Author: mvwhiskybusiness

May 8 – 10

Exhausted. I have run 207 miles in the last 4 days single handed. Fortunately I have been running with the swell folks on Saltaire which took the safety concern out of the picture for me (mostly). They were always close enought to hear a “Oh Shit” alarm. It’s kinda like being a goalie, 95% sheer boredom, 5% terror. Biggest issue was getting the fenders out when approaching a marina or fuel dock. I would bring the engines back to idle, engage the autopilot on a long straight stretch of water and put out the fenders. while keeping a sharp eye on what is in front of the boat. All the while I have my trusty autopilot remote in my pocket.

The 95% sheer boredom part?

Listening to 14 hours of Jack Reacher kick ass…

Passed into North Carolina today and docked in the town of Southport, NC. Tomorrow I will rent a car and drive back to Myrtle Beach and pick up Debbie at the airport. She will be with me on the boat until the end of the month when we go home for a few days to see Paul McCartney in Lexington. Plan is to be in Norfolk, Va. by then.

Sunrise in Myrtle Beach.

Passed through a swing bridge today. You can barely make out the cars in line. They love boaters!

One of those really go fast boats for the tourists. Funny thing about these types of boats, they only carry about 60 gallons of fuel to keep the boat light. Less fuel, more paying passengers!

Cool light house.

OOPS!

Take a look at the length of these docks! Must have cost a fortune. And the maintenance!

Sandy Beach near Ocean Isle, NC. Debbie and I stayed here many years ago when she was pregnant with Nick and hurricane Hugo came through. (Remember the movie Perfect Storm with George Clooney?). We got run off the island with our dear friends Bobby and Rusty Nicholas. We holed up with her brother and his family in Raleigh, NC. Her brother sold medical equipment. He had a portable Ultrasound machine that he let us take home with us. This is in 1990. The wife of a fellow I worked with at the time was an ultrasound techician with a hospital. So she comes over one evening and performs an ultrasound for Debbie’s dad and my parents. They had never seen an actual ultrasound. They got to see Nick 3 months before he was born. Pretty cool stuff. Never forget it.

How many beautiful homes have I posted on the site? Lots right? All of a sudden I came across RVer’s!

For Sale: 100 acre island. CALL NOW BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!

Gotta get up early tomorrow (Saturday) so I can get this boat cleaned up for Debbie’s arrival.

(Whisky Business and Easy Livin’, that is)

May 4

Topped off the tanks with 183 gallons of fuel this morning at a reasonable $3.06 per gallon. The clerk at the fuel dock told me “that will be $111.” Wow, I really want to go to heaven so I told him to hit those buttons on that calculator again. Oh, he says, how about $559. Karma

Got off bright and early on a beautiful day for the 40 mile trip to Beaufort (BEWfert), SC. No issues and the weather cooperated fully until right before we got to the dock and as we were tying up we heard thunder. Timing is everything!

Passed this container ship. HUGE!

Never been to Hilton Head before.

One of Hilton Heads many ferries.

And the sailboats, had to be 50 of ’em!

That’s Easy Livin’ threading her way through the morass of sailboats.

Hilton Head residents idea of motorized mayhem.

Hilton Head Harbor

Heading across Port Royal Sound

As the tide begins to come in you can see the difference in the color of the water.

Paris Island, check out the water tower.

OORAH!

At the Beaufort city marina they have floating docks. When the tide comes back in you won’t see any barnacles on the pilings.

Tide out…

Tide in…

With the tide out on a system of floating docks the ramp to the docks must be hinged so it can rise and fall with the tides. At low tide it was pretty tough to get up this ramp. This fellow is really leaning forward to get up the ramp. Quite dangerous to get down it.

Tide out…

Tide in…

A craft fair going on at the Beaufort Marina. Don’t know if Debbie woulda missed the Derby for this.

Great bow pulpit decoration.

Interesting aside, I just added up our mileage since leaving Fort Lauderdale. Sometime on Friday we passed the 3,000 mile mark. At this time Whisky Business has 3,050 miles under her keel in 453 engine hours.

