mvwhiskybusiness

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Jacksonville

July 20, 2021

On our way to jacksonville we did some housekeeping and when we moved the table on the aft deck we heard something hit the floor. Some nefarious guest was hiding their domino’s under the table. I am not smart enough to do that. Deb and I are racking our brains trying to figure out who the culprit/s is/are.

Fortunately, an uneventful run to J’ville, but got some pretty nice photo’s of the trip.

Upon our arrival in J’ville we procured a slip in Lamb’s Marina. The only marina with covered slips that I have ever seen that was not on one of the inland rivers.

Our dock mates, Conrad and Linda Marks aboard Watermarks, a 46’ Carver/Californian that they meticulously maintain. One day I caught Conrad polishing his…FENDERS! Told ‘im to cut it out cuz Debbie might see him and get ideas. They were packing their car to head home and leaving the boat during hurricane season.

While in Jacksonville, we took a 130 mile drive to Savannah and spent a couple of nights in a hotel. A nice respite from the boat.
Our room faced the Savannah River and one night Debbie wakes up as she hears this very deep rumble. She looks out the window and a massive container vessel cruises by. Next day I get a video of another one with over 3000 containers! Those containers are the size of a tractor trailer.
You will have to visit http://mvwhiskybusiness.com to see the following video.

We spent an evening walking around Savannah, such a cool town.

Next day we were jonesin’ for some BarBQ so we found this spot on Tripadvisor

After lunch we headed to Tybee Island on the Georgia coast where the Savannah River enters the Atlantic Ocean.

Now, about that “Funny Thing…” It has been awhile since our last post. Coupla months back while we were anchored out at Cape Canaveral we came to a decision. It was time for Whisky Business to find a new Captain and Crew. We had always wanted to cruise the Bahama’s but they were closed due to Covid. Ditto for Canada. As much as we have enjoyed the cruisiing lifestyle it has its shortcomings. We were losing touch with our friends back home as we would spend spring, summer and fall on the boat and winter at our Florida home. Missed family something terrible! In order to cruise the Bahamas and Canadian waters we would have to wait another year for everything to open up (maybe). We are just not as commited to the cruisiing lifestyle as others so it was time to sell.

Nine years ago I decided (me, not Debbie) that we were going to do the Great Loop. For 4 years, every morning over coffee I searched the interweb for suitable candidates. We looked in the Great Lakes, Florida, everywhere east of the Mississippi. One day I find a boat only 90 miles away in Cincinnatti. Deb sez this is the one. She became the fantastic vessel Whisky Business. Such a brilliant choice. Built by the folks at Kentuckiana Yachts in Jeffersonville. We had the brain trust for these boats at our fingertips. Those guys gave me a skillset whereas I never had to hit the “Oh Shit” button. On top of that I made some great friends there too.

Upon our arrival in Jacksonville we placed an ad on the Great Loop Forum. Three days later we had an interested party. Within a week we had a deposit. As of 4:30 on July 19 Whisky Business had a new Captain and Crew.

Meet Captain Doug Pelton and First Mate Judi Chapman. Judi is the reason we allowed Doug to buy the boat. They came to inspect the boat after hiring a broker to do an ititial inspection. Took ‘em for a ride and decided they would be the perfect couple to take over WB. They will be changing the name to “Mobile Home” as Doug owns trailer parks.

Deb and I are already talking about our next boat, something that can be trailered to great cruisiing areas and has outboard engines. I gotta tell ya, as much as I love Whisky Business, I am tired of crawling around the engine room.

Name of the next boat…I’ll Have Another, WHISKY BUSINESS.

Ya know, there is a saying, the best 2 days in a boaters life is the day you buy it and the day you sell it. Not so. This boat, which is nothing more than a compilation of hardware, systems, fiberglass, wires and really heavy stuff was our home for the last 3 cruising seasons. She is so much more than that. For over 10,000 miles (at 9MPH) she took care of us in seas that I would never dream of going out in, but ended up there anyway. Did we shed a tear when we left her? Betcherass we did. Always kept us safe. Doug and Judi have promised to take good care of her during their time with her.

There is another chapter to Debbie, Jerry and Whisky Business however. In early August Deb and I will take a 4 day cruise with Doug and Judi to acclimate them to WB. We are looking forward to one last cruise, BURNING SOMEONE ELSES FUEL!!!!

