Gulf Of Mexico Crossing

Well I finally got to taste what it was like to do an off shore passage. Dean and Katie friends of ours called and asked if I would be interested in helping deliver there 1991 hunter 42 passage. So I had to ask the admiral and she gave me the go ahead nod. So the wheels were put in motion for me to fly to Tampa Fl to jump on their new boat. Rob was one of the other crew members who also flew in from Kemah Texas to join myself on My WayToo! Along with the 4 of us was Katie's dad who turned 71 on the trip with myself turning 54. Katie's dad who had never been on a sailboat ever in his life signed on for the whole trip as My Way Too! started from Fort Lauderdale. Our leg of the trip was 745 n/m. I will have to say that Al may have thought Rob and I were a little crazy at times during the delivery. I was the last to arrive as I did not get aboard till around 7 pm. Then shortly after that we pulled out of the marina they has just stayed in for the day and we motored out 25 miles just past the sunshine sky-way bridge and dropped the hook.

Morning came early, as usual not enough wind to carry us 4 kts. As that was our cut off point for the distance we had to cover as our weather window looked excellent for the next 4 to 5 days. As we got out about 45 miles the chatter on the VHF started. Now one would think that being out
that far and running a boat you would be prepared. Now mister sport fisherman that we just had pasted about 3 miles back called the coast guard and tells them he is out of 2 cycle oil for his motor. So naturally the coast guard ask if he was sinking or in distress. Nope Just out of oil. Well we do not deliver 2 cycle oil a and asked if he was a member of Tow Boat or any towing assistance and he replied nope. We all aboard My Way Too! said oh s+*t this is going to be some
expensive 2 cycle oil. As the conversation went on they asked if he had anyone he knew that would bring any oil. Now this is a time when you need friends and good ones you hope. Well he had none that would give him assistance so the next thing was they transferred him over to
Tow Boat. First thing they asked was if he had a credit card. Glad he did. The calculated cost was over $ 900 just to deliver the oil and over $2200 if towed. After hearing the cost he said he would try motoring slowly back towards Tampa. Now we are all thinking what the h#%l is he thinking. Is he going to do a insurance claim once he burns the motor up or what. So the last
message we heard was that he was slowly motoring towards Tampa. So our first full day we covered 146 n/m and then the wind switched to the west. Yep just what we did not want to see. West winds as we were heading west as they were light but we were just above the high and it
was in front of us. As we progressed I had asked if they have been fishing along the way and Al said yes but had not caught anything.
Checking over what bait the had I seen spied a few baits that should produce us a fish or 2 the distance we had to travel. Seeing what rods they had I thought oh we are a bit on the light side but we have to give it a try. With new baits on and and 2 poles out west we head. It was not even a half hour and our first hit sent the real a screaming as we landed our first fish. It was a Spanish mackerel. Al Agreed to clean it so knife in hand away he went to clean it. As soon as we got the fish unhooked back in the bait went in. Poor Al just a about got finished and away the reel went singing again. In comes a frigate tuna. During the next few hours we landed over 8 fish and lost 2. One we lost took the line out so fast we never knew what it was but it must have been the big one that defiantly got away. As we day went on we got all the fish cleaned and stored away for a few meals along the way. During one of my night watches on helm I had my iTunes and
head set going and I heard the blow of a dolphin and I looked over to our port side and there was a pod of around 8 to 10 dolphins. So with the full moon out and the boat on autopilot with flat seas Katie and I went up to the bow to watch the show. They stayed with us for about 10
min. As we pushed on we started to get into the oil platforms out in the gulf and what a mess that is. There are so many out there that one can not sail a straight line. With work boats and the rigs it was a very busy place especially at night. I had one work boat one night hail me on the radio just after he hit us with the spot lite. He told me he was trying to figure out what we was as they do not see many sailboats out in the rigs. As the nights turned into days the high pressure system that had been sitting right over top of us started to move on and started bringing us more wind and our only rain squall that we tacked around as we watched the lighting hitting the water all around us so we went into storm mode. Dropping all sails and getting the proper equipment on as I was the token lighting rod. Actually we wanted
to get some water as we were running a bit low but it never really rained that hard where we were at. Our forth day out and 3rd day with
out seeing land we were once again treated to a pod of dolphins leading the way for us in front if the bow. This was one of the highlights of the trip. They stayed with us once again for a long time
as you could hear them singing and blowing as well as coming out of the water.
As the day progressed on it started to get rougher and night was worse. It was so hot and ruff in the v berth I could not sleep so I wedged myself against the settee on the floor and went to sleep. Well Rob came below and went to pass me and the boat lurched one way and Rob missed grabbing a had hold and landed on top of my knees as I was in a dead sleep and we both screamed as I hurt both knees and he thought he had broken ribs or a kidney hit. It took us both a few days to get over what happened but no lasting damage just bruises. Pressing on as we had been sailing quite a lot as we had 2 good runs of over 24 hours with out hearing the motor. Getting closer to Galveston we could see the lights of many tankers anchored out awaiting entry into the harbor. We figured there had to be 50 to 75 anchored out as it was quite something to see as many were sitting high in the water. So do we really have an oil shortage if we are filling all those tankers with oil and sending the out. Makes one ponder that question. We sailed on
and up to Kemha and arrived in My Way Too! slip at 4:30 am with awaiting dock help and
much needed rum. Over all it was a great trip and everyone aboard was
ready for rest a long hot shower. Would I do it again, yep! So to top the trip off we went on a Saturday afternoon rum race in Galveston bay
on Robs boat. A 38 foot hunter as were in the cruising class and we managed to take a 2nd place (unofficial) for him which he was pleased. As the dang boat recorder never seen us pass the finish line. I just believe it was because we were a smokin going across the finish line and the recorder never seen us.