Saw this T-shirt in the marina office. I have a similar one from Punta Gorda.

This is a mooring field near the marina. See those little white specks? Those are mooring balls that float on the surface and are fixed to the bottom. There is a loop on the top of the ball that you tie your boat off to in lieu of dropping your anchor.

A few of the historic houses near downtown Beaufort. This area dates back to 1711.

New friends L to R, Milton and Julie Shaeffer Debbie and John Neal.

It was great meeting these fellow Loopers and lucky too. Yesterday my mate for the last 9 days informed me he had had enough of this exciting boating life and wanted off the boat on Monday. Which means I would have to sit in a marina till Debbie gets back to the boat somewhere around the 9th or I could single hand this beast. Fortunately Debbie and John are going to be my cruising buddies for the next few days. I will let them pull into a marina, get settled and then I will follow and they will help me tie up. Same thing in the mornings, they will help me get off the dock and then they will follow. How hard can it be??? Leaving Beaufort at 6:30 in the morning with the incoming tide and should arrive in Charleston by 2, close to low tide when the current should be slower, a run of about 60 miles.

May 3

BEST MARINA EVER! Free Breakfast!

Moving up the east coast of Georgia, we have left the palm trees of Florida behind. These are some shots of homes along the ICW.

Notice how tall the pilings are that this dock sits on? That’s because the tide here is 8 feet! Which means every 6 hours or so the tide goes from high to low. When anchoring in a tidal zone like this you have to add the depth of the water, plus the distance from the water to the bow pulpit plus the tide swing. Then you multiply that number by 5. So if we are at low tide in 10 feet of water 10+5+8=23X5=115. We would have to deploy 115 feet of rode (chain). In and around Charlotte Harbor, Florida with it’s tidal swing of maybe 1 foot we would only have to let out (10+5+1X5) 80 feet of rode.

Great marina and boat yard, Thunderbolt Marine Services in Thunderbolt, Ga.

Beautiful Kadey Krogen Express. About 48′ in length, these are magnificent boats. There is a 15 year old KK for sale on Yachtworld for only $750,000. Such a deal! We were docked next to these folks at Green Turtle Bay way back in September.

Just finished service on this sailboat and it is being prepared for launch.

Take a look at the 2 sailboats in the photo below. Other than the height of the masts, see anything different?

The mast on the sailboat on the right is black. Cuz it’s carbon fiber. At least $1,000,000 in the mast and boom. The boom is the horizontal stick mounted perpendicular on the mast which holds bottom of the sail. Boaters, crazy huh?

Below is probably the best Key Lime Pie I have ever had. I cut the servers tip in half cuz she gave Bill a fork too.

Toured downtown Savannah today. The riverfront is pretty neat. Take away the bars and T shirt shops, not much left.

This ship is the biggest I have yet to see. Car carrying transport.

Walking downtown I see Paula Dean’s restaurant. Gotta have fried chicken, right? Oh hell yes! AND it’s a buffet with green beans, cornbread, Broccoli with cheese! So good!

Saw this in a shadow box.

Attention Captain John Boyle! Look at this pretender. Not only is it an obvious faux steamer, BUT THE PADDLEWHEEL DOESN’T EVEN TOUCH THE WATER!!! This thing would be outlawed in Kentucky!

John and Deb Neal on Saltaire. Ran into them on Jekyll and again in Savannah. They left today for Beaufort, SC, our bogey for tomorrow.

There is a Beaufort, South Carolina. Pronounced BEW-fert.

There is a Beaufort, North Carolina. Pronounced BO-fort.

We will make the trip to BEWfert tomorrow with Scott and Connie Hummer on their 48′ Californian Easy Livin’. Always great to have a buddy boat.

