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Resting comfortably in Naples tonight at Hamilton Yacht Club….. your right, we don’t belong in this neck of the woods.  Dues are probably a million a year.  Laurie went in for a shower, the bathrooms were huge with travertene marble floors and granite counter tops.

Our plan was to make Marco Island tonight but it came up a 25 knot blow so we tucked in about 10 miles short of Marco.  Our intent was to to hide from the big waves but we got a bonus.. they had gas so we filled up both Seawinds.  We needed to tank up before heading those last 100 miles down to the keys, so this stop worked out well.  Naples is crazy busy, too little water for too many boats owned by people with too much money.  To let you know what the place is like:  There is a double deck tour boat that brings people through the neighborhoods just to check out the huge homes.  Everyone is on the water here so there are no “cheap” places.  Quite impressive really.

Mike and I had a blast sailing with each other today.  Piloting identical boats, we traded tips on what sail trim was working, it made us both better.  It was awesome to absolutely validate a change in performance by seeing if one or the other was faster at the moment.

My only problem today was my main halyard broke just after noon, that means the line that holds the main sail up shot up and dropped inside the mast, and of course the sail dropped immediately.. no way to re- tie to the broken line.  Fortunately our boats have a topping lift next to the main halyard so we re-purposed that line, raised the main sail and kept on trucking.  This evening after we tied up Jono went up the mast and fed a new line down through, replacing the broken halyard.  It went fine, I had a spare line so again.. we fixed everything that broke today qualifying it as a good day.  It’s a long way up to the top of that mast I tell you…..  Jono is becoming quite the sailor.  It’s very helpful to have him on board as you can clearly see.

To recap our day:  The morning sail started nicely as we left Boca Grande (Cayo Costa Park) with 14 knots of wind at just enough angle to motorsail into the wind.  There was a short time when I was down to one motor because winds were at a good angle to sail easier, but it didn’t last long.  After rounding Sanibel Island making the turn more Eastward, the wind was back on the nose.  The last 4 hours were rough.. it was a rodeo… gusts were up to 25  knots and still on the nose.  We broke through countless 4’ers for those last 4 hours.  Laurie was a little frazzled, I asked if she needed a hug when we were getting gas, she took me up on it immediately.  Hearing the motors run all day sets you on edge, but all the pounding to weather doubles the mental stress.  That kind of sailing is no fun, but especially acute for Laurie as this is her first big trip.  She’s a trooper and will do fine after seeing her blow that Shuttleworth out of the water while Mike slept today!

To explain… just off Fort Meyers a nice looking catamaran came 0ut to join Mike and I’s fast flying flotilla.. His intent was to run with us for a while.  He took a position between Mike and I in formation but quickly found out he couldn’t stay with us.  We had our boats super trimmed out and running perfectly for the conditions, we had been set up and running around 8 knots for quite a while.  He never had a chance to get his rig up to speed before we were gone!  I don’t think his boat would stay with a Seawind even if he had time to get up to speed.  I’m not sure what make of boat is was, maybe a 36′ shuttleworth.

All in all we had a good travel day covering 60 miles of South Florida’s West coast.  Tomorrow night we will be in or very near the Florida Keys!  Winds are supposed to be 7 knots tomorrow so it will definitely be an all motor day but on flat water, thankfully not banging into 4’ers in full wind like we did this evening.  Our plan is to sail into the night and pull over to the curb if we get tired.  In the yachtsman channel  (that parallels the everglades) you can stop and anchor anywhere you like, it’s wide open.  Chances are we won’t stop though. If it’s an easy motor we will likely see the sunrise from the Florida Keys Tuesday morning.

We are fueled up and ready to go at 7AM.

SYL !! and Jumanji

Good day today….. we did weather a storm but we saw it coming and anchored up in a protected cove for 2 hours while it passed.  We all slept listening to the rain on the boat.. hoping the lightning didn’t take out our electronics.  I actually unplugged a lot of my navigation tools so I’d have that if we got hit.  Florida is the lightning capital of the United States.  Many of our friends have replaced electronics several times from lightning striking here in Florida due to that 50′ aluminum lightning rod we hang sails off of.

