Sailing Home
Dry Tortugas to Fort Myers Beach (FMB)
Well, Grete was right. We should have tied the dinghy down to the foredeck. About 8 or ten hours into our two day sail from the Dry Tortugas to FMB a powerful squall blew over us. It was very wide and lasted about 30-40 minutes, quite large for one of these potent cells. We saw it coming from a long ways off, so we had greatly reduced sail and were ready to handle things, or so I thought. The wind hit us and heeled the boat pretty far over (which none of us are very used to), so the kids were freaking out and the boat didn’t handle as well. So, we pulled in the rest of the Genoa and the mainsail and continued on under motor power alone.
A gust of wind got under the edge of the dinghy and flipped it into our lifelines on the port side. The port side lifeline was not attached to the bow pulpit properly since before we got the boat it had been in a collision that heavily damaged the pulpit. The combination of the dinghy scooping the air and the lifeline being held on by a hose clamp was too much and the dinghy blew overboard. This happened fairly early into the squall so retrieving it was not worth it. We had already planned to get a new dinghy since ours was worn too thin to hold air well (it was already about 30-40% patches) and was pretty well trashed. Still, it was not what we wanted to have happen and it made it so that we could not stay at anchor any more until we got home and sourced a new dinghy.
The rest of the trip was not very eventful and we were able to get in to FMB before the sun set on the second day.
Fort Myers Beach
Our first stop on the Gulf side of Florida was Fort Myers Beach. There are not a lot of options for our deep draft on the west coast, but Moss Marina (the Big M) is one such option.
We spent a couple of weeks at the Big M because the dockage rate was fairly inexpensive, the staff were super friendly, and there is a ton of fun stuff to do. While in FMB, we had an electrician hook up the inverter side of our new Victron Multiplus 3000 battery charger. We also had him finish up the radar installation so that we could get better measurements on squall distances to be able to reduce sail at the right times. It is typically easy enough during the daytime, but can be really hard to do well at night.
We also had our first hurricane. Hurricane Elsa (category 1) blew right over us in FMB. It was all anyone in the marina was talking about for a few days, obviously. We were all listing to the radio, watching the news, and just generally gossiping about it. The day before the hurricane hit, we removed all canvas from our topsides and doubled up all of the mooring lines. Then we checked into a nearby hotel for the next two nights to wait it out.
Everything was perfect, no damage and we had a relaxing day watching TV at the hotel while Elsa did her thing. After the storm, we put our canvas back on, at which point I incorrectly connected the Genoa to the furler, causing a snag that damaged the ability to furl the sail and left our sail flapping in the (luckily now quite gentle) breeze. So, with the help of our neighbors, Lee and Allison (S/V Siar), I went up to the top of the mast a couple of times and got it worked out.
After a rockin’ 4th of July party at the Big M, we all parted ways and the Sea Horse decided to head straight back to Pensacola.
Gulfport
Welp, our boat had other plans. All summer, Fira has refused to take motion sickness medicine, so any time it’s a bit rough, she gets sick. We saw the forecast of light winds (no wind, really) and knew that it would be the smoothest trip possible for us. We were making good progress toward home when the engine started making strange sounds. The biggest issue was with the alternator belt that had been causing us troubles off and on all summer. The belt started walking off the front of the alternator pulley and after some squealing exploded into a pile of rubber that looked like black spaghetti.
The same belt that runs the alternator, runs the cooling water pump, so use of the engine was out. I decided to wait until daylight to look more closely and see if throwing on our spare belt would be a reasonable temporary fix. In the morning I saw the extent of the issue. The alternator pulley bolt was bent which meant that we would not be able to use the engine at all (or at least not for more than a few minutes). I discussed our options with Grete (50 miles to Tampa, or over 250 to Pensacola). With virtually no wind, the 50 mile journey seemed like a better option.
So, we turned to starboard and headed toward the Tampa Bay Area. The next 40 miles took us over 30 hours. There was about 1-2 knots of wind and we were able to make between 0.5 and 1 knot. It was not good for morale.
After 30+ hours, we were within cell phone range and called a tow boat to take us in. It was Sunday so it was difficult to contact a marina. We had no place to go and knew nothing of the area. The tow boat driver was insanely helpful. He gave us the contact info for the Gulfport Municipal Marina, where we were able to get a transient slip. He towed us right to the slip and told us where to go to get our alternator fixed.
We got the alternator fixed first thing and reinstalled it. It had the same noises and issues as before. We called a diesel mechanic named Kevin McGary and he came out the next day. He spent the day getting everything into perfect alignment and the alternator was perfectly silent, just as it should be.
While in Gulfport, we met up with an old Navy friend of mine and his family for dinner, went to the library (don’t we always), and had a couple of decent meals out. There was a pretty good jogging trail nearby and a 20-30 foot tall hill (kind of a big deal in Florida). We saw the only manatee of the summer and also had tons of bioluminescence in the water all around the boat. Unfortunately, there was also red tide and tone of dead fish everywhere. I think the red tide kind of detracted from the Tampa Bay Area but we still really enjoyed ourselves and were glad we were forced to stop here.
Pensacola
Now, all fixed up, we were able to head home for real. There was still very little wind. We had to motor most of the 350 miles but luckily got in some decent sailing. I don’t think our diesel tank capacity is sufficient to motor that long without some sailing so we were glad when we got a breeze for a while on day 2 and then again on day 3. We got in to the marina at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola and spent the next day getting moved back off the boat. It was a perfect summer where we pulled together as a family and against all odds got our beautiful new floating home back to PNS for the next phase of our sailing adventure - outfitting the boat for full-time living.
