END OF THE ADVENTURE

End of the Adventure

It was hot and humid in Mobile, Alabama and Alison and I worked feverishly on emptying Happytat of all our personal things.  We had lived aboard for nearly a year and there was a lot of stuff to pack up. I also sanded and painted the rest of the deck before going back to Cleveland so it would look better to prospective buyers.  I have spent everything I own on buying and outfitting this boat and am counting on selling it for at least some of what I have put into her so I can get a new start on a home in TN.   A fresh coat of deck paint will go a long way toward getting a good price for her.

We left Happytat at Turner marina a little over four weeks ago to find a place to live in Cleveland while the boat sells and we earn a little money.  We had planned to park our RV in a campground for a while, but my mother offered to let us stay at her house for a few weeks, so we accepted her kind offer.   Two weeks later, we moved into an apartment.  I contacted my business partner, Tony to let him know I was available to work in the company in any capacity that was needed.  He immediately put me to running service calls, since June is one of our biggest months.  The income earned from work paid for us to go back to Mobile to finish moving out of the boat and get it ready to sell. 

But the purpose of this blog entry is to explain our decision to give up on the dream of sailing to exotic places.  There are people who have followed our blog who were enjoying the vicarious pleasure of our adventure and will be disappointed that we have decided to sell the boat and end this adventure. So, for their sake and my own, I need to write about the ending of Larry and Alison’s Great Adventure.

There were hints of the reality of living aboard on my blog entry titled: “The Dark Side of Living Aboard,” “The Sinking of the Titanic” and in other blog entries.  In fact, there are far more entries describing the difficulties of our adventure than the joys.  That’s because there was precious little joy in the adventure.  The first and possibly the biggest reason we are abandoning this adventure is because it took us FOUR WEEKS of sailing to get to Mobile.  That’s FOUR WEEKS to go a distance that we can travel by car in 7 hours!  FOUR WEEKS of our lives living 24/7 in a boat and seeing little but a green tunnel.  The monotony was broken occasionally by mechanical failure, the challenges of passing under low bridges and finding a place to anchor for the night without going aground.   Had we had no mechanical problems, we might have made it in three weeks, but that’s still a long time to sit in a boat.

And was there any adventure in sailing down the river?  Precious little!  We had a day or two that was warm and sunny with no problems, but even then there was nothing to do but sit in the boat and stare at the river, looking for potential obstacles in the water or keeping a watch out for low bridges.  But there were many more days of sitting in the cockpit, wrapped up in layers of coats, guiding the boat downriver with a cold wind and occasional rain in my face ten hours per day.  Alison didn’t have it much better in the cabin, sitting for weeks in a space no bigger than our former bedroom, her joints aching from inactivity.

When the river opened up onto Mobile Bay and I was sailing on the largest body of water I had ever sailed on, it was exciting!  We sailed the bay for about three hours until we made it to Turner Marina.  As usual, the wind was still blowing on our nose, so I was still motoring and not sailing, but we were still impressed with the big ships we passed and the size of the bay.  When we turned off the main channel to go to the marina, I was surprised to find that we had to be very careful to stay in the channel because the water depth was very shallow outside the channel. So even on this huge (to us) bay, we were back to watching out for shallow water, just like back home in Chickamauga Lake.

Once we left Turner marina and made it to the lovely white sand beaches of Pensacola, we finally anchored out in salt water.  But once we were there and had walked the beaches, we found ourselves back in the boat again, wondering what do to next.  We sailed on over to Pensacola Beach and found a great anchorage that was just a short dinghy ride to the tourist area.  We had the same view and same access to the great restaurants, beach and entertainment that people were paying $100 a night for-if they could find one available on this Memorial Day weekend.  Cool! 

BUT, we had no air conditioning! And when our water tanks got low, I had to motor over to a nearby marina to get water from them.  I had to run the motor for hours per day just to keep the batteries charged so our refrigerator and lights would work. And don't even get me started on marine toilet maintenance! We wanted to do some sight-seeing of the area, but had no car to get us there.   So after the first couple days, we had exhausted all we cared to do in Pensacola Beach.

“Ahh,” you protest “but when you finally arrive at the coast and sail on the ocean, it will all be worth the suffering.” 