44 miles is all we made today from Clearwater to Longboat Key, but given the storm and bascule bridges we had a good day.  This was our daily target and we made it… a little later than expected but here we are!  We docked at Moore’s Stone Crab Restaurant like we always do coming down this way.  Unfortunately it’s closed….. but the docks are still here.  The owner came out and welcomed us to stay tied up at his dock, said his place will be rebuilt and reopened so don’t stop coming by.

Tonight I’m having a world famous Jono Chili Dog.  It’s here on the table, he just brought it out and it’s hot so I’m off….

Sea Yawl Later!!  Rusty

Jono and I have braved the wide ocean, crossed 320 miles of open water from Pensacola to Clearwater Florida.  50 hours not seeing land is all I want though, I’m not an ocean crosser, we just like seeing pretty water in warm places.  I’m no Christopher Columbus discovering new worlds.  I feel like we made it… TODAY we were in shirt sleeves on beautiful emerald green water.  We saw 3 separate groups of dolphin on the passage, the largest group was about 15 strong all trying to jump and run ahead of and between our bows at the same time.  It was truly the best dolphin show I’ve seen on SYL.

Not much broke on this leg of the trip which is always a bonus.  Jono (below) and I work well together solving little issues that popped up.  We arrived better than when we left.  Most of the 300 mile trip was nice, we ran into some medium size waves on our bow on this passage, but nothing like we saw the first two weeks in the Mississippi Sound.

We met up with a boat buddy that has the same boat I have.  Tonight we are docked side by side.  SYL and Jumanji.

I  enjoy riding the bow.. looking out at the water on a calm day.  Peaceful……..  Going to bed now, SYL

What a start to the latest “adventure”.   After pounding our way East for the first week (unfun sailing) Linda took a fall that required surgery on her left knee.  Luckily I was in port when it happened so I rented a car and made it home before she went in for the procedure.

The day after surgery  the “flood of the century” unindated my house putting 4′ of water over the lower slab.  The house is built up 12 feet off the ground so it didn’t get into the living area but everything in the garage I couldn’t remove went under including my 39′ RV and welding machine.

Suffice it to say I’ve had better beginnings to a vacation.  The boat is in Pensacola while Jono and I clean up the mess.  We lost water the second day when the tank on our pump floated breaking all connections to the well, and to the house.  We came within 2″ of losing electricity, water was almost to the breaker box.

Last night 2 hours after dark I got the well put back together so we have running water again.  Now it’s just waiting on the appraiser while everything in the garage goes sour…..  Nice huh?

Jono and I left Madisonville La. 10AM on Monday the 7th on SYL for a Bahama run.

We left late because our first leg was only 44 miles out of the Pontchartrain and barely into the Mississippi sound.  The trip was nice, we motored with little or no wind until our 6PM arrival at Rabbit Island.  Our first night on the boat was uneventful, we slept well in the nice calm waters just off the GIWW.

Tuesday morning our goal was over 90 miles so we left at 6AM for Dauphin Island off the coast of Biloxi.  Winds were right in our face the first 4 miles so we motored out but got enough wind angle to sail the rest of the day.  With strong winds against us we only made 55 miles and stopped next to Horn Island – not the most protected anchorage I can assure you.  We bobbed like a cork all night but slept reasonably well given the conditions.  Tuesday was a “Man Sailing” day….  Winds were 20 to 22 knots on the nose in 3′ seas so we tacked a lot but SYL did her job well.

Wednesday morning Jono and I took some time to work on boat projects, and took the dinghy to shore to walk the beach on Horn Island so we didn’t leave until just before lunch.  If Tuesday was a big wave day, Wednesday was bigger!  We tried to make out way East with little progress.  We ended up bailing out and hiding in Pascagula Mississippi.  Winds were up to 30 knots and waves were solid 6’ers.  A buddy recommended a small city marina that turned out to be a delight.  We met 3 new friends, Tim – Dick and Less who all own slips here.  They hooked us up to power, visited and told boat stories… Less brought me and Jono some fried red snapper for dinner.  He’s a big sportfisherman, owns the Bertram in the next slip.  It turned out t be a great decision on many fronts…  Just as we entered the harbor the Coast Guard issued gale wind warnings, and we met such great sailors here in little “Lake Yazoo”  Tomorrow it’s supposed to get a little better, blow like stink tonight and slowly back off tomorrow during the day.  Our plan is to reef the sails down and try to get out about 7AM, try to make it across Mobile Bay tomorrow into the ICW.  If we get beat up too bad in the morning we will hang out at Dauphin and make the ICW to Pensacola on Friday.

