June 2005

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Thursday June 2, 2005
After waiting here in Panama City for about a week and a half, we are heading for Clearwater on Fri,June 3. Larry says it looks like a 32 hour sail so we are stocking up the galley on sandwiches and microwave "quickie" meals to eat offshore. I have sedation pills for the dogs(let's hope I don't need one) and I think we are going to be set. We should arrive on Sat afternoon.

Friday June 3, 2005
We shoved off at 7AM from Panama City. We had waited for almost 2 weeks for better weather, but we just decided that maybe the Gulf was calm by now. We were wrong. After about 30 minutes into the trip, the wind picked up and the waves were 3-5 feet, and very choppy. It would not have been that bad if we were going the opposite direction, but we were dead into the wind all the way. We had the main sail up to add any little bit of speed we could, but it was rough. Larry says it was one of the roughest rides he has ever had. The boat was literally pounding across the waves. And when I say pound, I mean sometimes it felt like we had hit a brick wall. Anybody can take this for a few hours, but doing it for 30 hours was not fun. Later on, into the night, the waves grew to 6-8 feet. The dogs were absolutely terrified. I had to stay with them every minute and I ended up giving them sedation pills. Sydney tried to sleep, which was near impossible with the pounding. Poor Frankie was so sedated that when she would stand up, her legs would tremble like a new born colt. It was hard to walk if you were normal, but she was really having a tough time. I tried to convince them both that if they stayed lying down, in a corner, where they couldn't slide around, they would be better off. But they really did not want to sit still cause it was so scary for them. We were going about 5 knots all day Friday, not making very good time because we were headed into the wind. But Saturday morning at about 3:30 AM ,the engine died. OH no!!!! Larry knew exactly what had happened. We ran out of fuel from the tank we were using. Evidently, when we filled up at the fuel dock, we were not really full. We thought we had 30 gallons in the tank at least. That would have handled a trip like this. Larry had planned to transfer fuel sometime early Saturday morning. Just to be on the safe side. Needless to say, it was not a good feeling in the middle of the night to feel like you were just drifting along, with no wind at all to help. (At least not in the direction we were going.) But Larry went below and bled the tank and put us on another tank. In about one hour, she was up and running again. So we lost an hour. We got into Clearwater at about 6:30 PM. So it ended up being a 36 hour trip. We made it and are going to stay here 2 nites. The marina fees are too high here.

Saturday June 4, 2005
We arrived, docked hooked up the power and took showers to go get something to eat. Needless to say, we were exhausted from no sleep (I got more than Larry) and ready to crash. We found a great seafood place, had a glass of wine, ate and made our way back to the boat. I think it was 45 seconds after Larry's head hit the pillow that he was sound asleep. What a trip!!!

Sunday June 5, 2005
Eric and Kirsten met us in Clearwater to sail back to Longboat. We stayed in Longboat Key in a beautiful anchorage. There was a huge sandbar and the girls got to run, chase birds and watch horseshoe crabs mating. (They were everywhere!!)

Tuesday June 7, 2005
I sent Larry up the mast to switch out a faulty TacTic. Hope this one works better for us. We are stayed in Longboat Key again because it was so nice.

Wednesday June 8, 2005
Motor sailed to Venice, Florida and planned to anchor but the anchorage was full. So we were forced to fork out more money for marina fees. We are getting tired of this. But this is a great little town. We rode bikes that they furnished at the marina and saw the town. Tomorrow, we are headed for Cabbage Key.

Sunday June 12, 2005
We got into Fort Myers today and it was rainy all day. Fort Myers does seem to be a great little town though. The people are very friendly and there are lots of nice facilities where we are moored. Our mooring ball is only $10 a nite and that includes use of the laundromat, trash, pump out, and dog walking area. This is a change from where we have been. It seems the people in Florida don't like dogs cause we are having trouble finding a place for the girls to go a lot. We are staying here for 2 days and then going on to Marco Island.

Tuesday June 14, 2005
We left early this morning from Fort Myers and got into Marco Island about 2:30. Once again, no place for the doggies to go. We wound up at another mosquito island. Poor doggies!! Tomorrow we're off again making our way to Marathon. It rained again today.

Thursday June 16, 2005
What a day!! First we woke up to mosuitoes from hell. We had to wait about an hour till the swarm that engulfed our boat went away to take the dogs to shore.

We left Indian Key (alias Mosquito Alley) and headed for the next anchorage which we knew was going to be a problem. First of all, in the cruising book, they did not even mention mosquitoes at Indian Key, where we just stayed and they said at the next place we were going, to bring a shotgun for the mosquitoes!! How could it be worse? Well, it was! Except there were all sorts of other bugs to go along with the skeetters. Larry said the horseflies were as big as hummingbirds.

The worse part was that there was NO place for the dogs to go at all. Not even an inch of dry land. It was all swamp. We saw a mud beach and Larry went to check it out in the dinghy with a pole and said it was quicksand.
Now what? We stopped here just for the dogs and there is nothing but mud and bugs. So, we holed up, turned on the generator, and told the doggies to pee on the rug. What else could we do? We couldn't even let them go in the cockpit, they may have gotten carried away by a horsefly!! This is not one of those days that I am saying "Gee,this is fun!"

Friday June 17, 2005
Larry got up at 5:30, put on long sleeves, jeans, socks and a cap. Then he sprayed his face and body with Deep Woods Off. He was prepared to face the dangers that awaited him in the cockpit!! I thought he was crazy, but he went out there, pulled the anchor and we got the hell out of there (Shark River). He said he just could not stand it one more minute in that horrible place. Me and the girls stayed below until he killed the first 500 mosquitoes and then we dared to peek out.

We got in Marathon about 1:30 and it was such a great feeling! We are on the East coast at last. We are staying at the Marathon Marina because the boat is really dirty. We need to clean all the dead mosquito carcasses out and get water.

Now we are northbound!!

Saturday June 25, 2005
We are in Las Olas Marina In Fort Lauderdale. There are boats here like Texas has never thought about having. We are docked next a 120 foot long boat that is for sale. We figure it is worth about $10 million. But that boat is not even a big one!!! There are thousands of them and they are just everywhere. Our boat looks like a dinghy. The bartender at the place we went last night said Greg Norman's boat is here. It is 260 feet long and he paid $45 million. Now that is a lot of boat. It is all a lot to take in. We have decided that most of these belong to sports figures and entertainers. Oh well, 47 feet will do just fine for us.

We have enjoyed Fort Lauderdale and the city is beautiful. We rented a car and went shopping. There is every kind of boat store conceivable here. Boat stores here are like bars in Key West. We had a blast just looking around. But we did leave a little $ behind. We are headed out tomorrow to West Palm and then to Vero Beach to meet my niece Heather and her husband, Jason. We are very excited about that.

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