We're Back!

We’re Back! With the newest member of our crew - Isla Matey! She may be but a wee lassie, but this chick’s an old salt at heart (and she’s got some serious sea legs)!

2015 Florida Sailing Trip - Photo Essay

Wookie oversees the launch. Epic boat clean up, heat exchanger, stuffing box, impeller and oil change are done. Overheating woes at the dock left Matt stuck for an extra day. Thanks to neighbour Chip, who helped Matt flush out salt deposits in the cooling system. I've left the dirty work to the two of them this time around, you're welcome guys!

Matt solo sails and anchors off Sanibel island

Wook waits patiently for me to arrive from the airport to join the crew.  Maranatha sits at anchor in the distance, just off Fort Myers Beach.

This is how excited we are to be back on the boat!

Peaceful evening picnic while anchored off of Sanibel. Little did we know we would have to leave at  2:00 a.m. due to insane swell rocking the boat later that night, which led to an amazing moonlit sail :)

Mooring ball sunset

Cabbage Key - don't set fire to this place...

Still holds to be true...

What the fog?

Anchored at Boca Grande - love this spot!

This one goes out to Bruce Palmenberg, our much loved sailing instructor (and animal lover)! We learned so much from him, not just about sailing but about life too. Rest peacefully, we miss you.  

Having fun at the Biltmore Hotel

Stopped in Greensboro, North Carolina to see awesome friends and the musical "My Fair Lady" at it's most kick ass! We stayed at this cool old hotel in the center of town.  Left alone in the lobby, we felt obligated to document the awesomeness of this fine establishment.

From land to sea to land to sea to land again

So here we are, back at Glades after just 3 weeks. What a 3 weeks it's been!  As we finish up the storage checklist we're left with mixed emotions about leaving our old friend so soon.  On one hand, we're disappointed because we never made it to the Keys and our sailing was cut short by almost 8 days due to the repairs.  On the other hand, we learned some valuable lessons, walked away relatively unscathed and have a great story to tell.  I guess that's the thing with sailing -  you have to be willing to embrace the unexpected.  It's all part of the ride.

PS. In case anyone is wondering why our boat says "Meda" on the transom....it's has nothing to do with my fondness for metadata.  It's actually because this boat originally hails from Alameda, California.  The original owner sailed it through the Panama Canal and up to Florida in the 90's. Crazy. I have been slowly scraping the letters off, but as you can see it's a work in progress.

Mare meets an ass

Anchoring on the Okeechobee Waterway

We're making the 3 day journey up the Caloosahatchee River and back to Glades boat storage.  Suffice to say, we'll take calm water and alligators over tonadoes any day. In the photo, I am throwing out a stern anchor so we don't swing while sleeping.  It would be 10 tranquil hours before we saw another boat.

Back on the water!!!

Thrilled to have our boat back and our rudder (nearly) as good as new - we decided it was best to hop back on the horse and nip our sailing anxiety in the bud. We were in great moods because Maranatha was sailing like a beaut and our boat yard bill was less than we expected it to be.

The weather looked decent - 15 knots of wind, with a slight chance of a thunderstorm in the afternoon, though a cold front was coming in the next day. We were thinking about heading to Naples and making one last attempt at getting to the keys, but the wind was at our nose and considering there was that chance of thunderstorms, we established that the safe bet was to head up Pine Island Sound and stay in relatively protected waters.

Happy with our safe and responsible decision, we continued on our merry way heading to Captiva Island where we'd look forward to hitting the beach if the weather permitted. Then we got a text from our most reliable weather source (thanks Gary!) letting us know that a tornado warning was in effect. HA! You've got to be kidding me. There was no mention of a tornado on the last weather report we had checked or I assure you - we would have stayed in port.  

Shortly thereafter, we noticed all of the boats on the water were heading the opposite way. They were all power boats and were whizzing by at speeds Maranatha couldn't dream of. We love our vessel, but a racing boat she is not. The sky was getting darker and though we were trying to stay calm, our nerves were shot to hell when a man in a power boat yelled to us "TORNADO!" Twirling his finger around in the air and shouting at us to turn around. Matt and I looked at each other and then out to the north, expecting to see a funnel cloud on the horizon. This required some serious thinking - we were two miles from our destination in the direction of the storm, but we weren't moving very quickly. On the other hand, we could head in the opposite direction, but it was much farther to a safe anchorage or marina. We can't out run a thunderstorm, so although it seemed crazy to keep going, we went for it. The squall line hit us less than two miles from Captiva, and the boat struggled to gain ground in the strong winds and steepening waves. We decided we were wrong and had to turn around. Now we were fleeing, surfing the waves, dodging the shoals and looking for any kind of shelter.