May 1

I have read and heard about a treacherous passage called Hell Gate, just south of Savannah, Georgia. Got there at low tide today so we dropped the anchor and waited for the tide to come in. In Charlotte Harbor where our Florida home is the tides run about 1 foot. No big deal. Tides here run 7 feet! 7 Feet is a BIG DEAL. The tides here on the east coast dictate when you travel. Since our terribly expensive running gear hangs 4.5 feet beneath the boat, I want a LOT of water. High tide at Hell Gate was at 7PM so around noon we dropped anchor to wait. Off loaded Half Pint and took a dinghy ride. DAMMIT, we ran aground! In the dinghy! It has maybe an 18 inch draft!

Well Shit, Damn Sonofabitch, now I’m scared. Nervous as hell (no pun intended). While we are out screwing around on the dink 3 more boats drop anchor to wait for the tide. Our plan was to wait till about 6PM (2 hours before sunset) for our transit. The other boats anchoring with us would not wait. One of them was a 45 foot sailboat.

That thing has at least a 5 foot draft. When we saw the other boats headed for the channel I hailed them on the VHF radio and asked them to report depths as they went through. All boats reported 9 – 11 feet. Only other issue was the channel is 30 feet wide. Whisky Business is 15 feet wide. Which only left 7.5 feet on each side. Oh yeah, the 12 MPH wind was blowing on our starboard side trying to push us into shallow water. All the boats told us to favor the right side of the channel. As we entered the channel I stationed Bill on the aft deck to back sight us through the channel. On the flybridge I am paying attention to the channel markers in front of me. If the wind is blowing me out of the channel I won’t notice because I still have the bow of the boat pointed between the markers in front of me. Bill’s job was to keep a keen eye on the markers we were passing to make sure the wind was not blowing us off course from behind. WHOOPED ‘EM AGIN JOSIE!!!” Our plan was to head to an anchorage for the night but I was a wreck so we stopped at a great marina for the night. We will be in Savannah the next 2 nights. Man, this gin and bitter lemon is really working it’s magic. Came across another Looper today, Honey badger. Looking forward to shaking their hands.

Notice how they carry their dinghy? Dekploying that thing is a cake walk. Half Pint is a royal pain in the @$$.

Another Jennie!!!

In a recent post I had mentioned the things and people I miss while underway. I have been away from home for over a month now. Take a look at these two folks. I know what you’re thinking, Jerry knows a starlet and a GQ cover guy. You would be close. This lovely couple are dear friends, Steve and Terri Bass. She’s quite the looker, right? (Truth be known, Terri really digs ME!) Steve looks like he just came off a cover shoot. Home in June for a short spell so a fish sandwich at Cunninghams will be in order, right Steve?

Back when Debbie and I cruised the Keys we came through Biscayne Bay and then through Miami. At the time I was unable to post this video of that transit but for some reason I was able to upload it now. Really cool, enjoy.

This is the Delegal Creek Marina where we stopped for the night. Great spot. They have a golf cart we can use to go the 2 miles to a local restaurant for dinner.

So I’m thinking 1 more cocktail before we get ready for dinner. This place has a golf cart we can use to go to dinner. Well I start to wak down the stairs to the aft deck from the flybridge and I spy…

Jesus, Mary and Joseph and all the saints in heaven, Debbie HATES SPIDERS!!! Probably the only time I am glad she is not on the boat.

April 28 – 30

Spent a day in St. Augustine doing the tourist stuff. Really neat town with lots to see in the oldest city in America. The ship below is a replica of the Santa Maria which Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World. Replica’s of the Nina and the Pinta have been in Louisville before but never this vessel. This ship was sailed from Spain, duplicating Columbus’ journey to these shores. Quite small when you think about it’s journey.

We visited the Castillo Del San Marcos, a Spanish fort built in the 1500’s. It took 23 years to build this fort.

This is a Spanish mortar, meant to lob cannonballs at nearby enemy.

This is a Spanish cannon that could hurl a 32 lb canonball 3 miles. Look closely at the bottom right of the image. This cannon was built is 1755

A reenactment of the firing of a cannon. Obviously no cannonball was used and only 8 ounces of gunpowder. This particular type of cannon would have been loaded with 3 pounds of powder and a 6 pound iron ball. The reenactment was completely done in Spanish except the part where the guy yells COVER YOUR EARS! Much more impressive when standing 20 feet away.