I was excited to finally find a day to devote to sailing on the big ocean!  But as you might have read in my previous blog, that turned out to be an unpleasant experience too!   Now, I know that the ocean is not always that rowdy and I could very easily sail for days or weeks in beautiful gently rolling seas.  But that two hours of utter exhaustion and disorientation was enough for us!  Imaging getting caught in even rougher weather not for two hours, but for days at a time, 24 hours per day with nowhere to rest!  No thanks!

So, if sailing on the open ocean no longer seems fun, the boat is cramped and un-air conditioned, are there any other reasons not to continue this journey?

Well yes there are even more reasons to not continue this journey. 

Ever since I bought this boat, I have put thousands more into it, along with months of my time and energy.  When we listed the things we needed to continue our journey safely over open sea to South Florida, the total added up to at least another two or three thousand!  That was the final straw. All the way down the river, I had to spend and spend to fix things and keep the motor running.  When does the hemorrhaging stop and the fun begin? I am an above-average mechanic and did most of the work myself and still I spent thousands.  A common saying in boat circles is that B.O.A.T stands for Bring Out Another Thousand.  A truer saying was never said!    I had had enough of spending, suffering, and spending most of my waking and sometimes sleeping time, working on or thinking about working on the boat.  I had brought my guitar along thinking I would finally have time to learn some new songs.  But there was never a time that I didn’t need to spend every moment tending to the boat.  No time to sit around and play guitar or even read a few chapters in a book, unless it pertained to sailing.

All this so that we could travel at 5 miles per hour; then when we got there, we had no car to get around in.  Had we decided to continue, we would have spent several thousand dollars and the next 4-8 weeks going down the coast of Florida, dodging sandbars, fishing nets, thunderstorms and possible hurricanes or tropical storms so that we could live in an uncomfortable cabin to see the parts of Florida that we have seen before by car or airplane.  Those thousands would have bought us several really nice trips to wherever the heck we wanted to go in a fraction of the time and in a great deal more comfort.

In summary, I can no longer imagine what the attraction would be to live and travel in a boat.  They’re amazingly slow, uncomfortable and remarkably expensive.  

When I was a boy, I decided one summer day to ride my bike to the end of Troy Street and headed North.  After a few hours, I turned back.  I learned later that Troy Street is a state highway that goes all the way to Michigan.  There was no shame in turning back, only a lesson in being realistic.

When I learned to fly airplanes, I bought a map of the US and tacked it to my wall.  I imagined many trips all over the country in a small airplane.  I imagined that I would fly to New Orleans on a Friday in a few hours, then fly back Sunday.  When I learned the cost and complications of flying a small airplane long distances, I decided to give up that dream.  But I learned and experienced a lot, so it was time well spent.

When I became a hang glider pilot, I dreamed of soaring to cloud base and staying aloft for hours like a bird.  I might even go cross country long distances, catching rising air for hours and covering many miles in my motor-less wing.  I flew my hang glider for several years off and on, but never got higher than the 2000 feet that the tow plane pulled me to, or stayed aloft longer than about 45 minutes.  But it wasn’t a waste of my time.  It is still one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced!

When I decided to become a sailor, I dreamed of sailing across oceans and seeing many wonderful things by boat. I promised to stop when it wasn’t fun anymore.  Well, after living aboard for a year and sailing to the Gulf, it wasn't fun anymore.  So it was time to stop. 

Now that we are back on land, little things that we took for granted bring us great pleasure: the marvelous comfort of my recliner; being able to use the toilet, then just flush everything down to who-knows-where; having a refrigerator that we can just reach into and get what we want; having a freezer that can freeze ICE CREAM; having unlimited water available without having to fill the tanks first; having hot water in the shower every morning; having a car to go to the grocery with; having electricity available everywhere; air conditioning; being able to just go outside and walk around; going to music concerts and movies;

I hope I didn’t disappoint anyone who was rooting for me and hoping to see me sail across oceans.  If this is your dream, please don’t let me influence you negatively.  You might be smarter, richer, more capable, or just more tolerant of the inconveniences than I and might love a life aboard.  If so, I’ve got lots of books and lessons learned that I’d be happy to share.