St. Augustine, Florida

May 14

View from the flybridge in our slip at St. Augustine Municipal Marina.

Ran for almost 9 hours yesterday to only go 68 miles. So many”No Wake” zones means idle speed for us, around 6mph. Pretty maddening. Add to that we had 10 to 15 mph winds from the north (thankfully), but it made for a loud ride. Since we were running 9-10 mph into those 10-15 winds, the boat was essentially in 20-25 mph winds.

During our stay in New Smyrna we had dinner with these great folks, Stella and Rollin Mcqueery. Great folks from Cambelsville, Ky. Rollin is the kind of guy that really pisses me off. Almost 80 and virtually no gray hair and looks like he’s maybe 50. Pretty active fella as he still performs referee duties for high school basketball and volleyball. wonderful folks, these 2, really glad we got to see ‘em.

Woke up to find this guy on our fender board. If Debbie had seen him first she probably would have jumped ship! Don’t blame the little fella, small crabs are on the menu of lots of large fish.

RYesterday on our way to St. A we had to traverse a couple of bridges that we could not squeeze under. Both times the bridge tenders opened the bridges immediately upon our call. That was great as sitting in a 10-15 mph wind is kinda tough since it can blow you into shallow water if ya don’t pay really close attention. Notice the left side of the bridge did not open? that side of the bridge was inoperable but plenty of room for the sail catamaran and Whisky Business to get through.

Really gloomy day yesterday but the clouds and wind kept the temp just below 70 degrees. First day since we left Burnt Store that we did not sweat all day long.

Pretty sad, we saw so many derelict boats yesterday, At one point there were about 6 abandoned boats.

A 50+ foot motor yacht abandoned at anchor.

This morning the winds are still 10+mph. Below are a couple of photo’s from our slip in the marina.

Outside the marina:

Inside the marina:

This is the dock in front of WB. Water is like glass in the marina.

And now the Piece’ de Resistance!

These fine folks are Tim and Katie Lane from the sailing vessel Pangur Ban. We met them on our 18/19 Loop and they are docked across the fairway from us. Debbie thinks she remembers Tim from when he was a Chippendale dancer. Katie is a fabulous videographer and she took a short video as Whisky Business and crew entered the marina yesterday. She put it together with a video she shot at our Wake Crossing celebration in October of 2019 at Green Turtle Bay. I think there were 7 boats with us when we crossed our wake.
In Katie’s video you see us open this bottle of Woodford that we brought on board when we started our Loop. We opened it and shared with our flotilla from that eventful day.

Unfortunately if you opened this post from your email, you will not be able to see Katie’s video.
Go to: **http://mvwhiskybusiness.com** and the video will play there. Be sure to turn up the sound as Katie has great taste in music. Quite fun!

Lake Okeechobee and the East coast

May 7-12

Last Wednesday we left Moore Haven and crossed that big lake in the center of Florida, Lake Okeechobee. In the above photo you can see we hugged the SE coast of the lake until we headed in a NE direction across the lake. This path was dictated by the marked channel through very shallow water. We never saw less that 6 feet under the boat the whole way.

Lots of agriculture and cattle in this part of Florida. Bunch of cows cooling off in the water.

Broke out one of our large fenders for starboard tie ups in the locks along the Okeechobee. Half Pint hangs over just a wee bit on that side.

A train bridge that crosses the Okeechobee Waterway. Permantly up position.

Launching an air boat. These things do not require much if any water at all.

No idea, but made me think of our upcoming trip past Cape Canaveral.

There is a dike along the outside of the southern channel along the lake. The sign says it is the Herbert Hoover Dike…have fun with it…we did!

Finally entered the lake. Notice all of the exposed growth? Not much water there!

VIDEO HERE
Go to http://mvwhiskybusiness.com to view.

The winds picked up out on the lake and we saw 3 footers for a while hitting us from th 11 o’clock position.

Once we crossed the lake there was a construction site with Travelifts. These ar large devices used to lift 30+feet and much larger boats out of the water. The one in the right of the photo is large enough for at least a 60 footer.

Everywhere in Florida there are derelict boats. If steel or aluminum recycling is an option. Fiberglass? Only option is to grind ‘em up with really expensive equipment and who’s gonna pay for that. Taxpayers won’t.

