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!