But life is short. There is no time to waste pursuing a dream that no longer makes sense. 

Now, on to the next adventure…

Happytat Makes The Last Leg of Her Journey.

After our wild ride on the big waters Sunday, we retreated back to the safety of the harbor in Pensacola Beach.  I had called my brother Robby several days ago to come join us for a few days vacation before taking us back to Cleveland. He was due to arrive Tuesday, so we just took it easy on the boat most of the day Monday.  We had arrived in Pensacola on Friday evening and spent Saturday doing typical tourist things Saturday.  We walked around the "strip", looked at the beach and walked the long pier.  Sunday morning we went back to the restaurant we had enjoyed Saturday and had their Sunday Bottomless Champagne Brunch at a table on the beach.  It was delightful!  Alison had Eggs Benedict and I had Eggs Benedict with fish.  And of course, they supplied us with several carafes of champagne each.  The Eggs Benedict with fish had an english muffin topped with a fillet of fish, two poached eggs, a slice of ham and hollandaise sauce with shrimp on the side.  Yum!

After breakfast, the champagne had slowed us down considerably, so we stopped by a beach t-shirt shop to let the buzz wear off and do a little shopping.  We bought two inflatable floats and a beach chair, then wandered down to the beach a short distance away.  Being Memorial Day weekend it was packed.  It is a lovely white sugar sand beach and the waves coming in were just big enough to be fun to play in.  We set up our chair and took our inflatables down to the water.  After wearing ourselves to exhaustion fighting the waves and trying to float on our inflatables, we retreated to our beach base where the sound of the surf and children playing lulled us to sleep.  When we woke up, we found ourselves a little sunburned.  We had faithfully applied 50 spf sunscreen before going into the water, but fell asleep before we re-applied it.  Maybe the champagne had clouded our judgement?

Next morning we both had mild sunburn and some foot blisters, but were otherwise in fine shape.  I worked on the boat's throttle cable and steering while we waited on Robby to arrive.  When he found us at about 5 o'clock, we headed for the "strip" for another evening of fun in Pensacola Beach.  It was Tuesday and we were pleased to find that they had a regularly scheduled free concert at 7 o'clock.  So we wandered around the beach area waiting for the music to start.  While we waited, we heard some good blues guitar coming from a beach bar a short distance away.  We hung around and listened and the group was really talented.  But when 7 o'clock came, we headed back to see what music the free concert offered.  They were an okay group playing covers and we stayed a little while, then I suggested we go back to the beach bar and check out that group again.

We spent the rest of the night at that beach bar.  The band was truly talented and we thoroughly enjoyed them.  During their first break, I challenged Alison to a game of pool.  Alison is a fine pool player with her own set of pool rules and she won that first game.  She generously allowed Robby to play me instead playing the usual winner.  We played pool and listened to a great band for several hours before walking back to the boat at about 11:00 pm.

Wednesday we did some sightseeing by going to the Navy Air Museum, a lighthouse and Pickens Fort.

The wind on the beach was blowing furiously and there were red flags out to indicate dangerous  conditions at the beach.  I was so glad I wasn't out on that ocean in a sailboat!

We needed to get the boat back to Mobile where we were going to leave it while we went to Tennessee. Since we finished all our sightseeing and there was still half of the day left, we decided to head toward Mobile and see how far we could get before dark, then finish the trip the following day; that way it would break up a brutal 12 hours straight of sailing if we tried to do it in one day.   Alison was tired of being in the boat and agreed to drive Robby's car to Mobile while we sailed the boat there.  In a car, it takes a car about 1.5 hours to drive to Mobile.  It takes about 12 hours of hard sailing to make the same trip.

We got the boat ready, said goodbye to Alison, then Robby and I sailed west toward Mobile.  The wind was still blowing 25-30 mph from the Southeast, so I put up the jib sail and turned off the motor.  We were flying by sailing standards at 7 to 8 mph with only the jib sail up.  Since we were in the bay and not in the ocean, there were no big swells to toss us around and we were having a great time.  Even without ocean waves, sailing in those conditions can be exhausting though, because the skipper has to constantly keep the boat on course and the sails trimmed.