Okeechobee Waterway on the east side of the lake.

See the bright green algae? We saw a lot of this for about 10 miles after we crossed the lake.

Passed this “boat house”, probably $5-$6M in these 3 boats.

And VIOLA! We arrive on the east coast of Florida at Stuart. We had never seen so many dredging barges! Bet we saaw 20+ and there was some really skinny water. At one point there was a dredge barge with a small sign that read “This Way” with a red arrow indicating a pass on our port side. The barge was blocking the view of a critical channel marker.

After Stuart we passed through Vero Beach after a long day and just crashed. Nuttin’ to report. Next day we ran to Titusville which is just across the channel from Cape Canaveral’s launch site. Way in the distance we could see that big builking where the rockets are assembled with the big blue NASA sign. Too far for an effective Ipad photo.

Dammit, when we got to Titusville there was a mooring field and a very good anchorage. We chose the mooring field since the area has a muddy bottom and we would not have to rinse off the anchor and chain using a “mooring ball”. A mooring ball is secured to the bottom and has a line with a loop on the end. Ya just grab it with a boat hook and attach the bridle to it. Easy Peezy right? Yep, until we call the marina that manages the field and they ask what is our Length Over All is. Boats are measured by the distance from the front part of the boat at the waterline to the back of the boat at the waterline. Using this measurment Whisky Business is 46 feet long. Our LOA (which includes the bow pulpit with anchor to the back of the swim platform is 53 feet. We were told we could not use the mooring ball as there was a 50 foot limit. So we moved 200 feet away and dropped anchor. And I used about 20 gallons of our fresh water supply to clean the mud off the chain and anchor when we brought it up.

The reason you want a really clean chain is when anchoring in salt water with a muddy bottom the chain can really start to stink and all manner of stuff will begin to grow in the chain locker.

…which is located behind the mirror at the head of the bed in the forward stateroom.

And speaking of chains and anchors oh faithful reader, you may recall our anchoring mishap on the Tombigbee waterway when we lost it all. On some boats there is a heavy wall called a bulkhead at the back of the chain locker that the chain/rope can be attached to. On Whisky Business there is only a thin wall between the stateroom and the chain locker. Not a good place to secure the chain. So, after talking to a lot of folks this is what we came up with. We “braided” a 3/8 inch line to the bitter end of the chain and attached the other end of that line to a 2X4. This method will allow us to cut the 25 feet of line should it run out after the 200 feet of chain. The 2X4 will keep the bitter end of the line in the boat. I secured the 2X4 to the side of the chain locker with a piece of velcro and the line is attached to a sticker with a light plastic tie that will easily give up the line if called upon.
So that is finally put to bed!

After leaving Titusville it was time to blow out the turbo’s. We ran wide open throttle for about 3 miles and achieved a speed of 22.7 MPH. Pretty good for a 40,000 pound boat!

Hmmm, I wonder if that bridge is high enough for us to squeeze under??
How does one find out???

Just touch that little icon on the multi function display and this pops up. The name of the bridge, GPS coordinates of the bridge, type of bridge and the height when closed. Isn’t technology great!

A family of dolphins came along for the ride. Interesting thing about the shape of a boats hull. On a “trawler” the hull is designed to efficiently go through the water at slow speeds, say under 10 MPH. On a trawler a strong bow wave is created at, yeah, you guessed it, at the bow. Our hull is known as a semi planing hull, so it can get up on top of the water and go fast. Our “bow wave” is created farther back along the boat at midship so that is where the dolphins hang out on our boat.
INSERT VIDEO HERE
Go to:http://mvwhiskybusiness.com

Now this is just maddening as hell. After we left Lake O the boat icon on our MFD developed a wayward skew that required us to perform a sea trial wizard and resetting the internal compass to north. Not a big deal but requires the boat to be driven in a couple of circles and then the autopilot drives the boat in a zig zag pattern.

The dotted line is our track. Swear I had not been drinking.

Saw a funny cocktail napkin today. Drunk fellow is walking down the street. Police Officer says, Sir, you are staggering.
Guy responds, Well you’re handsome too!
I need bail money.

Insert rimshot here.

Whisky Business has LEFT the building!

