3/5/2006 Sunday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0115	Anchorage Key	240	0.2nm	ENE 20 Kt

The Pelican Bay anchorage at north end of Cayo Costa. 'Anchoraqge Key' should read Punta Blanca Island- couldn't read the fine print on the chart in the dark so I tried to describe it.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0305	FL G '[?]'	090	0.5nm	ENE 20 kt
0305 Hailed by USCG outboard- "All well"

Also couldn't read the number of the nearest channel mark. Out in the wide middle of Pine Island Sound, long and short tacks to windward with a fair chop blowing down. Coast Guard skiff approached from to leeward and trained its big searchlight on us as they like to do, spoiling any hope of night vision- I suppose that's deliberate to keep drug runners and other gun-toting types from being able to get a clear target, but it's still annoying. They came alongside and asked if I was in distress- no, all's well here- they had had a distress call from somebody in Pine Island Sound, had I seen anything like that? No, nothing (didn't tell them I'd had a couple short cat naps in between keeping up with navigation), well, take care, and sped off into the black night. Found myself hoping it wasn't one of us Tribers in trouble but never heard another word about it.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0700	Pt Ybel	240	0.2nm	ENE 20	1-2'
0700 clear, light horizon haze, course 120, speed 3kt
0915	Big Carlos Pass	045	1.5nm	ENE 12	sm
1240 Becalmed off Naples, sculling
1320 Seabreeze fills in				WNW 6	sm
1345	Doctors Pass	060	1nm	WNW 8	1'
1500	Gordon Pass	060	0.7nm	SW 8	1'
1500 Clear & comfortable. Boat traffic...

Sunday is always the worst day of an Everglades Challenge, the powerboats come out from everywhere on this heavily populated section of coast if the weather is at all nice, and chop the water into a froth of crossing wakes. Monday is always much better, the weekend is over and you're usually past the populated areas and headed into the Everglades.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1710	Enter Big Marco Pass			W 6	sm
2100	Goodland	340	1.5nm	calm
2100 position report, then sleep [short naps under way, hoping for wind]
2300 light variable breeze, sail slowly while catnapping. 120m at 1-1.5kt

 

3/7/2006 Tuesday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0030	light air, slow, napping			NW 3-4 Kt	sm
0200	near calm, sculling toward FL "10" at Flamingo channel, foul tide
0405	Check in CP3, basin dismal & empty after hurricanes.

Everglades National Park had only just reopened this section after having the facilities more or less wiped off the map by hurricanes Charley and Wilma. Still smelled of muck and decay inside the marina basin.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0420	Head out of CP3			NW 5-6 Kt	sm
0530	Pick up Tin Can Channel at slack low water. Markers still exist at last year's waypoints, a relief.			NW 6 Kt	sm
0745	Dump Keys			WNW 8 Kt	sm
0845	Twisty Mile Pass
0945	Jimmy Channel			NNW 20 Kt	1'
1255	Check in at Finish			NW 15 Kt	1-2'

Pulling in to the beach just a minute or two behind the XLXS team in their scary tandem surf ski, we were fifth boat to finish the Everglades Challenge, and first in of the Ultimate Challengers. I was pretty tired out after 3 nights with mostly catnaps and only a couple hours' real sleep anchored at Checkpoint 2. Lazed around talking with the other finishers under the trees at the wonderful old group camp (which no longer exists, though the latest Florida land bust has kept it from being paved over and planted with condos just yet). Had dinner with other finishers across the street at a popular outdoor fish spot, then early to bed. After a good long night's sleep found the wind had clocked around to northeast-- a headwind, with little prospect for a good day's run, though forecast to go southeast next day-- so I decided to sit in and relax for the morning, and greet Manitou Cruiser and Shark Chow who were predicted to finsh before lunchtime.

It was a beautiful pleasant day and comparing notes and route plans with my fellow Ultimate Challengers was fun, but there were those who thought I ought to get myself in gear and get back in the race. Certainly I could easily have left the Key Largo checkpoint several hours earlier and made some useful time along the next leg, but with wind and tide against us the gain wouldn't have been as much as all that, and the chance to relax and socialize a little seemed worth more than a few slow miles just then.