The Flagler Presbyterian Church, founded by Henry Flagler, founder of Standard Oil and the Florida East Coast Railway. As the story goes, his infant daughter passed away at or near birth so he built this church in her honor. The child is buried within the church.

This terribly handsome fellow (not the statue) stands before the statue of Juan Ponce de Leon, founder of Florida.

Interesting photo’s. At the time I had a reason for taking them. My advanced case of “Anheusers” acting up…

Building a dock

FINALLY met up with a Looper. Tom and Suzy Q on Tom’s boat ALONS ‘Y. Don’t know what it means. Interesting folks and Suzy has an affinity for bourbon

Debbie has informed me she wants a house at a lake. Wonder if she would settle for this one on the ICW outside of St. Augustine?

Adorable. Dad paddleboarding with his daughter. Slowed to a crawl. Did not want to rock that paddleboard.

If you are in the market for a sailboat cheap. I can hook you up.

We are now in Georgia having left Florida behind. In some areas of the ICW there is realy skinny water. In one particular area a fellow looper gave me the coordinates to navigate through this tricky area. The coordinates worked beautifully but as you can see they took me WAY out of the normal navigation channel. White is deep. Blue, not so much. But in this case 24 feet deep.

Navy ship in dry dock

Don’t know what type of naval vessel this is.

Some beautiful homes along the ICW, but check out how long the docks are. Must be a quarter of a mile! Really small boats at the end of the dock. Must have spent all of their money on the docks!

Paper mill on the way to our anchorage Monday night.

Which one is Jennie???

Pretty cool Civil War era fort on Georgian coast.

Our anchorage on Monday night.

For dinner we had meatloaf that Betty Netherton prepared. She did this for me cuz my beloved will NOT make meatloaf. BILL LOVED IT!!!

THANKS BETTY!!!

Passed a Naval shipyard on our way to Jekyll Island on Tuesday. That’s a small gun on the bow of that guard boat.

Coupla Coasties on station.

Tide was out when we got to Jekyll Island. At least a 5 foot tidal swing. We pulled in here to wait for the tide to come back in. I really like having a lot of water under WB.

Big time shrimper.

Take a look at the forward section of this dredging barge. that device chews up the bottom and then sucks away the muck to maintain the channel depth.

Passed through a nature preserve in Georgia today on our way to our anchorage off Sapelo Island. It seemed to go on forever. Probably 30 miles. At 9MPH I guess that is forever!

Saw this helicopter today. 2 guys were supended at least 50 feet beneath it working on a really high power line.

Our anchorage Tuesday night.

This short 5 second video shows the current we are anchored in. The tide is on its way out. Tomorrow we will get underway at 7 AM with the current and the boat in the opposite direction.

Series of photo’s of the sunset.

April 26 & 27

Got out of Fort Pierce at 7 AM sharp on Friday. Running through Cape Canaveral to Titusville, home of NASA’s space launches. There is a launch scheduled for Monday morning but can’t wait for it. Really want to catch up with the fleet of ’19 Loopers. Yesterday was 101 miles and today 80. Should be in our slip at Titusville Marina by 3:30. Time to see the area.

In the photo below there is a red marker on the left and a much harder to see green marker on the right. It would have been quite easy to bear left at this waterway intersection. Right into 3 feet of water. WB sits 4’6″ into the water. The channel goes to the right. Showed up just fine on the chartplotter.

Lovely home

Captain Bill, in his warm soft shirt. Only 3 people will get this.

Since coming to Florida 7 years ago Debbie and I have seen lots of manatees in Burnt Store marina. One of nature’s most lacadasical creatures. Not this guy, he was really active.

Traveling at 9 MPH is kinda like watching paint dry. Glad to have a CD player.