May 5 & 6

Wednesday morning at 8 AM we cast off from our home marina for the last 5 months and headed out into Charlotte Harbor on our way to our anchorage 40 miles away in Fort Myers. Easy 30 minute drive by car…

seven and a half ours later averaging 9 or so miles an hour we arrive. It appears we took the looooooonnnngggg way.

In Charlotte Harbor we saw lots of “islands” of this stuff. Always steered around it. Did not want to clog the water intakes for the engines.

The chi chi private Useppa Island on the left. Only 2 ways to get on that island. Own a home there (we don’t, nor do we know anyone who does) OR tell ‘em your going to the library. My understanding is since the Useppa Free Public Librart gets federal funding, the local authorities MUST let you visit. Great country or what?
On the right of the image is cool as hell Cabbage Key. Only accesible by boat the island boasts a really fun restaurant with a great cheeseburger (not the one in Paradise) and the mandatory brazzillions of one dollar bills on the walls and ceiling.

Close to Fort Myers we see these guys fishing. You can see the really shallow area between them.

If you had an extra $2-3M in your pocket, this is the boat you would buy.

If you look closely, to the left of the image you can see 2 people waving from the dock. We had anchored in an area called Glover Bight last night. Twenty minutes after dropping the hook my phone rings. Yacht broker extraordinnaire Bill Molnar calls. He sold us Whisky Business when it was known as Dustcutter. From his vantage on the dock at Tarpon Point Marina he recognized Whisky Business and gave us a shout. He didn’t see the name on the transom, he just recognized one of the many Jefferson’s he has sold. His lovely wife Debbie is with him and that is the ONLY reason there is a photo of him here!

A refreshing shower on the swim platform after a long hot day.
No way in hell is Debbie gonna let me take her photo!

We just love our Weber Q grill. I installed a 20lb propane tank in the dock box and ran the hose to the grill through a hole in the side. If there is rain in the forcast it will use those little 1 lb. Coleman propane tanks and we cook on the aft deck.

After grilled chicken legs and corn on the cob for dinner, 2 episodes of Yellowstone, it was lights out…at 10PM.

Up at 6:30 this morning. Performed an engine room check, made coffee, putzed around the boat and were off at 8AM for the 70 mile run to Lake Okeechobee.

View from the windlass. Kinda cool how the chain links all line up. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get ‘em to do that? The large round black buttons are foot controls for lifting and lowering the anchor and chain.

Up early, performed an engine room check and made coffee. Had all day to run the 70 miles to Lake Okeechobee.

Underway at 8 again today and it was a hot and sweltering day. When we started this Loop thing back in 2018, coming down the rivers the wind always seemed to be at our backs. Went through gallons of water. Same today. All day, the wind was out of the west and we were going east, just like the damn wind.

This big ol red fender is just big enough to keep the bow of the new dink from hitting the lock wall. We were in 2 locks today. One of ‘em lifted us a whole 18 inches.

*Insert video here*
You must log on to http://mvwhiskybusiness.com to view the video. Dunno why.

Our trip through a Bascule bridge. The bridge operator must walk from their hut to the middle of the bridge and operated it there. They are literally at the center of the bridge as it turns. We asked this operator if the ride made her dizzy.

We took a number of pretty interesting photos today. Take a look…

We had to turn the boat around to get this shot. After we went by it dawned on us what this is. A landing strip. Couple of planes. On the far end of the strip is a hiway. This end of it ends in the river. Back in the late 70’s I got my private pilot’s license. Not sure if I would have attempted a landing here.

Our resting place for the night. Buck a foot, helluva deal. Even had a pool. Secured the boat and jumped in.
Looking at a 6:30 departure in order to catch the first lockage of the day to get across the big Lake Okeechobee.
Night all.

Countdown to May Departure

April 10

If it wasn’t for Debbie on the left of the photo, this could be any group of 5 people!

We hadn’t taken an all family vacation in years so we decided to head to West Yellowstone for a snowmobile vacation. Debbie, Nick, Haley, her husband Brett and I headed west. Yellowstone in winter is totally breathtaking! In order to go into the park on snowmobiles you can go on a guided tour or hire your own guide which we did. The day we were in Yellowstone we covered 130 miles from the Little Grand Canyon to Old Faithful.

Some of what we saw…

Interesting, our guide said if you peed to the right of the sign it would run to the Mississippi River. If you peed to the left of the sign it would run to the Pacific Ocean. Cool or what? BTW, no idea which one of us is in this photo.