Today’s dinghy ride to Horn Island netted us our first shells and driftwood of the trip.

Well it’s 8:30.. my bedtime… Sea Yawl Later !!

It’s turnaround time.  We started heavy overtime this week.  I arrive at 3AM and leave at 6PM, that’s the way it will be for the next 3 to 4 weeks.

In my craft it’s feast or famine much like a sharecropper… make the money all at once or don’t make it at all.

The refinery I’m working this time is quite unique, we make an extremely high grade of diesel from McDonald’s french fry oil.  Our “feed stock” is truly food not crude… lol.  Most of the fuel products in the world are refined from crude oil, ours here at Diamond Green Diesel is a byproduct of the best french fries on the market.  As you can imagine, this plant smells much different than most refineries.

This part of Louisiana is a unique place.  LaPlace and Norco are just West of New Orleans along the Southwest shore of lake Pontchartrain.  The culture is as diverse in this area as any European enclave, New Orleans being the dominant cultural center in this part of the world, our native sons range from Fats Domino and Louis Armstrong, to the Swamp People discovered by TV land a few years back.  I guess civilized America finds hunting alligators and living along the swamps and rivers of Acadia amazing on some level.  The thing is… Troy Landry and Shelby the swamp man are just real people doing what we do here in the deep south.

I was talking with the lead refinery operator this morning and come to find out, Shelby is his cousin…. he said if I wanted to get on the pirate ship Shelby lives on let him know… lol.  I think I might!  My family knows the Landry’s, while I guess they are unique in some ways because Hollywood picked them to represent the local lifestyle, I see people walking in the grocery store that could been the same magnitude star as anything you see on reality TV.

I enjoy this area… not too many free handout / gimme grabbing Democrats around here.. most people actually earn their own living and are proud of it.  Self sufficiency is a deeply seated, time honored tradition in “these parts”.  Maybe that integrity is what’s missing in America.  Honor and self reliance is a rare commodity around the inner city porch dwellers the “give me” politics helped create.  I mean think about it… as long as Jessie Jackson and that Sharpton idiot can maintain a division to squeal about.. the longer they have a job.  Much like the political parties we have in America today.. as long as one can make the other look stupid.. the more power they have regardless of how it effects the American people.  I guess you can tell where my “political” (for the lack of a better word) boots are.

Hey, I’ve got an idea, lets tax everybody half their wages.. (but only the ones that work of course) then “give” them part of it back (the part we can’t steal) and get re-elected by telling the dummies that don’t work we will send their kids to college “for FREE”  Hell of a deal.  Wish I had thought of that…. As you can tell I HATE politics and politicians.  Donald Trump may be the Anti-Christ.. he might be… but if he will go to Washington and clean house I’ll vote for him.  Lots of people say he is un-electable… lol… OK, look who the american people sent to Washington last time.  During the gulf wars did you ever think America would elect a guy named Barrack Hussein Obama?  OK, then add oh yeah, he’s a black man with questionable ancestry.  NO way! right?  point made.

What America needs is statesmen not power hungry lawyers that get “made” by lying his way into the ultimate golden parachute of power.  I know how to solve this.. I know how to delete political cronyism – favor for favor politics.  It’s easy, we don’t have to send a representative to vote for us these days.. we could manage our whole government on facebook.  Why pay those idiots to play power games in Washington?  In a single minute everybody could push the button and elect his enabler.  Notice I didn’t say leader.  What we need is somebody to do real research, find out what America needs as a nation, present it well to the public and lets vote on it.  NO AGENDAS!