 

3/9/2006 Thursday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0145	Come to anchor off SW side of Sands Key. Sleep.			ESE 18 Kt	sm
0640	Up anchor and away.			SE 15 Kt	sm

Passed out to Hawk Channel through the narrow Sands Cut soon after first light. Found a good sailing breeze, though the chop gradually increased as we sailed out of the lee of the reefs and into deeper water.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0750	Soldier Key	315	1.5nm	SE 20 Kt	1=3'

An hour or so later we crossed tracks with a large sportfisherman headed out towards Fowey Rocks Light. The guy on the flybridge looked uncomfortable in the snappy cross sea and gave me an interogative kind of wave as if to say what the hell do you think you're doing out here when even us big boys have spray coming over? Gave him a cheery thumbs up and continued on our way thinking no more of it. It's probably just be a coincidence that shortly after that...

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0910	Approached by USCG #50, check safety gear, exchange info, referrred to CG Sector Miami, set up coms every 60 min on half hour until arrival			SE 18-20 Kt	4-5'

That's a pretty bare bones description of the encounter. The 35' Diesel patrol boat came up from the direction of Key Biscayne and hung out off my quarter at some distance. Seeing they weren't leaving I turned on my handheld VHF radio and held it up where they could see, and shortly they came up on channel 16, small sailboat off Cape Florida this is Coast Guard Miami Unit five-zero at your location, are you happy Captain? over; and we went from there. What vessel, who aboard, citizen of, where bound, (Sebastian, Florida-- set them back a few seconds), are you aware of weather forecasts on your planned course (oh boy, here it comes)... Show us your life jacket, done. Flares, done. whistle or sound producing device, done. Any other safety equipment on board. EPIRB, safety harness, float cushion, upright flotation, self righting/self rescuing. They didn't sound happy. What is your planned route. Outside to Lake Worth or Fort Pierce Inlet, ICW to Sebastian; no, I wouldn't use Sebastian Inlet in these conditions. Sounded unconvinced. Relayed latest weather forecast. Not frightened. Recommend you consider going inside at Fort Lauderdale, stand by please.

I was reefed and luffing up slightly to slow down and let Enigma semi-heave-to, sailing slow and easy with a peaky swell on our starboard quarter. It had been tolerably rough crossing over the last of the reef into deep water a half hour earlier, but was pretty comfortable and dry now, and I want to think Enigma must have looked very seaworthy and under control to anyone used to small boats at sea. Without anyone saying so I pretty much knew the skipper of #50 was in the unenviable position of having to make a judgement call on whether to call my voyage off. The CG, with best of intentions perhaps but with the mind of a beaurocracy, has taken on itself the power to declare any voyage 'manifestly unsafe' in its own eyes and with no appeal or recourse. They can and will tow your butt to shore and seriously fine it if you start out again. So about all I could do was be cooperative, seamanlike and competent looking, and hope the skipper was a seaman and could tell I was all good. The radio went quiet for a long while and I knew he was on the horn to his boss, hoped I had him on my side, but no way to know.

Finally they came back on and politely 'requested' that I contact CG Sector Miami (the big boys with the high-site radio antennas that can hear you from the Bahamas) and set up an hourly radio checkin sched, to be continued until I reached my destination or safe harbor. Okay, done. It looked like it was that or be 'escorted' to Miami. I got a friendly wave from the deckhand on #50 as they peeled off and started back toward the Florida Channel throwing a wide white wake; I filled away and got back on course at speed, surfing the occasional steeper, spilling breakers northward

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0946	CG #50 leaves, clear to continue
1035	Coms w/CG sec Miami all well				4.0 Kt
1045	Pos Rep Karen [Position Report -was getting tired writing]			SW 20 Kt	4-6'
1135	Coms w/ Sec Miami all well			SE 16 Kt	4-7'
1240	Coms w/Sec Miami all well			SE 18 Kt	4-7'
1240	25d 57'	80d 04'		010	4.5 Kt
1335	Coms CG Sec Miami all well
1335	Pt Everglades "1" |345 |3.4nm |gps |SE 16 |4-5'	345	3.4nm	SE 16 Kt	4-5'
1430	Enter Port Everglades Breakwater