The Little Grand Canyon. Spectacular in the summer. Words do not do it justice in the winter. And we had it all to ourselvs.

If the Hell’s Angel’s rode snowmobiles they would look like this.

I told Debbie not to walk too far off the path. She found a deep spot in the snow…

For large groups of tourists who require a little more comfort than what a snowmobile provides, there are these bussees with HUGE tires Darn near as tall as Debbie!

The sky was a different shade of blue and the clouds were pretty cool.

But this is a blog about boating!

Meet Half Pint, the newest addition to the Whisky Business fleet.

With an aluminum hull and no fiberglass (really heavy), and a 30 HP outboard this thing really screams across the water. Bet I can outrun just about any manatee that wants to challenge me.

A bit of an issue with Half Pint. It has the same dimensions as it’s predecessor but the transom (the little wall in the back that the motor mounts to) is farther back in the boat. Which means it is actually longer when the engine is tilted up.

Since the engine is farther back and almost touches the davit the bow hangs about 8 inches over the starboard side of the boat. Will have to be very vigilant when coming into a slip in a marina as we might bump into a piling.
Got a new anchor for Half Pint in the mail today. Hope I have better luck with this one!

Collapsable so it fits in it’s own dry bag.

Behind the engine is the davit which lifts and lowers Half Pint.

Remember this mess?

These batttery clamps I had installed on my start battteries to manage all of the cables that were there. Not exactly ABYC (American Boat and Yacht Council) specifications.
Nothing a checkbook can’t fix!

Couple of $BoatUnit$ later we had buss bars intstalled and really cleaned up the battery situation.

My big brother Jim made a suggestion some time ago that has stayed with me. Should anything happen to Deb or me while traveling on the boat, it is not so easy if even possible to get help. Calling 911 when out on the water is not going to get a quick response. So at Jim’s urging Debbie and I have just completed CPR training and also purchased an AED device for jump starting a victim of Cardiac Arrest. We did not know that CPR will NOT resusitate a Cardiac Arrest victim. CPR only continues to pump blood. Cardiac Arrest requires an electric shock to the heart to get it going again.

One of our Loop friends suffered a heart attack while on their boat. Fortunately for him he was in a marina where help could get to him quickly.

Gee, look at the time.
Time for…

Punch List, Maintenance, Bernie and MORE!

February 19, 2021

Beautiful sunset as seen from the entrance to our marina. Large boat blocking the view however. Still nice, right?

With boats there is always maintenance, especially boats like Whisky Business who have seen their 25th birthday. Having said that, Debbie and I visited our great friends Deb and John Neal on Saltaire in Fort Myers yesterday and lo and behold, their slip neighbor is a 40+ foot Bristol. What is unique about Northern Star is she has seen her 50th birthday! Early 70’s vintage when fiberglass use in boat building was in it’s infancy. Dave and Cindy Wood are the proud owners of this spectacular vessel. Having been in the boat building business his whole life Dave has literally thousands of man hours labor in the boat and it shows.

Interesting aside to the name of this fine vessel. While chatting with the owner I asked about the origin of the Name “Northern Star” Something he and his wife came up with Dave told me. It reminded me of a great movie based on the book The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kippling. Dave knew the movie well and it was one of his favorites as well. In the movie Rudyard Kippling is the manager of a newspaper in India at the turn of the 19th century by the name of…The Northern Star! Okokok, well I found it amusing.

In my never ending quest to keep WB young by the time we got to our Florida home with her we had quite a punch list of maintenance items that needed my attention.

Fuel Filters. WB has 2 fuel filters for each engine including the generator. Some of these filters are even easy to get to. Some, not so much.

These are the Racor filters. Very easy to change. Just turn off the fuel flow, twist off the top, pull out the old filter and replace. Yeah there are a couple of gaskets that must be replaced as well but no big deal at all.

And then there are these filters. They are well hidden behind the after coolers and quite the pain to access with a filter wrench. They require the removal of the very large air filters to get to. Heck, I didn’t even know they were there and never changed them in almost 900 hours of operation during our first 7500 mile Loop. Did not notice them until I removed the after coolers during last years maintenance.