How we managed to get ourselves in another sticky situation so quickly is beyond me. In any case, Matthew handled the boat beautifully while I took the Wook down below to try to keep everything safely stowed and the boat dry. As we turned west we gained some protection from one of the islands and the waves became less threatening. We tucked into an anchorage and were grateful for our ridiculously over anchored vessel.  We sat down below, once again wet, cold and spooked and decided that maybe it was time to head home.

That night we would not sleep. The waves and the wind were consistently churning us from side to side in our berth and we were up every half hour or so to check the gps and make sure our anchors had held. But we were safe! We saw no signs of tornados and had definitely had enough excitement for one trip. The next day the wind was high, but started to diminish in the afternoon allowing us a much needed nap and a riveting game of crib ;) By evening, seas had calmed and we came to the deck to enjoy a gorgeous sunset. These moments are why we are out here, these peaceful and refreshing moments that make you feel alive. Ahhhh, bliss.

Maranatha on anchor after the storm lifted

To the Sheriff's Department!

As we mentioned before, the Sheriff's Department were law enforcement rockstars by keeping us company on the water for 4 hours while we waited for the Coast Guard to come and save our sorry souls. We figured the least we could do was bike over to the department and deliver a key lime pie. We were worried that they wouldn't accept it for fear of being poisoned, but hey - they knew who we were and where to find us…plus, it's not like we baked it ourselves. Do you bake a key lime pie? See, I don't even know.

We must pass another HUGE thank you - to Mel and Cheryl for putting us up at the best guest house this side of Florida, for saving us a lot of money on hotels and for even providing us wheels so we could bike to the boat yard and the beach.  Merci beaucoup! 

This week on "Mar and Matt's Bogus Journey"....

Matt practices some dangerous riding techniques on Safety Street

Marianne engages an angry turtle in a
game of chicken- who will win???

Wookie indulges in some spirits and passes out in a fence

Dolphins are cool

We're still in Ft Myers Beach waiting for the boat to be repaired.  We could be here a while, but hey, it's not a bad place to be stuck. The beach is beautiful, and although there's mobs of young drunken spring breakers everywhere, we're managing to duck the footballs and still have fun.  We saw this dolphin on the beach, and he too seems to have had one too many jaggerbombs.

Who says you can't do it all?

Assessing the Damage

The next day we walked over to the boat yard and prepared ourselves mentally for the damage below the waterline.  "Diversified Luxury Yacht Repair" is the name of the place. You've got to be kidding me - we just unwillingly brought our 25 year old sailboat to a luxury yacht repair facility...awesome.  As we walked into the impressive 3 story office, complete with marble floors in the lobby, we looked at each other and just laughed.  Problem is, we're a little under insured and this one is coming straight out of pocket.  Oh well, hard to shop a boat around without a rudder, so here goes nothing.  

We met up with the yard manager, and scheduled the haul out for later in the day.  His name is "Bob", and after a nice chat we are relieved to find out that the rates are competitive with other facilities in the area. He also mentions that in all of his years repairing boats, he has only had to replace 2 rudders.  Most times they can be reshaped or salvaged in some capacity.  Cool. 

So we spent the next 2 hours cleaning coconut, literally.

As the boat came of the water, we were surprised to see the rudder intact.  It was all bent up and pushed into the hull, but not actually broken off.  Good news!

After some assessment from the staff, they found no damage other than a bent rudder post.  It's supposed to be straight up and down, and ours is bent like a banana.  They are planning to bend back the post, reseal and reshape the top of the rudder and put it all back together. Everyone at the facility is super knowledgable, friendly and helpful, and once again we are counting ourselves lucky.

We are literally in awe at the fact that the boat took such a beating and didn't crumble underneath us.  She's a tank and although she's missing several layers of paint all over the hull, that's nothing that a bottom job can't fix.  But that's for another season.

I LOVE THE USCG

We've invited a lot of people to come down and sail with us and I've gotta say that yesterday, I was glad we were alone.  It pains me to write this post and I feel a bit like a dog with it's tail between it's legs, but who knows - maybe some of you sailors will read this and learn from our mistakes (and boy have we made them!)

It started out like this:

MARIANNE: "Hey Matt, what do you think about taking the inside route? The winds are going to be high and maybe it would be better to travel down Estero Island on the inside passage before going offshore."