I was getting sick and tired of the hourly radio schedule and its drain on my handheld's batteries. Wimped out and ran inside to put an end to the hassle, but wish now that I'd continued outside to Lake Worth Inlet, radio and all-- could have made it before dark in the lovely fair wind. Instead spent the rest of the afternoon and evening slowly working through the squirrely winds and swirling currents of the 'concrete canyons' of one of the most populated and built-up stretches of waterway on the east coast.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1440	Coms Sec Miami, passed to Station Ft lauderdale, all well, proceed inside to Sebastian.			SE 14 Kt	sm
1510	Pos Rep Karen
1905	Pass Boca Raton bridges			SSE 16 Kt	sm
2205	Fl R "52" Boynton Beach Pos Rep Karen, smooth sailing.			SE 15 Kt	sm

 

3/11/2006 Saturday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0110	Porky arrives, check in

Porky kindly agreed to mind the Sebastian Checkpoint but I got there before he had planned to. He gave up his evening to drive out with the CP lockbox and log so I could sign in. I slept comfortably at the launch ramp dock till he got there, and we had a nice talk while setting up the box and discussing logistics. Decided on the inside route for next day or so to avoid the security exclusion zone around Cape Canaveral, so we headed north up the ICW in Indian River, but didn't get far that night...

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0120	Leave CP northbound			SW 6 Kt	sm
0600	Sebastian Inlet Becalmed all night in sight of inlet, sleep.	090	1.5nm	S 2-3Kn	sm
0600	Begin sailing now, patiently. Course 020, speed 1.5-2 Kt
0635	Ran over manatee in 2' water. Same very startled. Most water in boat yet.

The manatee (or tees, I had the impression there were a pair but wasn't sure and didn't log it so) was sleeping on the bottom in a depth where she could just arch her back to reach up and breathe without waking up. As many small boaters around here know, they don't like being woken up early, and tend to throw a lot of water around in the process of swimming for deeper water. Some of which got in the boat & my sleeping bag for the first time on the trip.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0915	Grant Farm I Pos Rep Karen	270	0.5nm	000	1.5 Kt

It had been calm for some time and I was sculling along at an easy pace in the quieter eastern side of the Indian River. It looked like a long day, no point in getting worn out early.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1015	Wind! enough to sail...			SSE 5-6	3 Kt
1130	C. Malabar Checked in w/ Chief, sent luck to all in Key Largo	315	2nm	SE 8-10	sm
1340	Eau Gallee Csy. Passed by tow			SE 12 Kt	1'
1715	Indianola Bridge			SE 16 Kt	1'
1830	Pos Rep Karen All well
1900	NASA Causeway			SE 8-10	sm
2045	Titusville Bridge			SE 8 Kt	1'
2215	2nd manatee collision of day (1st was at 0630 in Sebastian). Ran over close pair (mating?) who promptly exploded, digging in head down with tails thrashing at surface sending 2'-3' high sheets of water over/into boat.

This was a manatee behavior I hadn't seen before: They separated a few strokes in different directions as would be expected, but then appeared to both go head-down and dig their fins into the bottom to hold position, while furiously beating their tales on the surface creating a really awesome splash and noise. Again had some bailing to do. Makes me wonder if it may have been a family group and the adults were covering the retreat of the kid(s)? I'm used to them just heading off at high speed, splashing as they go for intimidating effect.

After getting my heart rate back down and clearing the bilge, we made the turn northeastward above Merrit Island, and headed into rock-walled Haulover Canal.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
2320	Exit Haulover Canal			SE 6-8 Kt	sm

 

3/13/2006 Monday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0430	30d 03.0'	81d 14.3'		SW 3 Kt	SE 2'
0745	30d 08.2' Pos rep Karen all well	81d 17.5'		SSW 5 Kt 000	SE 2-3' 2.5 Kt

A pleasant day, not fast progress but steady. Wind hauled on shore and built a bit in afternoon but, as the dey before, it was just the local sea breeze filling in along the coast, not a deep enough wind field to make up much of a sea.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1230	St Johns R '4'	000	2.7nm	SE 8 Kt	E 2-3'
1320	St Johns R '4' Sea steepens in river ebb current.	270	0.5nm	SE 8 Kt	E 2-4'
1448	N '6a" Nassau Sound			SE 12 Kt	E 2-3'
1600	30d 35.0'	81d 23.5'		SE 12-14 Kt	E 2-3'
1610	Call Chief, ETA Cp 1900			020	4.5 Kt
1740	St Marys Entrance, FL G '17'			S 14 Kt	3-4'
1820	Ft Clinch CP Visited w/ Chief, exchanged [camera] chips			S 16 Kt	sm