We were making great time and had called Alison to give her our projected arrival time at Lulu's restaurant at about 8:00 pm.  This was much farther than we had expected we would make it by that time, but the winds were in our favor and we were making good time.  Alison was nearby a bridge where we were about to pass under, so she agreed to find a place to take a picture of the boat as it passed by.  Just as we were closing in on the bridge, the wind suddenly shifted, blowing the sail violently the to opposite tack, then back again.  It continued doing this until we were well clear of the bridge.

 We weren't aware of it yet, but this was the beginning of the day's troubles. After clearing the bridge, the wind stabilized and we were back to normal sailing.  But just a few miles farther, the channel opened up into Perdido Bay and the channel markers were farther apart.  The wind was still honking and Happytat had "bones in her teeth" as we sailed onward at a fast clip.  I was in the process of looking for the channel markers when Alison called me on the phone.  In that 60 seconds of inattention, Happytat had wandered off the channel and into shallow water.  I felt that sudden loss of speed that indicated that I had run aground.  The boat swung sharply to the port (left) side and stopped. The wind blew the boat over sharply, but made no forward movement.  We were stuck!  I immediately went into all the procedures I had used before to get unstuck: I started the motor and tried to back up, then tried forward full speed, then turned the wheel back and forth, all to no avail.  I used a homemade depth gauge that I had made with a weight and a ribbon with measuring marks written on it to check my depth all around the boat.  I had about 4 feet of water under me, I need 5.5 feet for my keel to clear.  Robby helped me raise the main sail in an effort to heel the boat over farther, reducing the clearance under the keel.  But that didn't work either.  All this time, the wind was blowing furiously and the sails were flapping and heeling the boat over by 15-20 degrees.

I was contemplating my options at this point.  It would be dark in an hour or so and I needed to be at anchor by dark.  Staying here in the middle of the bay all night wasn't an attractive option.  I could have dropped the dinghy, rowed over to the front of the boat and lowered my 44 lb anchor into the dinghy then rowed 100 feet out into deeper water and dropped the anchor.  Then I could have winched myself out into deeper water.  The problem with that plan was that I wasn't sure I could row against that furious wind.  Another option was to call US Boat for a tow.  They would certainly have pulled me out in short order, but they would also have wanted about $800 to do it.  I had inland rivers towing insurance which I had used twice on this trip, but had forgotten to upgrade to coastal insurance, so I wasn't insured for this grounding.

Robby saw a boat coming our way and we waved our arms for help. A young man with a few friends on a small pontoon boat came by and asked if they could help.  I explained that we were aground and needed to be pulled into deeper water.  He said: "I've never done this before, so you'll have to tell me how to do it." I agreed and got out my extra long rope.  After several tries, he finally caught the rope, then it promptly wrapped itself around his propeller.  He quickly shut down his engine and spent the next 15 minutes unwrapping it while the wind blew his boat around us.  Once he had the prop clear, he tried to start his motor and it wouldn't start.  He worked on it for another 15 minutes and it roared to life.  His little 70 hp motor started pulling at my 13,000 lb sailboat and in a couple minutes we pulled free.  But our troubles weren't over! 'The wind was still blowing hard,  I still had both sails up to heel the boat over and once we were free, the sails propelled us straight at the little pontoon boat at an alarming rate of speed!  I released the jib sail to fly free in the wind and turned the boat sharply away.  We missed his boat, but the rope was still attached and my boat was going to jerk his boat hard when the slack in the rope was gone, probably causing us to collide.  Robby ran forward and released the rope from our cleat just in time and we sailed away from the pontoon boat. Happytat turned a complete 360 degrees before settling back to the direction we needed to go.  He yelled back at us and asked if we wanted our rope back.  I hated to lose that rope, but the danger of trying to get close enough to him in this wind to retrieve it was just  not worth it; so I waved him off and yelled thanks for the help.