Passing Cape Canaveral. Image is pretty fuzzy but this is one of those large buildings with the big blue NASA insignia on the right side. There was a launch scheduled for Monday but Bill and I really need to get the boat north.

This is how our Saturday started. We left the marina in Titusville before sunrise and by the time we got on the ICW, this is what we were greeted with.

On the west coast of Florida you get to enjoy sunsets. East Coast, sunrises Awfully darn early though. This is a railroad bridge that stays open and services Cape Canaveral.

Some interesting photos on the way through New Smyrna Beach and Daytona Beach

Derelict sailboat

Most of these boats are abandoned.

Is that Forest’s boat below?

Huge expanses of water all over Florida and at low tide the bottom is exposed.

New bridge construction

Derelict boats everywhere. Back when boats were made out of wood or even steel you would just burn the wood or recycle the steel. Fiberglass boats? Fiberglass is forever.

Whisky Business produces quite the wake. These kids were having a ball

Ever since we got the boat to Florida the water has been that real pretty aquamarine color. On the Indian River it’s brown. WB is growing another “mustache”.

Fun photo’s

On Firday night in Titusville we went to Dixie Crossroads for dinner. Probably the best fried fish sandwich I ever had. But the killer was the free appetizer…Deep fried hushpuppies with loads of powdered sugar.

Made it to St. Augustine on Saturday after another long run of 88 miles. In a car 88 miles is no big deal. On a boat running 9 mph and as slow as 6 mph in no wake zones 88 miles is a long day. We began at 6:40 and arrived at St. Augustine Municipal Marina at just after 6pm. Me and Juan Ponce de Leon.

Sunday is gonna be a day of rest in St. Augustine. Lots to see here.

April 25

Underwent a crew change last night as Debbie headed home and my former liquor store mentor, USCG Captain and all around good guy Bill Boland joined the crew. He doesn’t look so good in one of those little black nighties that I tend to favor but one does what one must.

Heading out into the Atlantic Ocean. See how the boats “bread crumbs” show a bit of a wiggle pattern? Big boat was screaming in kicking up a crazy wake. Had to give him plenty of room and then turn into his wake to lessen the blow.

Left the marina around 7:30 spent 20 minutes getting to the Atlantic Ocean and headed for the 3 mile marker to take advantage of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a river of water that flows between the Bahamas and Florida up the east coast. At our normal cruise engine settings of 1250 rpm’s in flat water we will run about 10-10.5 mph. In the Gulf Stream…

This is like getting 20-30% better fuel economy. You can tell you are in the Gulf Stream by the color of the water. Cobalt blue.

We had a few rough patches when some really large boats waked the heck out of us.

WB has been in 5 foot seas before but this guy even knocked the Yeti off it’s perch behind it.

I can tell we are actually in the Atlantic Ocean, take a look at our depth. This is about 3 miles out.

Don’t want to upset any of my more sensitive readers, but I thought this was interesting.

Coming up on Palm Beach. Mar-A-Lago over there somewhere.

WHAT NEW HELL IS THIS??? Auto Pilot acting up again. In really big water with big waves and swells the circuit breaker is kicking off. The fuses in this equipment are 40 amp. Called the guy who did the install and he is thinking the circuit breaker may be only 20 amp. Will this ever go away?

After running for 8 hours in the Atlantic we came in the Fort Pierce inlet. Not quite the display of yachting we saw on display in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

This is the NEBO report I get from each days voyage. By the time we found our anchorage and got the anchor set we had been at it for 12 hours. Ran 101 miles today.

Notice the Max Speed on the top right? Once in a while it is wise to run up the engine RPM’s to blow the carbon out of the turbochargers. We run the engines at 2200 RPM’s (80% of wide open throttle) for 10 minutes.

We are sharing this anchorage with 3 sailboats.

The anchorage is aptly named “Red Gazebo”.

April 22

Taking a break in Fort Lauderdale and catching up on some maintenance on WB. Last week Debbie noticed something was amiss with the refrigerator door. The sealing gasket and the magnet that runs through it was hanging down.