Chief got some photos of Enigma coming in and leaving the Checkpoint, and swapped my full camera memory chip for an empty one so as to upload my pix and video to the website. I didn't stay long as tide and wind were fair for continuing to St. Marys. and there was still a little evening light left.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1840	Left CP bound up St Marys River
1910	Enter St Marys River			S 14 Kt	sm
2245	Anchor near high cut-bank halfway between [town of] St Marys & I95 bridge			S 6-8 Kt	sm

 

3/15/2006 Wednesday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0105	Traders Hill. Cool night.			Calm
0745	Pos rep Chief, Pos rep Karen, leave phone charging at campground while doing chores. Dump ballast, re-stow, clean up

Slept in and woke to frost on deck. Traders Hill campground was empty at mid-week but looked nice. Up the steep hill the camp sites had electric and water that I took advantage of. Walked out the access road a ways to stretch my legs but returned soon to discharge our sand sailing ballast in the dirt road and clean up the boat, while waiting for phone to charge.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0910	Under way, moderate current			NE 10
1115	Snack break on sandbar. River shoaling, current still easy			NE 10-12 Kt
1320	Snack break			? 10-12 Kt
1510	Snack/nav break- current stronger, trees in road			Calm
1710	Snack/nav. Easier going.			Calm
1935	30d 37.4	82d 02.2		Calm
1935	Dinner stop near Toledo

Tied to an overhanging tree near a steep hill. After a cooked dinner hiked up for some antenna altitude and made a scratchy shouted phone call to Karen. Not logged but as I recall we continued sculling upriver for another couple hours after that before stopping for a long night's sleep.

 

3/17/2006 Friday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0630	Back on the road			Calm
0755	Breakdown, or nearly. Left wheel sidewall failing. Stop to repair. Patch tube (staple), wrap tire with poly mesh from lee cloth, overwrap all w/ 1/4" nylon rope, looks crazy, hope works...

Found the problem during a routine short food break; the port wheel was very low, rim nearly on the ground. Pulled out onto the apron of a side track and chocked the boat up to remove the wheel, set to patching tube. Trouble was from a small bit of wire, maybe a staple, picked up in the tire; it had just nicked the tube and the slow leak had gradually been letting the tire sidewalls flex more and more as we rolled. Over who knows how many miles of this mistreatment the tire, an old one with several hundred miles already on it, had broken down to the point where rubber was sloughing off the sides in sheets and the nylon belting was badly chafed and starting to tear.

I had all kinds of repair and replacement parts for the portage wheels: patch kit, pump, spare tube, a complete spare axle with bearings and nuts, but no spare tire. How many cyclists carry a spare tire for a 40 mile trip? Difference is on a bike you'd notice the low tire before it had time to do itself much harm, which I should have made sure of by more frequent wheel checks.

Anyhow after thinking on my options and materials on hand, I tried to repair the tire, attempting to rejoin the still-serviceable tread to the bead by sacrificing a heavy trampoline-mesh lee cloth and wrapping a section of the fabric around the inside of the tire between tire and tube. Once reassembled and pumped up this didn't look like a big improvement, there wasn't enough of the original belting left to contain the mesh, and the tube was bubbling out through big gaps in the sidewalls. Grabbed some spare nylon line and started spiral wrapping over the tire and through the spokes around the inside of the rim, a long process but finally done. The tire now looked pretty crazy but was holding together, and we hit the road hoping for the best.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0905	Back on road
1020	Interview by Roger Bull, Jax Times- ?

Stopped a while in a shady spot while a Jacksonville newspaper reporter Chief had gotten in touch with took my impressions of the trip. He said he was headed back to St. George to try and talk to Manitou Cruiser, who he'd heard was getting ready to hit the road there. Would try to catch up with me again later.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1050	Visit from Chief, pix by Chris, Jax paper
1115	Left tire wears thru, flat.

After only 7 miles or so the rope wrapping wore through and parted, and the tube popped out the unsupported sidewall exploding. Back to the soft shoulder. I'd been picking likely looking strips of dead tires from the roadside as we went, thinking about what do do next if the first fix didn't last out. After replacing the split innertube I cut some pieces of thin sidewall rubber and worked them into the worst parts of the tire, and wrapped the whole mess back up in the now-very-frayed nylon line which I tied up and tightened the best I could. And we rolled on.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1230	On the road, wrapped line over some strips of road-kill tire belt
1420	flat again. Roger reporter and Chief show up while repairing. Chief donates hose clamps & loans screwdriver. Made new hard tire from strip of road-kill truck tread.