The jib sail was flapping wildly in the pounding wind and the boat was still not in the channel where we were assured of deep water.  I told Robby to man the helm for me while I went forward and tried to douse the mail sail and reign in the jib sail.  I told him to head for that green buoy ahead and to stay to the right of it.  He took the wheel and did just as I instructed him to do while I went forward to face a jib sail that was flapping violently back and forth in the wind.  I managed to drop the mainsail while it tried to throw me off the boat, then tackled the jib.  It had wrapped itself around the fore-stay and the sheets (ropes) were tangled around each other and around the fore-stay.  After several minutes of struggle, I had the jib sail back to normal.  About that time, I felt the familiar lurch of the boat going aground again!  "No! This couldn't be!  We're in the channel and it should be plenty deep!"  But we were stuck again.

I tried the same tactics as before with the engine and turning the wheel, but again it didn't work.  We were very stuck again!  But this time within minutes, another power boat came by and we hooked onto his boat.  This time I only had a short rope to use, maybe 30 feet or so.  He pulled with his 200 hp motor and we came free again, and again the jib sail propelled us toward our rescue boat.  This time they managed to release the rope quickly, I turned my boat away sharply and we cleared his boat by a few feet.  I quickly waved thanks and turned my attention to finding the channel and deeper water.  The wind was still blowing hard, so things happen quickly and I had no time for chit chat.

I found a green channel marker and then I saw a red channel marker to its left.  So that was why I had gone aground the second time!  I had told Robby to stay to the right of the green marker and I should have told him to stay to the left of it.  He had done as I said and sailed us right back into shallow water.    I held my breath, hoping we wouldn't go aground again and sailed directly toward the red marker, then turned to stay in the channel.  This time, we had enough water under us and sailed on.  I took down the jib sail and started the motor.

But the channel began turning back and forth sharply and it was getting dark. It was hard to know exactly where the channel was most of the time.  Twice, I mistook where the channel markers were and twice I ran aground.  These two times however, I had no sails up and was going much slower and was able to back out of the shallow water without getting stuck.   After about 30 minutes of following this channel, I began to wonder if I was still on the Inter-coastal Waterway (ICW).  Since our second grounding, I had been so focused on staying in deep water that I had not had time to consult my map and Ipad to confirm my position and direction.  I found a wider place in the channel and slowed the boat enough to take a reading of my position.  To my surprise and consternation, I discovered that I had taken a wrong turn when I went aground the second time and was on a side channel and not on the ICW that I was supposed to be on.  I turned the boat around 180 degrees and headed back the way I came.

By now it was very dark outside and it was difficult to see the channel markers in this narrow channel. Robby went out on deck with a powerful hand-held spot light and spotted the channel markers for me as I slowly motored my way along.  I was exhausted and it was getting darker.  I needed somewhere to tie up for the night.  Consulting the Ipad mapping program,  I found a marina a few miles away and called Alison to tell her where to meet up with us.

After about an hour of motoring in the dark, we found the marina and headed for it.  The wind was still blowing hard and that made it especially difficult to pull up to a dock and tie up without crashing into the dock or another boat.  On the second try, I managed to get close enough to hop off the boat and tie her to the dock.  Alison had seen us coming and met us at the dock.  I threw her a rope and she wrapped it around a cleat.  But the wind was blowing the boat hard against the vertical dock poles.  Alison helped me tie a fender horizontally to protect the boat from the pole.  I looked around for a better place to tie up that was more protected from the wind and waves, but there just weren't any better options.  So we secured Happytat and went to the cabin to rest finally.  Despite the boat's rocking back and forth and bumping the dock all night, we all seemed to sleep well that night.

Next morning at about 6:30 am, I was up and ready to go again.  We had a bowl of cereal, untied the dock lines and headed out for the last leg of our journey back to Mobile.  Alison left in the car to meet us there.  At first the wind was gentle and I wondered if I should put up both sails.  But we were going 6 mph and putting up the other sail would make a lot more work, so I let the jib sail take us along without help from the motor or the mainsail.  As the day progressed, the winds got stronger and stronger until it was stronger than the day before.  After about two hours of travelling in a narrow channel, we entered Mobile Bay.  Mobile Bay is big.  So big, you often can only see land on one side or the other, but not both sides of the bay at the same time.  Following the ICW markers, we sailed out into the bay.  After an hour on the ICW it was time to turn Northwest toward the main channel that runs toward Mobile.  The wind had become increasingly strong so that by the time we turned NE, there were 2-3 foot waves in the bay and the jib sail was pulling hard.  While it wasn't as bad as my time in the open sea a couple days before, the waves made it hard to stay on course.  The wind was coming from directly behind us at 25-30 mph.  I noticed that we were the only sailboat on the bay and wondered to Robby if they knew something we didn't know about conditions.  But there was no turning back now and we sailed onward.