Found a Sub Zero retailer/installer in FL at the end of last week. They showed up with the gaskets at 9 this morning. The gasket on the freezer door was fine but since it is 23 years old I figured I oughta replace it as well while the part is still available. All I had to do was cowboy up $400. Ugh.

Our neighbor, a 60 foot Ocean Alexander that is just beautiful.

Next to Whisky Business

I think the GG stands for Gerald Gibson!

Look at these pretty maidens all in a row…and all of these boats are in the 100 ft+ range. Heck, WB could be their dinghy! I did not notice this until much later. See the little yellow boat on the left side of the photo? That is a fuel barge and it carries 40,000 gallons of diesel fuel. More later on the fuel barge.

Not the original nor does it have the character of the original Soggy Dollar on Jost Van Dyke. Will check out the US version of the BVI’s best painkiller.

View at lunch…

We took WB out for a spin yesterday to get a pump out and refuel. A pump out is a special piece of suction equipment at a marina that cleans out the holding tank. The holding tank holds, yeah you guessed right. Not the most pleasant of jobs on a boat. Other end of this hose is inserted into a deck fitting and VIOLA, empty tank.

After that we headed for Peterson’s fuel barge. Pretty ingenious actually, a boat that holds 40,000 gallons of diesel fuel that plies the waterways. They can drive that thing right up to your boat in a marina.

Captain Jerry (the other one) was the driver of the fuel barge. Great guy, he’s done the Great Loop twice.

We took on 277 gallons at $3.11 per. We had topped off the tanks at Burnt Store before leaving for the Keys.

And speaking of expenses, it occured to me that since we have owned the boat we have done no maintenance to our dinghy engine other than changing the oil and lower unit fluid. The following photo is of a new impeller that I purchased for the Mercury outboard motor. This impeller is what sucks cooling water up into the motor. Damn thing is not much bigger than a quarter, but…

25 DAMN DOLLARS! It’s a boat…

Took on 100 gallons of water. We filter the water that goes into the 200 gallon.

We add a few ounces of this stuff to keep the water fresh.

We dropped Half Pint (our dinghy) and took it for a spin. This area is full of mega yachts but here is one of the most interesting boats we have yet seen. We actually saw one of these last year at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show.

Literally a floating condo! Wish I had pictures of the interior, very spacious and open layout.

Fort Lauderdale is a really cool town with a great beach and restaurants. Heading out tomorrow at first light for a long run up to Melbourne, Florida.

April 20

Left Key Largo at 8 AM sharp hoping to get to Fort Lauderdale. So much boat traffic on Biscayne Bay we ended up running 10 hours. We had to wait 20 minutes on two occasions for bridges to open.

You know you are in Fort Lauderdale when you see a boat so large Whisky Business could be the tender. Like this one

But then along came this one

And then this one

Oh hell, then we passed this guy

This “tender’ has over $130,000 just in engines hanging off the stern. It is the dinghy for the boat in the above photo.

And check out this guy. A panel opens in the side of the boat for the jet ski’s There is so much money in this area it is just staggering.

And then there are the condo’s

And the HOMES

The above seemed to be empty, maybe I could get a deal…

Fort Lauderdale is a huge party town. We passed this area where there had to be literally a thousand boats partying. Reminds me of a place in Indiana called Seven Springs.

WOW, this area is just crazy. Cruise ships, Container vessels…

Look at the water slide on the cruise ship, unbelievable!

This Great Loop thing is a blast! Trip of a lifetime. But…

Back home lots of stuff going on that Deb and I really miss.

St. Alberts Fish Fry

Sliders with my friends and mentors at Kentuckiana Yacht Services

Uncle Bobby’s ribs

Easter dinner with family. Great photo but missing Nick cuz he’s at work. The RIB MASTER Uncle Bobby is to the left of the handsome lad in the black T shirt.