Saving the remains of the bad tire wasn't working out so I took the next step of trying to build a new, solid tire. Stripped off everything down to the bare plastic rim and wound in a strip of heavy steel-belted truck tire tread that had caught my eye lying in the weeds a few miles back. It was just the right width to jam tightly into the channel of the rim. I needed to secure the ends of the rubber strip and Chief, who had stopped by in his rounds of overseeing the various checkpoints, suggested some stainless steel hose clamps he had as spares for his truck. That looked like working and after some fighting and cussing with the reluctant rubber I got things together well enough to give it a try.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1515	On the road. Frequent stops to trim & adjust tire. This might work!

Not individually logged are all the breaks needed to keep the new tire happy- first to shorten the rubber strip which stretched out gradually under the constant rolling. Then adjusting the clamps as they flexed and loosened. Then after a few miles first one and then the other hose clamp fatigued and fell off. I stopped to see what could be done but couldn't think of anything useful. Trying to screw or wire the rubber in place seemed doomed to fail faster than the hose clamps. Lashings had already shown to chafe faster than you could apply them.

But the rubber strip seemed willing to stay more or less in place on its own. Through good luck and no planning on my part the strip came to me slightly wider at one end than the other, and I'd fortuitously installed it the right way around so the fat end, jammed tightly between the sides of the rim, hit the road first, and the thinner tail rolled out behind it, often flapping loose as it passed over the top of the wheel but always rolling back into the groove as the wheel advanced over it. It was scary but fun to watch, I'd turn around and walk backwards for a few hundred steps just marveling as the makeshift tire unwound and rewound itself 90 times a minute. There was some pretty heavy bumping as the thick head of the tire hit the road every revolution, and a sympathetic vibration of the whole boat at a frequency 3 times the wheel period right at my comfortable walking speed- it lessened if I sped up or slowed down but I gave up trying to smooth the ride and just went my pace, letting the boat bang along at its own peril.

When you're walking along a lightly-travelled country road for hours on a hot afternoon, you have plenty of time to think about your options. All the obvious ones went through my head. If this last-ditch tire failed, or if the plastic rim folded under the constant vibration, I could call Karen and she could be here by dark... We could load Enigma on the car and get out of here, never more this long, long, straight road disappearing over the horizon ahead, no more logging trucks whizzing past your elbow, nor sculling along strange spooky rivers in the dark... Or I could push the boat into a clump of bushes and try to bum a ride to somewhere with a Wal-Mart or a bicycle shop to buy a new tire- Lakeland or Valdosta looked like the best chances, farther than I'd want to walk. Would the boat survive a day without me? Occasionally a passing vehicle would slow and roll beside us for a while, whatthehell you doin' boy, need help, like that. One of the log truckers, who had certainly passed us a couple times already going back and forth to the mill, idled his empty rig for a couple minutes getting the story, and offered to come back with his pickup after his shift was over, get us to Fargo or White Springs or wherever we wanted. Nice guy. No thanks, enjoying the walk, you have a great day now.

And the tire kept rolling, and I kept walking.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1800	Edith. Only 1 mile to go! Tire is holding but bumping & vibrating badly.
1840	Fargo ramp. Made it! Clean up & put in. Dinner w/ Chief. ManitouCruiser delayed by slow bike, won't arrive till tomorrow, pity. Sleep!

 

3/19/2006 Sunday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0620	Under way			Calm
0730	Big Shoals top trail- scout rapids, find Mark (M.C.) at bottom put-in. Nice talk, catch up on travels. Pix of him leaving.Carry gear down trail, fix wheel again,, move boat.

As we pulled in to the well-marked upper end of the portage trail at Big Shoals the first thing I saw was a big MANITOU WAS HERE scratched in the sand of the take-out. Had had a feeling he'd catch us yesterday and been looking over my shoulder all afternoon. Hurried off down the riverbank to scout, hoping he was still around somewhere. The falls looked just too much to run comfortably, looked like the abrupt limestone ledges would catch Enigma's rudder a good hard whack at each of the two main drops; losing headway and getting caught in the backwash would be no fun. Might be able to manhandle and line her over in shallow slower water river left, but there were a lot of branches and junk in the water and along the banks, looked hazardous. Portage trail looked like best option.