MATT: "Yeah, maybe. You can get through that way? That would be good because we would exit the pass with the wind instead of fighting against it to get out on this end."

And so, we take a quick look at our charts, walk out to the beach to assess the swell and talk to a few people in the marina to confirm that we can indeed travel through on the inside route with our 4 foot keel.  The locals seem to think it's a good idea, so we do too.

Mistake number one - Not looking ahead and verifying with gps.

Mistake number two - trusting a local opinion without question.

The winds were high and there was a small craft advisory in effect, but I mean, we aren't a fishing boat, (Mistake number three) so we decided to head south through the snaky inside channel towards the Bascule Bridge at the south end of the island.

After an uneventful sail down the inside channel, we approached Big Carlos Pass. The bridge operator stopped traffic and lifted the bridge and we headed into the Gulf of Mexico heeding the only advice given to us - to continue past the red marker before making a turn to the left to avoid the shoal.

We are well past the red marker and I am studying the gps while Matt is at the helm beginning to make our turn. It's blowing hard and we're in an area marked 3.9-5.9 feet on the gps, but we aren't overly concerned because the gps lies to us all the time when we actually have plenty of water, and besides, even if that were to be accurate, we are at hight tide adding an extra 2.5 feet. Furthermore - wouldn't one of the locals have said something if the channel was THAT shallow? Who knows, maybe we were talking to power boaters.  Too late now, we were in it.  Suddenly, our depth sounder begins beeping like crazy, telling us we are in less than 5 feet of water. Oh, and it lies to us all the time too. Is it lying this time?

Mistake number four - not getting that fixed.

Somethings not right, the waves are suddenly breaking all around us. I look to my left and see a wave that looks a little too upright and gives me shivers and not three seconds later CRACK! We have hit bottom HARD. Matt and I look at each other as a wave rolls our boat almost tipping us over and I grab Wookie with one hand and the boat with the other and scream like a girl (because I am a girl).

We don't know which way to go. We can't turn around and we can't get off the shoal until another wave picks us up. CRACK- we hit hard again and I'm seriously scared for our safety. This is bad, this is really bad. CRACK, I'm certain this is the worst situation we have been in and don't really know what to do about it but hold on and get Wookie somewhere safe. Matt is trying to turn the boat into the waves and get us out to sea.  The engine roars at full throttle, the reefed jib catching 25 knots of wind.  The boat comes around slowly and it looks like we might make it, but then CRACK another hit and Matt announces that we have completely lost steering and it dawns on me then how truly bad this is. CRACK, the boat again heels over violently past 50 degrees. Matt calls in a Mayday - (I have to say, I never actually believed we would ever have to call mayday - FOOL!)  We are now utterly at the mercy of the sea.  Without a working rudder, all we can do is hold on as the waves slam us into the shoal and communicate our position to coast guard.  As we do this, another big wave comes under us, this one lifting the boat up and freeing it from the shoal,  Matt kicks the motor into gear and the boat miraculously shoots off and into deeper water.  We're free, but the boat sails aimlessly out to sea.  It appears to be holding course, and after some minor sail/motor adjustments we are able to point 270 degrees at about 3 knots, away from shore and into deeper water. We're sailing on a beam reach and getting beaten by the swell pretty bad. Our cabin looks like a bomb has exploded in it and we are getting thrown around.  I talk to the coast guard on the radio who asks if we are taking on water, if there are any injuries and if there are any children on board. I tell her there were some children, but we threw them over board to lighten the boat and get off the shoal (just kidding, I didn't say that). She contacts BOAT US to come and tow us out of there but can't give us an estimated time of arrival.  After about 15 minutes, a lone officer from the Sheriff's department arrives on the scene in a boat about half the size of ours. He tells us more officers in a bigger boat are coming, but he says he will stay with us until they get there. What a trooper! I've never been so happy to see law enforcement in all of my life.

The bigger police boat arrives and relieves the small one. They begin to circle us, staying fairly close so that we are not alone if we start to take on water and develop bigger problems other than just bobbing like corks getting pushed out to sea. We discuss anchoring over the VHF but everyone feels it's too dangerous to drop an anchor in the current sea state, so we just keep sailing out into the Gulf and updating BOAT US with our coordinates. The officers have no idea that they will be with us for hours to come.

[Fast Forward 2 hours- we are nauseous and exhausted from being beaten by 6-9 foot swelll]

BOAT US finally arrives. He attempts to attach a bridal to our bow, but can barely control his own boat in the swell and tells us it isn't possible to tow us in. We find out later that he is retired coast guard and when he says conditions are bad, they are BAD. He apologizes and leaves the scene and the coast guard are our only hope.