We had no disasters or incidents on this leg of the trip other than having to sail in ferocious winds and waves.  It was 4 hours of exhausting sailing.  The waves would pick up the back of the boat, lift her up like a cork in a bathtub, twist her around 20 degrees, then drop her between the next wave.  I had to stand at the helm constantly, every muscle in my body being worked to its maximum capacity to keep her on course and under control.  Neither I nor Robby had any sea-sickness despite the rolling waves.  We finally dropped the sail and motored into the side channel that led to Turner Marina, our destination.  All the way to the marina, the waves tossed us around as if to have one more go at us before we made it to safety.

Once we finally arrived at the marina the wind made it impossible to back into the slip, so I drove her in bow first.  The dock-hand that helped me tie her up said the conditions out there were so bad that nobody in their right mind would be out there sailing on purpose. So that was why I saw no other sailboats or any other pleasure boats on the bay!  After 6 hours of sailing in those conditions, I staggered to the cabin and finally managed to rest.  And to think, I had actually planned originally to do this trip in a straight 12 hour day!

A Wild Day on the Sea

Last week I finally got what I wanted: a day of sailing my own boat on the open sea.  Winds were predicted to be about 15 mph and skies clear; perfect sailing weather!  I spent the morning getting everything fastened down so things wound't be tossed around so much when I put up the sails.  We pulled out of our cozy harbor in Pensacola Beach at about noon and headed for the inlet to the Gulf at Santa Rosa Island. We checked the tides and learned that the tide would be rising, so we could expect some current through the inlet; but with the winds blowing out of the Southeast, we should have some wind in our sails to help the engine push us out past the current. The sailing was great on the way there. It took about two hours to sail from the harbor we had been in for a few days to the inlet and the winds were perfect.  I had both sails up and the boat was moving along at a nice clip of about 6-7 mph.  The bay was dotted with other sailboats as well on this Memorial Day long weekend.  I noticed however that there were no other boats heading out to sea.  Hmmm Do they know something I don't know?

I turned into the inlet and despite the wind in my sails, the boat slowed from 7 to 4 mph as I pointed toward the sea. We also began to feel some ocean swell that wasn't there in the bay.  I was excited and a little scared as Happytat pointed toward the open sea.  It was a similar feeling to standing on the launch at Lookout Mountain, looking at the open sky that I was preparing to launch into.  Or the feeling I always got when I was putting my raft or kayak into a white water river.  I started up the Iron Sail (the diesel engine) for support and pushed through the current.

The farther I got toward the open sea, the more ocean swell Happytat happily sailed over.  After about thirty minutes and 2.5 miles of following the channel markers and chart plotter out toward the sea, I finally turned left and sailed back toward Pensacola Beach .  Yee Ha, I was under canvas on the open sea! My goal was to sail to the Pensacola Beach pier and the beach we swam in the day before. I set the direction of about 090 magnetic. The sails caught the wind, heeled the boat over from 10 to 20 degrees and sent us along the water at about 6 mph.  All I had to do then was sit back and adjust the wheel to keep us at 090 and parallel with the coast, but not too close.  If I got too close to the coast, there was shallow water that could cause Happytat to run aground.