Scouting the bottom put-in of the trail I found Manitou Cruiser's overnight bivouac just as he was breaking down and packing up. He was in great spirits, enjoying his trip. He'd seen Enigma at anchor as he passed last night, had I heard him paddling quietly by in my sleep? Maybe not. Kind soul that he is, he offered repeatedly to help me move Enigma around the portage, she looks a heavy unwieldy thing to people who don't know her well. But I sent him on his way with a warning not to slack off, I'd be trying hard to catch up.

Carried a couple loads of gear and supplies down to the low end, then skidded Enigma up the nice even slope of the portage take-out and got her back on the wheels (temporarily lashing that rubber strip tire back into the bad one). The lower put-in is rougher with uneven steep rock and mud obstructed by small trees and brush, but with a couple guide ropes I got her slid back down without incident and reloaded in a little back-eddy covered in foam from the falls. Just as a troop of canoeists came down (half ran the rapids and got wet, half carried) we set off down toward Little Shoals, which was no trouble, choppy but mostly deep enough to scull through at that water level.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0940	under way below big shoals.			Calm
1120	Rt 41 Bridge. Wrist hurts.			Light
1130	Pos rep Karen from top of bank
1150	Rt 135 Bridge [White Springs] Pos rep Chief
1220	Begin sailing - slow!			Lt Var
1335	Shark Chow passes by. Good spirits, moving fast.

Back in deep slow water below the Shoals. Banks are high with tall trees right to the water's edge, only reason to sail was to spare the bad wrist. Shark Chow looked like he had a motor going as he swept past with a spreading wake behind, under a shady straw hat. We talked for a minute but neither of us thought to take photos.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1450	Rt 75 bridge sailing			E 5-10 Kt
1900	Suwannee Springs, US 129 bridge [sculling]			Calm
2130	resume sailing			E 5-10 Kt

 

3/21/2006 Tuesday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0330	1.5 mi above Branford Tie to snag for sleep.			SW 10-12 Kt	sm
0630	On the road			SW 10 Kt	sm
0710	Branford boat ramp Pos rep Karen			SW 15-18 Kt
1110	Wannamake. Light rain, thunder			SW 18-20 Kt
1330	Rt 340 Bridge. Dry, mixed cloud			SW 20+ Kt
1540	Wannee			SW 18-20 Kt
1910	Pos rep Chief			SW 6-8 Kt
2050	Fanning Springs Rt 98 Bridge			SW 4-6 Kt

 

3/23/2006 Thursday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0100	Anclote Key FL R '4'	160	16.5nm	NE 20 Kt	2'
0400	Anclote Key FL R '4'	170	5.5nm	E 20 Kt	2+'
0530	Anclote Key FL R '4'	090	1nm	E 20 Kt	1-2'
0710	FL G '1' Channel	090	.25nm	ENE 18 Kt	1+'
0755	Posrep Karen			ENE 12 Kt	1'

Karen gave me the latest news of the leaders. I was still behind Shark Chow and Manitou but seemed to be closing. I told her 'It's still a horse race,' and that it would all depend on exactly when the forecast wind change come later that morning. I had the choice of heading inside to the ICW to hedge against the wind shift and set up for better flat water rowing, or staying out in the gulf where sailing was faster while the wind held. Decided gambling on a later wind shift and staying out was our only hope of catching the leaders, and carried on.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0945	Clearwater Pass Fl G '1'			ENE 14 Kt	1'
1230	Redington Pier Beating up slowly	175	1.2nm	ESE 10 Kt	1+'

That was it, the wind had veered south of east just as my course came east of south rounding the bend of Indian Rocks Beach and Redington Shores. There was no way I could catch the faster paddling boats now. To top it off over the next hour the headwind gradually faded away, leaving us bobbing in a leftover chop of sea with barely steerageway.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1345	Johns Pass	315	2nm	CALM	>1'
1425	Sculling, light W fills in			W 2-4 Kt	sm
1730	Pass A Grille; Flukey come & go wind always ahead... Pos rep Chief	045	1.5nm	SE 3-5 Kt	1'