Yeah I know.. that makes too much sense so it will never happen.  Hmmmm maybe we do need to send a non-politico to Washington… Trumps the closest thing to an advocate we may have to dance down those halls.  I’m so disgusted with politics it makes my skin crawl.. fire em all and hire us some good analysts and honest reporters… man would that be a change huh?  How much do you pay politicians out of your wages?  We could get by on 1/4 of that if all we did was pay for the federal work of building infrastructure and armies.  OH, wait.. you don’t work?  OK…. that’s why you want to keep the Democrats in power so they can rob from those that do work, steal all they can steal for their self serving motives…. then give you some of my crumbs so you can sit on your butt and cry about “economic equality”.  Awesome idea.  Is that the American dream?      We are a country guided by self serving power mongers.

Where’s my boat…. I’m leaving… lol.

I’m through ranting now…. I’m really not an activist or somebody that is willing to actually stop what I’m doing to make a difference…. the silent majority… I’ll shut up and keep polishing Sharpton’s chair at the white house.  What an idiot.  What people do for power………….

Happy New Year!

Strange Christmas presents this year…..  My love got me a tricycle and I bought her a gun…  Now this tricycle is actually a souped up wheelchair with pedals.  I’ve enjoyed riding it, so far I’ve clocked about 20 miles.

Linda’s present was fun for me too.  I shot it for the first time into the ground… from the porch rail on New Years eve.  It’s a nice little 9MM auto.

New years resolution:  This year I’m hoping to promote a more”normal” lifestyle.   Now….. I guess that means we need to define normal doesn’t it?  Some people perceive Norman Rockwell as the quintessential picture of “normal”  while other folks really enjoy Slavador Dali……  I’m hereby promoting the Norman Rockwell variant.

Not that I feel we can achieve such a lofty goal.. but who’s new years resolution isn’t a stretch!

We haven’t been posting much lately, as you can see….. Not much fun boating news to pass along, but that is about to change….

Our close friends know, but many that keep up only via our blog don’t know, we have plans to make a SYL Bahama cruise in 2016!   Our timing is regulated by that dirty 4 letter word.. WORK.  I’ve committed to work a turnaround near New Orleans, we are preparing for it as we speak….  I’m working regular hours in the planning phase.  Things will start heating up on the job after new years, working more hours as we get closer, but the main event isn’t supposed to occur until April.

Our fluid departure date will more likely be May, given it’s driven by how quickly a fabrication shop can build a new 200′ tower.   Our turnaround includes erecting a large piece of equipment that hasn’t even been designed yet, much less manufactured.  We probably won’t know when that equipment will be available until the second month of 2016.  I’ve committed to the effort so I’m kind of stuck.  At least it won’t be cold when we cross Lake Pontchartrain heading out into the Mississippi Sound…..

The worst part of the trip is behind us, now that SYL is here in Louisiana.  It’s exciting to know we don’t have that week and a half of ICW travel  facing us from Kemah to New Orleans!  In fact I just checked how far it is from here straight to Marathon non-stop… 700 miles.  Hmmm that’s less than 6 days if we go direct!  Only 4 days if we go directly from here to Tarpon Springs…!  I always do that.. I see how fast I can get to the Bahamas to maximize our cruising time before we are forced to head home to avoid the summer storms.  I go fast fast… in order to stay in the Bahamas as long as possible.  I probably shouldn’t do that.  It actually makes better sense (given our departure point) to see some of the Florida panhandle before striking out.

It’s 70 miles from my dock to Cat Island…. just offshore from Gulfport Mississippi, so that’s the first day.  On a long second day you could make it 90 miles into the mouth of Mobile Bay, there’s a dock at Fort Morgan with an easy entry and full protection.  If you pulled up anchor by 4AM off the Cat Island coast and struck out, you could get to Fort Morgan by dark.  The 3rd day you could make it to Destin, but that would be two big days in a row.  It might make better sense to go non-stop to Destin, that’s 48 hours of straight sailing at a 5 knot average.  A friend and I actually did that one time, it’s not a bad run.