For the longest time I have had water in my bilge. If it is just a little water that doesn’t even kick on the bilge pumps it’s no big deal. But it has always aggravated the heck out of me. After quite a bit of sleuthing, I found the sources.

This is one of two rudder packing devices. The large vertical shaft is the rudder shaft. The 2 screws with the 2 nuts on them tighten the packing around the rudder shaft which keeps water from entering the boat. One side of the packing nuts was loose, allowing water to seep in.

Wish I had pre-teenage children that I could stick down in these skinny places to do maintenance. This is the inside of the transom, the back of the boat where the rudder shafts are located.

Had to squeeze in there and tighten the packing by feel. The nuts that must be tightened are beneath the large bracket seen here. All work must be done by feel. Ugh!

The other sources of water intrusion were 2 fittings on the hot water heater. Healthy dose of pipe dope and teflon/plumbers tape cured that, and now…

This, faithful readers, is a DRY BILGE!!!
It’s a proud day on board Whisky Business!

Raw water impellers. These are the devices inside the water pump that draw in the cooling water for the engines. Pretty easy task on the starboard engine, even though access is a bit limited.

Not a lot of room between the top of the engine and the floor above.

On the Port side I have to lay on top of the engine and squeeze my head and arm in to get to the water pump.

One issue that has been a bit of an eyesore on WB was a crack in the fiberglass on the aft deck hardtop supports. These cracks were present when Debbie and I purchased the boat but the surveyor said no big deal. So I never addressed it. Add to the fact that I know absolutely NOTHING about fiberglass repairs. Until now. You may recall the crew of Carried Away, a wonderful couple from Michigan that we met on the east coast in ‘19. Carrie worked for Trojan Yachts and actually did the layout schedule for that brand of boats. He knows fiberglass.

This is what I started with.

Using a Dremel tool I cut out the affected area.

Filled the cutout area with a mix of fiberglass resin, tiger hair (chopped strands of fiberglass) and thickener. I had to add a thickener as this is a vertical strut and the resin would simply run out of the repair area.

After the resin and tiger hair mixture cured.

Ta da! Finished! Good thing these are low resolution photos.

A couple of weeks ago our friends John and Deb Neal splashed Saltaire in Port Charlotte. We met them just off the island of Cayo Costa and anchored out for a few days.

Whisky Business and Saltaire rafted up on one anchor.

And Now…Bernie!!!

Took a nap on the boat and when I woke up…

Went to check on our friends boat and found this squater…

He even showed up on Carried Away when we were on the Erie Canal last year…

Whisky Business has ENTERED THE BUILDING!!!

December 9

Finally, 2 months and 4 days after departing Captain’s Quarters Marina in Louisville, Ky. Whisky Business arrivd at our winter destination , Burnt Store Marina in Punta Gorda, Fl. Actually we only traveled 21 out of the last 57 days but then there were 2 hurricanes, Thanksgiving and Covid that got in the way.

Only problem with arriving in the early afternoon was we were at low tide. Our sonar only showed 1.4 feet of water beneath the keel. Actually there is another 1.5 feet of depth as I have a bit of a fudge factor built in to the sonar.

This is a photo from our first night at anchor just above Leavenworth, Indiana. The occupants of these 3 boats were on their way to a bourbon tasting and when they saw the name on our transom…Man, it seems like ages ago!

We left Clearwater after a little debauchery involving 3 bottles of Champagne, 5 Manhattans and a great meal with our friends the Cassaro’s who drove up from their winter home in Dunedin. Can’t believe none of us took a selfie to commemorate the event.

Last night our plan was to stay in a marina about 6 miles north of Venice where we were assured there was plenty of water to get into the marina from the ICW. We were told by the marina manager to not arrive until after 4pm so there tide would have come in enough to give us enough water to enter. Since we did not want to arrive too early we departed Clearwater at 9:30. Made the turn off the ICW and no water under us. The sun is setting, about 5:30 with full on dark in about 30 minutes. We turned up the heat in the engine room and scooted down to Venice where we found a marina that was closed but the fuel dock was empty. Tied up there for the night and all was good. Our plan was to depart at first light, long before the marina staff would arrive. No one would have known the better and we would have saved over a hundred bucks, but we are firm believers in karma. Called the number on the door and paid $2.50/foot for our overall length of 53 feet.
We slept in this morning and got underway at 7:30 this morning arriving at
Boca Grande marina to top off the fuel tanks with 175 gallons of diesel fuel.