It was most frustrating. the wind would come up from one direction, blow long enough to get a little chop going, then die off to calm again, and repeat from a new direction. Sea was small but confused and bobbly enough to keep our progress painfully slow whether sailing, motorsailing with the paddle, or sculling with sail down, all of which I did by turns all afternoon still nursing my wrist. Finally after crossing the long bay off St. Pete Beach a couple miles off shore, we came in with the beach at the northern point of Mullet Key, and, trying to stay out of the ebb tide pouring out of Tampa Bay, started poling along in about 3' water. The last few miles were among the slowest of the trip between foul wind and current, the continuing chop and groundswell off the Gulf, and just sheer exhaustion. Sailed out around the end of the outer fishing pier and in again right under the guns of Fort DeSoto, and hit the beach with the last of the evening breeze at the foot of the inner pier.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1900	Poling up W side Mullet Key			SE 5-6 Kt	sm
1955	Ashore at Finish, haul out, search for lock box. Hailed by Chief & SandDollar, Dinner out, Pos rep Karen.

Finishing was blessedly anticlimactic; low-key congratulations from Chief and SandDollar who'd come down to meet SharkChow, the winner, ManitouCruiser, a close second, and had been hanging around waiting for me as my ETA moved back and back through the day. They took me out for a nice Italian dinner, handed over the official awards (shark-tooth necklace and inscribed paddle) and dropped me off back at the park where I found a pay phone and called Karen for a nice long chat. Then I shoved Enigma back out and anchored a short distance off the inside pier where we shouldn't get run over by passing traffic, and slept till well past sunup.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
2133	Anchor off Bay Pier, nr. Finish So ends Ultimate Florida Challenge.			Calm

Post Script

The Ultimate Florida Challenge was the longest sailing trip (or vacation of any kind) I'd had in over a decade, and WELL worth the outlay in money and time in many ways. Showing that a sailboat could do the cross-Florida leg (formerly WaterTribe Okefenokee Challenge, and only attempted by canoes and kayaks) was one fun part. I thought it was interesting that boats from Class 1, 3 and 4 all finished within a few hours of each other after 20 days on the water.

Enigma worked really well for most phases of the race, obviously she was least competitive on the river sections, held back further by my slight injury. She was surprisingly non-slow on the long road portage- if not for the wheel trouble her portage time would have been among the better of the eight boats that did it. Her best performance though was where there was enough wind and open water to set her up and let her go, when the low-stress, reliable, take-care-of-her-crew nature of this enclosed-cockpit, self righting cruiser lets her keep covering miles in comfort while most of the competition is exhausted, uncomfortable and looking for a campsite.

 

3/25/2006 Saturday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0610	Under way			N 8-10 Kt	sm
1010	Gasparilla I. Bridge			N 15-18 Kt	sm
1910	Fort Myers Bridges			NNW 20 Kt	1-2'
2015	St Mi 131 Okeechobee Wwy. Stop for nightin lee of N bank. Quiet.			NW 8-10 Kt	sm

Made good time running down the coastal bays in cool northwesterlies. Now things got slower working along the narrow Okeechobee Waterway canals against the veering wind. Fortunately the ailing wrist had had a couple days to recover, and with the race over I could afford to go slow and easy. It continued to warn me if I pushed too hard but was on the mend.

 

3/27/2006 Monday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0629	Under way. Cool & clear.			NE 3-5 Kt	sm
1300	Moore Haven Lock			NE 10 Kt	sm
1710	Exit Aux. Floodway Channel			ENE 15 Kt	1-1.5'

The Auxilliary Channel is one of my favorite shortcuts, taking you out to the open Lake Okeechobee much quicker than the marked rim canal route. Nobody else uses it so you see a lot of wildlife, read gators, along the banks (good birds too). Night came down quickly as we beat into the short steep lake chop on port tack, making for the lee of Creamer Island 15 miles or so away.

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
1815	FL R '8'			225	0.2nm	ENE 18 Kt	1-2'
2200	Creamer I. Came to anchor under scrub clump in grassy shallows. Quiet & snug.	045	0.5nm	ENE 12 Kt	sm

 

3/29/2006 Wednesday

Time	Landmark Lat	Bears Lon	Distance	Course Wind	Speed Sea
0600	Under way. Warm, damp			Calm
1100	St Lucie Lock			E 12 Kt	sm
1330	Palm City Bridge			E 12 Kt	sm
1420	Come to anchor at foot of Banyan Tree Dr. Unload. Home! Haul out & roll to house. So ends.

Yup, it was good to be home. Till next time...