It was an idyllic day, holding hands while jumping over big waves, sitting by the beach soaking up sunshine, then snorkeling together.  We returned to the boat exhausted, hungry and very happy.  I was whistling the old Bobby Vinton tune: "As we walked down the sand together, holding hands, walking all alone.  So in love are we two, that we don't know what to do, so in love, so much in love..."  or something like that.  It was one of those romantic days that couples dream of.

There was a strong SW wind by the time we were ready to head back to Happytat and Alison and I began rowing upwind toward home.  After rowing for quite some time, Alison realized that we weren't getting any closer to the boat.  I had been just rowing against the wind without making any progress.  So I rowed back to the shore, got out and walked the dinghy several hundred yards to where I was upwind of Happytat.  Then it was an easy row downwind to home.

After two weeks at the marina in Mobile, I was afraid that the temptation to stay in the comfort of a marina with electricity, unlimited water supply and a firm attachment to terra firma would tempt me to stay longer and longer until the dream of sailing to distant shores became a distant "if only..."  I fear few things but I truly fear that Comfort will enter a guest and become my master.  Honesty though, we really did have to get well, then do some boat repairs and upgrades before moving on to bigger waters.  But I was eager to throw off the dock lines again and get moving toward the ocean.

When I finally threw off the lines and sailed (motored) into Mobile bay, there was a brisk 14 mph wind blowing from the South -the direction I was going- and 2-4 foot waves.  I remembered that this is the kind of water I get seasick on and I have no anti-nausea meds onboard.  I sailed on, expecting any moment to begin to feel that familiar queasiness, but it never came.  Alison and I both had no sea sickness all day, even thought the water was pretty rough most of the day. When our course finally turned to the East I put up the jib sail and motor sailed for about an hour.  It was good to finally have some wind in my sails!  When we left the big bay and entered into the Intercoastal Waterway, the wind died and I tried to douse the jib sail but it jammed and wouldn't wind up like it was supposed to and flapped around like a fish out of water.  So I removed it from the fore stay and stowed it on the deck.  Next morning I was able to untangle the rope that caused the problem and re-install the jib sail.

                                           Happytat comfortably tied to the dock in Mobile.

Back to Mobile:
Ever since the first day I saw this boat for sale, I have wanted to paint the deck.  The original owner had slopped on a horrible coat of gel coat over everything, including the areas that were supposed to be non-skid. There were drips and streaks everywhere and it just looked dirty, no matter how much I scrubbed it.  When we got to Mobile, I could barely walk on the deck because it was so slick in the morning dew.  There is supposed to be a special type of paint called "non-skid" on the parts of the deck that is walked on and needs special traction to keep from falling.  Imagine trying to go to the front of the boat to raise a sail or drop an anchor or untangle a line on a wet slippery surface that is rocking and rolling violently.  Add to that the fact that if you fall off in an open sea, it is very unlikely you will be found, and the non-skid surface becomes one of the most important safety features of a boat.  So now that I was facing the probability of sailing on the open ocean soon, I decided that now, here at Mobile, was the time to paint the non-skid.

Surrounding the areas of non-skid is the pretty part of the paint: the non-textured shiny paint.  In the cockpit that is most of the surface area.  Because the previous paint job had been so sloppy with paint drips and deep brush marks, I had to first sand down all those surfaces before I could paint them.  Gelcoat sets up like hard plaster and is very hard to sand.   It took three long days of constant sanding to finally get the cockpit ready to paint.  My hands and fingers still ache from those long hours with a vibrating sander in them, pressing as hard as I could to grind down the old gel coat to a flat surface.  A fourth day of painting and the cockpit was finally done!  The non-skid works great to keep from slipping and the flat shiny sections look much better than  before. Unfortunately, I ran out of energy before I got the rest of the boat painted.  But since we have decided to go back to Cleveland in June instead of continuing South, the rest of the painting can wait.

Return to Cleveland:
Speaking of going back to Cleveland, I'll explain.  When we left Sale Creek in April, we knew we were heading South just in time for Hurricane season, when most cruisers are heading back North.  But I was so determined that I would not spend another summer there that I was willing to take my chances.  Leaving in Spring almost caused problems at the outset because the rains caused the rivers to rise above normal levels and bridge clearance became an issue all the way down the river.  We barely made it in time before the levels would have caused me to have to either stop my journey where I was, return to Sale Creek, or have the mast taken down.  When we got here, I researched the remainder of the trip to the Keys and found that the prevailing winds in summer are from the South.  That would mean that I would have to motor the entire 450 miles against both a strong head wind as well as seas against me.  That would be miserable travelling.  In Fall, the winds are more from the North and East, which would make the trip far more enjoyable.   So weather placed high on the reasons to delay our journey.

Mark, our neighbor at the Mobile marina suggested that we just stay in the Mobile and panhandle area for the summer, then go South in October or November.  As that thought sank in, I thought "If I'm going to delay the trip till October, I'd rather be in Tennessee than here."  Alison was excited about going back, so it was decided to play at the beach for a few days, then go home.

Other very important reasons are that we miss family and friends in Cleveland, and our cruising fund needs to grow substantially.  For instance, the painting of the deck cost about $300 in materials, I made a few other minor repairs and upgrades for another hundred or two as well as $100 per week of marina fees and another $169 for the first payment on boat insurance.  Add to that other unexpected personal costs and my measly monthly check went pretty quickly.  We still need many other things to make the boat safe to sail on "big wa-wa," such as another anchor and anchor rode, mail sail repair, a set of charts, inflatable life vests, jack lines, hand rails and many other important purchases.

So we have decided to leave the boat at the marina in Mobile, which is an official "hurricane hole," for a few weeks and return to Cleveland. if a hurricane hits Mobile while we're gone, the marina will haul the boat to dry dock for us and tie it down securely.  If the boat is damaged, we now have insurance to cover the damage.

We'll stay here near the beach for a few more days before heading back to Mobile. My great little brother Robby has agreed to come spend a few days of vacation with us and bring us back in about a week.  We will be getting the RV ready to live in while in Cleveland, picking up our Suziki,  and I will be working part time with Tony in the business to earn some extra money.  We plan to return for the boat in August or September and may take a road trip or two over the summer.

Thanks for reading!
Capt'n Larry