They are out on another rescue mission, so it's two and a half more hours in the washing machine until they show up.  We are now 9 nautical miles from the shoal and in a partial hove-to (the best we can manage with a non-functioning rudder).  Meanwhile, a gigantic tub of shredded coconut has exploded in our cabin. Harmless until mixed with water, when it then becomes a waxy, slippery substance which sticks to the soles of your shoes and turns the already slippery deck into a skating rink.

Mistake number five - having shredded coconut onboard. 

A 41 foot Coast Guard vessel finally arrives.  They circle us and discuss options.  The first involves anchoring the boat, abandoning ship (god knows how?) and having a salvage pick it up the when the sea state improves.  Matt tells the coast guard he only has 100 feet of anchor line and the idea is dropped (THANKFULLY!).  Plan B is to tow us to port.  Matt tethers in and climbs to the bow to catch the tow lines from the Coasties yelling instructions at him. He is looking down at the cleats when the biggest wave yet reaches our bow and the coast guard screams at us to hold on. Matt and I see the wave at the same time and brace ourselves for the hit. Recovered, coconut shoe'd Matt returns his attention to the bridal and wraps them around our cleats - we are worried our cleats will be ripped out.  Now the real fun begins.

Our boat has become the wildest, scariest and most unsafe amusement park ride I've ever been on. Wookie is staring at me with wide eyes through the mesh of his crate and I feel overwhelming guilt for putting him through this. We are all soaked, seasick and scared. Matt tells me that everything will be ok now and though I am comforted knowing the coast guard is here I am also still being violently thrown around the boat as we hit wave after wave being dragged at five knots behind the coast guard's vessel. They check in with us on the radio and tell us we are in for a long ride - we had been drifting out to sea for over four hours at 3 knots and have a very long way to go. I need to hurl - badly. But I know that once you start you can't stop so I do my best to look at the horizon (whenever it is in sight over the waves) and I take deep breaths through my nose and think about getting to shore.

Matt continuously checks the bilge to see if we are taking on water and though we aren't, there is still a lot of water in the boat from the sea spray. Books and provision are strewn along the floor of the cabin and in between his own bouts of nausea, Matt picks a few things up at a time - keeping one hand on the vessel to brace himself against the waves.

Not one, not two, not three, but nearly FOUR hours later and the seas calm down as we approach the harbour. We switch the boat to a side tow and the full moon is absolutely breath taking. We tie up to a dock and I love the U.S. Coast Guard. I LOVE THEM! With their tickets and their rules and their boat inspections, gosh darn it! I LOVE THEM.

An Officer boards Maranatha and kindly asks for the routine paperwork. Matt and I brace ourselves for a substantial bill. The rescue effort has involved four boats, an enormous amount of fuel, and ten people - not to mention putting those ten peoples lives in danger. We feel heavy with guilt knowing that our mistakes have cost so much to others.

The CG officers wait until we've arranged for a tow to the nearest boat yard and then sweetly tell us to be safe out there and get on their way. We are astonished and grateful. Muther Effing Angels, if you ask me.

But they aren't the only angels we are to meet tonight.

We get towed to the boat yard and try our best to arrange the cabin into a less chaotic, coconutty state. We are still soaked and delirious, but feel really, really lucky. We have no idea what state Maranatha is in, but that is for tomorrow. Tonight, we need dry clothes and a warm bed. But we don't really know where we are.

We pack some bags and walk Wookie to the highway expected to see cabs, but there are none. We are at the edge of a big bridge that we think leads towards a more populated area so we start walking. We see a big sign for a hotel and think we are in luck, but the office is closed, as is the one in the hotel down the street. It feels surreal to be walking around Ft Myers Beach soaking wet and carrying our belongings. We finally get a cab.

A guy named Chris pulls up and tells us to all hop in while he calls around and somehow arranges a room in an overbooked town full of kids on spring break.  We are grateful once again.

As we settle in to our hotel room, we're worried about Maranatha taking on water overnight, but try to push it from our minds. We have minor cuts and bruises (especially our pride) but we know that we are so fortunate to be safe. Tomorrow we will thank our boat for being tougher than we are and assess the repairs so that she can sail again soon. (FAIR WEATHER ONLY!)

Olga Bridge?

We went through our last draw bridge yesterday as we approached the Gulf of Mexico.  I don't care what that dude said on the VHF, her name was Olga!