We were on a course that was just about 15 degrees off the wind, so it was close hauled up-wind all the way. The swells were maybe 2-4 feet and coming from my starboard bow.  Each wave raised Happytat up, then back down with a splash.  It was like what I imagine being on a bucking horse would feel like.  At first it was exciting, like a white water ride.  But after about an hour of riding this wild horse, I began to get tired.  It was a struggle to keep Happytat on course because the wind and waves were constantly trying to force her toward the coastline just 2 or 3 miles away.  Alison soon began to feel disoriented and went down to the cabin to lie down.  I offered to turn back if she wasn't feeling good, but she insisted that we go on.  I wasn't having any symptoms other than the beginnings of fatigue and hunger.  And the waves kept coming and Happytat kept riding over and through them.  After an hour and a half, I decided to "hove to" for a few minutes to get some rest and something to eat. A boat that is "hove to" is parked at sea, neither going forward or backwards.  I eased the bow toward the wind, let the jib sail cross the wind to the starboard side without releasing the sheet and turned the wheel toward port .  It wasn't a perfect position, but the boat slowed her forward movement and the waves calmed down a little and allowed me to release my death grip on the wheel for a few minutes.  I went below and got a snack and some water and checked on Alison.  She was still feeling "swimmy-headed" but not sick.  I evaluated her condition, my fatigue and made the decision to turn back toward calmer waters, forsaking the original goal of reaching the Pensacola Beach and pier.

Turning back put Happytat on a down-wind course. The wind was now coming over our back port quarter and the waves were coming from the same direction.  The feel of the boat was very different now.  The motion was not one of crashing through waves, but rather being pushed by the waves.  The boat rocked back and forth and up and down.  Each time a wave lifted the stern of the boat up, it changed our direction by 10 or 20 degrees and I had to wrestle the wheel to get us back on course.  After only a few minutes of this new motion, I began to feel that old familiar queasiness that precedes sea sickness, and I still had about an hour and a half of sailing back toward the inlet before I could get any relief from the relentless waves.  I have been sea sick several times and it is worse than just being nauseous and feeding the fish.  It is a malaise that makes you want to curl up somewhere and die. But I couldn't curl up and die because someone had to pilot this boat back to safety and Alison was already out of commission.  When I used to fly small airplanes I understood that once I was in the air, if something went wrong with either the plane or myself, there was no pulling over to the curb to fix things.  Now I realized that it is the same with sailing.  I couldn't just stop sailing and make the boat be still until I got better, I had to sail on, no matter how I felt.  So I sailed on, feeling worse with each wave.

About an hour and a half later I finally reached the buoy that marked the inlet back to the calm bay waters.  I turned the boat toward starboard 90 degrees and headed toward safety.  Now the waves were directly behind me and the motion was even worse than before!  The swells had grown larger and more malevolent.  They rolled under my stern, lifting it four or five feet, then rolled under me toward the bow and, turning me 20 or 30 degrees, dropped me between two waves.  When Happytat was sitting in the bottom between waves, the water was all around her at the level of her rails.  Then another swell raised the stern again, starting the process all over again.  I hadn't vomited yet, but was very weak.  It took a determined force of will to remain in control of the boat and myself.  Because the boat was being tossed around by the waves and being turned back and forth with each wave, I was only making three or four mph toward land. So I started up the engine and pushed the throttle nearly to full speed.  With both sails up, a strong tail wind and the engine roaring I still was only able to average about 5 mph because the waves washed Happytat back and forth between them.

It took the longest half hour ever to finally make it past the entrance of the bay and calm waters.  I found a nearby beach and headed for it.  I desperately wanted to rest.  As I approached a likely spot to drop the anchor, a man on the beach began making angry gestures toward me to keep me away from his fishing lines.  I motored a little farther and found a place to drop anchor.  Exhausted as I was, I still had to muster the energy to push the 44 lb anchor with its chain overboard and make sure it held before I could rest.

The boat was never in any danger of being swamped or sunk.  It was just a miserably uncomfortable ride.  And the waves were only 3-5 feet!  That's not even a big storm or anything and I couldn't wait to get back to safety.  I remember telling someone back at Sale Creek that I thought my white-water experience might have prepared me for the ocean and that it might even be fun to sail in some big seas.  I was an idiot!  There is no comparison between the Ocoee river and even a mildly active ocean.  And to think that I was looking forward to an open ocean voyage!  Ha!  I couldn't even tolerate a 3 hour day sail with winds only in the 20 to 25 mph range! The sea can throw a lot more wind and wave at me than that and do it for days and nights on end!  I had to wonder how I would have managed if I had been days away from a safe bay or harbor with the wind and waves pounding me like they did today.  I don't want to find out.

thanks for reading this.
Larry