Check this out, see the difference in the color of the water? Tide coming in!

Found this on Debbie’s phone. She’s gonna kill me for this! I mean, she took the selfie, right?

Following are some photo’s of our cruise the last few days.

After arriving at our slip we walked to our condo, got the golf cart and started unloading all of the supplies we had laid in. Had lunch, went back to the condo and took a power nap.

Made one more trip to the boat to bring back more stuff to the condo and got this great shot.

Have some maintenance to perform as we have just completed 1600 miles to get here from Louisville. Will keep you apprised.

Longest 2 Days…EVER

December 6

On Saturday morning we woke to a wee bit of fog otherwise a great travel day/s. We ran 68 miles from our Anchorage just east of Panama City on Wetappo Creek to Carabelle where we would wait for a good weather window to cross the 160 miles of open water in the Gulf of Mexico. We did not have to wait long as no sooner had we arrived at Carabelle that we found our weather window was quickly approaching, like 1 hour later. Found a great burger joint across the street from our marina, stuck one down our necks, jumped back on the boat and within the hour we started what turned out to be a 174 mile, 22 hour run. 242 miles in 31 hours. Debbie, Dave and I deserve some kind of medal!

Whisky Business with mustache taking a well deserved 1 hour respite prior to our overnite Gulf crossing

We had been underway for 6 and a half hours with 55 miles behind us when this photo was taken. All of the numbers in blue circles are boats that use this NEBO boat locator app, most of which are Loopers.

This derelict vessel was here from Hurricane Michael when we came through in 2018.

Our friends, Marvin and Nancy Wehl on Crimson Tug leading the way.

The above 2 images were our view from the flybridge during the first 6 hours of the crossing. Complete black out. Nuttin to see, except the Star of Marvin. Our friends Marvin and Nancy on Crimson Tug were the lead boat in our 2 boat flotilla. Their navigation light was the only pinpoint of light to see.
And then…

this brilliant wedge of moon appeared around 10:30 pm. A bright halloween orange moon made it’s appearance. Before the moonrise we could not see anything including the water.

Could not get a slip in Tarpon Springs so we moved on to Clearwater.

The Municipal marina in Clearwater is a pretty jumping place, even in December.

VIDEO HERE (remember, if you are viewing this blog from an email, you won’t see the accompanying videos UNLESS you go to http://mvwhiskybusiness.com.

Pirates everywhere! Ya know what a pirates favorite letter is? Your thinking “RRRRRR” aren’t ya? Well ya might think so, but it’s really the SEA/C!!!

MY NEXT BOAT!!!

Covid, Thanksgiving and…Sherlock Holmes

December 4

As always, one meets lots of great folks when pursuing such a great adventure such as the Great Loop. One couple we met while waiting for Huricane Eta in Orange Beach, Alabama complained of stuffy noses. Then chills. Kept our distance. Until I got a ride from this guy to pick up a rental car so Deb and I could visit Pensacola. He was not wearing a mask so I got in the back seat with my mask in place. Unfortunately for my buddy Marvin, he had to sit in the front seat. Our new pal driving, not wearing a mask. I survived the encounter. My pal Marvin, did not. As everyone knows it takes a spell for Covid to rear it’s ugly head. We hitched a ride on Crimson Tug with Marvin and Nancy as we had a flight out of Fort Walton/Destin to come home for Thanksgiving. Apparently Marvin had picked it up in the ride to pick up our rental car and then I got it from him on the boat ride to Fort Walton. God Bless Debbie, she never got it. Tested twice. All good! By the time we got home on the Sunday, 10 days before Thanksgiving I was showing symptoms on Wednesday and tested positive on Thursday. Went to the lower level in the house and stayed there for 2 weeks. Still have the remnants of a dry cough. Pretty maddening.

My constant companion for the last 2 weeks.
Having been stuck in the lower level for 2 weeks I whiled away the hours watching old Sherlock Holmes movies. Basil Rathbone was Sherlock Holmes like Sean Connery was THE James Bond in the movies.

This past Wednesday having been fever free for 5 days, Deb and I rented a car and drove back to Orange Beach, Alabama to continue the journey. We have our buddy Dave Heilman as additional crew for the Gulf crossing.