These folks are a lovely couple who Debbie and I met when we owned Party Mart. Rudy and Tina Volz. When Debbie had to leave the boat back in October they happened to be at Joe Wheeler State Park in Alabama while I was still there with WB. I was remiss in not including them (‘specially Rudy, he being a delicate butterfly) in this august blog. Funny thing, they are in Key West and we were there last week. Sorry we missed ya guys!

We sure do miss all of our buds back home.

Couple more photos we took that you may find entertaining.

‘

Easter dinner at Casablanca Cafe.

Followed by dessert on WB.

April 18

Yep, Key West was our bogey for this leg of the journey. We made it as far as Marathon Key and absolutely LOVED Marlin Bay Yacht Club. At $50 a day less than Stock Island Marina on Key West it was a no brainer. Only a $1 shuttle ride to LaLa Land from our marina cinched it for us. Took a number of photo’s of Key West and they follow. I know, I know, I know we did not get a photo or the Southernmost place in the US. You’ve all seen it so what the heck.

The sunset was just amazing even though the photo’s were shot out of a bus window. Our plan was to leave Marlin Bay this morning 2 hours before high tide, but it seems I erred on the timing. So just off Islamorada we are in a uber low tide especially with a full moon on the way. So we got off the ICW, dropped the hook in 7 feet of water (WB draws 4.5 feet) so that only leaves 2.5 feet between the bottom and $13,000 worth of props and shafts.

And at one point

Interesting feature of our sonar, we programmed in our draft to the nav equipment so that 1.1 foot of depth is what we actually have between the bottom of the propellers and the bottom. Plus a little fudge factor as well. Time to stop and smell the seas.

Which brings me to a really bad pirate joke that I shared years ago with friend Marney Brunner’s son Michael who was in his early teens at the time. Ready?

What’s a pirates farovite letter? Most people ( like YOU) would say “RRRRRR”

Ha! Ya might think so, but it’s really the “C”!!!

God, I kill myself…

OK, you’ve been punished enough

We have the full force of the wind blowing on us which is only 12 mph but even that makes for a bumpy time. With sunset just shy of 8 pm we are gonna wait till about 6:30 when the tide will bring in a little more water so we can get to the west side of Cotton Key where the island will protect us from the wind out of the east. Only a 2.5 mile ride.

While underway today we heard a number of Coast Guard broadcasts on the VHF regarding a boat in flames near Islamorada. As we got closer we say the smoke.

Burning fuel and fiberglass make quite the column of smoke. We also heard a broadcast about a 40 foot sailboat being single handed by a fellow sailing from Mexico to Tampa who had not checked in. It is critical when traveling by boat to file float plans with someone at home. Tell ’em where your starting point is and where you are going. If possible, check in along the way. I had mentioned this really cool app called NEBO that tracks your vessel in real time so Haley or Nick can see where we are at any given time. If we are underway it even tells them how fast we are going.

Gonna wait about another 30 minutes before we move a coupla miles to the anchorage. In the meantime I had Deb take this photo.

While still at Party Mart one of our beer vendors gave us a bunch of beer T shirts. Had a bunch of silly things put on the back and tried to sell ’em. Not one of my better ideas.

Favorite one is

Many of you are probably thinking this is a Donald Trump quote. Does sound like ‘im, right?

Ya just can’t believe the amount of salt that accumulates on a boat when traveling in wind and wave. This is a close up of the cowling, that area between the flybridge and the forward windows at the lower helm. All of those spots are salt that dried after some spray. We have a slip in a marina tomorrow night on Key Largo where Whisky Business will get a serious bath.

Spent the night in Barley Basin and resumed our way to Key Largo at 8:30 AM on a rising tide. We wound our way thru mangroves and fretted over the shallow ICW. Also there were lots of crab pots right in the middle of the channel.

We arrived in Key Largo around noon at the Anchorage Hotel and Marina. Same price per foot as Marlin Bay. What do you think?

Wreck on the left of the photo is “Queen Anne’s Revenge” The hull is made of concrete (concrete?). No one wants to foot the bill for removal so it stays. Staying here at the Anchorage till Saturday morning as there is some serious weather coming thru on Friday. Time to relax.