Back Home

Ok so we do have people that read our Blog. Yea I know we kind of dropped the ball once we got back to our home in Michigan. After we got into Green Cove Springs marina which I would call it more of a work yard then anything. There is a slip or maybe 2 if your lucky. Most of the slips are taken up by liveaboards that I would dare say have not moved in years. We had to wait about a week to get pulled and put into the work yard so we could do a few maintenance projects before going into the long term storage yard. In the work yard your able to live on the boat with power and water but once it goes into the long term storage yard your done with the boat. Going back and taking snap shot of our voyage from leaving Whitehall Mi up through the north channel and then down Lake Huron, up Lake Erie to Buffalo NY. That is where all the water runs out of the great lakes as it is almost like a sucking sound as your flying down the Niagara river onto the connection of the Erie Canal. The canal is a trip all in its self. All the towns along the canal were very boater friendly and willing to help in what ever you needed. The last lock you go out of to get into the Hudson River is called the Federal lock. Once those gates open up to send you on your way down the Hudson it kind of hit us. Wow! We are actually doing this and not looking back. Oh sure we looked back many times only when tugs and barges were bearing down on us just to move out of there way. Just to show you how naive we were or should you say Randy was. Once your below the Federal Lock your now in a tidal flow of the ocean. Well we went the whole dam way down the Hudson not even thinking about having the current to help us out. Sure I knew there was a tide but you would think I would have put 2 and 2 together and figured that we need to look at the current as well to give us a boost. It was not till the Delaware River that we figured that out. There we were with Simple Pleasure and we nailed the current and rode it all the way up to the C& D canal. It gave us a boost of a couple of knots. The C&D canal is a barge canal as it lets commercial boat traffic from the Delaware River go to the Chesapeake bay with out going out in the ocean. The C&D is not that wide as you need to call ahead to traffic control on the VHF to get clearance to pass through. As Mutual Fun is only 11’10” wide we a watched a few of the super barges pass as we sat a day in Chesapeake city and no way in hell would I want to meet one of them. We would have been shoved off to the side for sure. Now mind ya that we have sailed all out lives in the Great Lakes and took on some nasty water at times. I never had none come up our stern until we were sailing down the Chesapeake Bay. If we had been smart we would have sat that day out but noooo . We had a dead line to make, That is what gets one into trouble. Deadlines on a boat.

The Chesapeake is a place you could spend all summer in. But we understand it gets very buggy and no wind. We were blessed with wind going down most of it. We had many of different air shows provided by the military during a fee of the days and even got to see some bombs being dropped. Wha! Hooooo. To this point of the trip we had only seen a few people so far going south and we were wondering if we were to late in our timing or to early in it. But once we got in Norfolk that is where it kind of all started for us seeing the great migration south of the snow birds. (boats) I remember coming into a anchorage at Hospital point and asking a boat called Star if those balls out in the water were mooring balls as we slowly passed by them and Gale replied back no they are crab pots so hit everyone you can. We just laughed. Now this is where the ICW actually starts and ends in Miami. But for the next month to month and a half we seen and met so many great people along the way. Only to actually see a lot of them in the Bahamas. As we motored most of the way down the ICW we were kind of gauging our time as we were still in huricane season but yet wanted to get as far south as we could to get warm weather. During that time of year the weather does determine what your going to do a lot as many cold fronts are coming down from the north. Not having heaters onboard as we took them off to make way for more storage of things we thought we would need.

Oh what we have learned. We remember being told oh via some of the boats we were cruising with, oh yea tonight we are coming over to your boat for pot luck. We thought oh @~!# we do not have a big table onboard. So I told them hey we only have a table for 2 and was told well we are still coming so figure something out. From then on we knew we were part of the cruising community as that is what made it so fun for us. Meeting people like that. As we made or way down the ICW Jeannie and I resorted to well we will be the last boat in a pack if we are traveling as everyone was passing us as we cruised at 5 kts. We never gave thought to all the can goods we had stored in every nook and cranny. If we were smart we would have shopped in lake worth or closer to where we crossed over for the major can goods. But nooo, once again we had them all along with us from Michigan. Only to get more in places we stopped. Once we crossed over to the Bahamas it was like wow we are finally here. Now we had to figure out where do we want to go. Like everyone’s first time in the Bahamas we had to go thru a learning curve in reading the water color to help us navigate thru different places. All the time we were there we never felt threatened or in need to lock things up. I guess it is as close to heaven as one can get as we were very blessed for being able to do the whole trip with very few problems. In all we traveled over 4000 nautical miles since leaving Michigan. Lost a few pair of sunglasses and towels overboard. Got our anchor stuck once. In all what we learned is that you can not be in a hurry or a time schedule and you pay attention to the weather a lot more. Unlike weather in Michigan where it pops up faster. Weather in the Bahamas you know well in advanced that fronts are coming. All in all is if Mutual Fun can do it you can also. Just stick to your dreams as dreams do come true. Lastly I want to say thank you to my loving wife Jeannie for putting up with my drive to do this as it opened up a new chapter in our life. We will be returning to our boat in Florida in late October to do it all over again.