So to Destin in 2 days, stay overnight and see the sights, 2 more days (48 hours of sailing at just over 5 knots) to Tarpon Springs, probably 3 overnighters from home, depending on what time you started to put a considerable portion of the trip behind you.  That puts you almost 1/2 the way down the Western coast of Florida.  Another 48 hours of sailing gets you to the channel 5 marker,(the first tall bridge you can get under at the overseas highway) that gets you to the keys, and your staged to cross the Gulfstream.  So.. if you pushed hard, sleeping tied up or on anchor for two of the 7 nights, you could make it all the way to the keys from Madisonville Louisiana is a week.

Sailing is fun in Madisonville Louisiana, we love the sleepy – old school charm of the place.  Main street runs right along the river sporting massive oak trees reaching out with limbs the size of a mans body.  Moss filled trees provide shade for the grassy shore, the city maintains 30 amp hookups all along the bank…. it’s a neat place to keep the boat.  From our marina we break out onto the Tchefunte River – heading North we have 10 miles of cypress lined river to run, heading South it’s only 2.5 miles down the river to Lake Pontchartrain.

Lake Pontchartrain is 28 miles across and about 30 miles long, we have sailed the main lake twice now.  Both trips were highly satisfactory…. the wind filled in just after noon providing enough pressure to surpass 8 knots on both outings.  The morning was calm so there were no “left over” waves on the lake.  Waves only formed as the wind filled in…… making for a very pleasant sea state.  

Madisonville has several water front boating options; several bars and a few restaurants that offer very fine seafood and drinks.  We like to call in a seafood platter to go, and snack on it as we cruise around.  Weekends are great on the river…. there are lots of boats yet it’s not too crowded… the best of both worlds.  There’s a sandbar to wade around on..  you can chat with your neighbors in waist deep water or flop down in a short legged lawn chair, sipping on a nice cold drink……

At some point we will take advantage of our geography and make a run to Destin Florida, we are now only a day and a half away!  Half the Gulf of Mexico run that we used to dread so much is no longer a factor heading toward Florida.  Soon we plan to make a trip across the lake to New Orleans and stay for the weekend.  There are many options yet to explore here in Madisonville on the North shore of the Pontchartrain.

Sea Yawl Later !!   Rusty

This is one of my favorite sailing pictures.  It “puts me back there”  No matter where I sailed, this is what I saw most often…..  My “action center”.  This particular organization of equipment morphed over the years until I developed THE most efficient means of navigating “SYL !!”  This is how you sail a Seawind 1000; the big Explorer chart laid open to the current location on the big shelf beside the helm with the computer’s GPS hockey puck holding the page down… with the spot transmitter riding loose beside the rope clutches (that exact location provides the best signal)

The first green line is the mainsail down haul, the white and blue it the spinnaker halyard, the orange fleck line is the main halyard, the outside green line is the jib sheet… so in this picture I’m on a port tack because the jib sheet is on the starboard winch.  The white / red line going thru the standing pulley is the starboard spin sheet.  When I first got the boat I tied off the jib halyard at the mast, it was previously run to the winches but I did not see the need.  That also frees up a rope clutch so if something breaks I have a spare… I can restring a line to an open spinlock.

In light air I only take 2 wraps around the winch with the jib sheet so it will pay out easier… that means I’m in a descent amount of breeze in this picture.  The only line I wrap more than 3 times is the main halyard.  My main halyard is a single purchase line so it’s quite a hard pull to get her up.  Most mornings…. that orange fleck line gets my heart pumping like a mad man!  I don’t think I have ever winched her all the way up without stopping at least once.  That line is why I lose weight every time I go sailing… my heart is definitely pounding every time I raise the main by myself.  The best way to raise the main is to catch Linda before she starts breakfast and have her help me.  I go to the mast, reach up and grab the main halyard before it goes inside and haul down  on it while Linda holds my slack.  I can raise it by hand until it starts lifting the boom.  When that weight hits…… it’s winch time.  That leaves me about 5 feet of haul to manage with the winch.

Good memories recalled.  I’m looking forward to going back.  

SYL!!  Rusty