Bump in the Night Trip to Pensacola and more!

First, I must write something about Memorial day which I missed last weekend.  The sunday before we motored out to Spectre island, borrowing Klaus and Wendy's YOLO board.  It takes 2.5 hours motor (upwind) to get there, and once there and anchored we hopped on the YOLO to attempt to learn.  One of the first things "we" learned is that there is no we on this YOLO.  The current was 1.2 kts with wind, so we fought to get back to the boat without taking a swim.  Lesson learned, we must YOLO solo.  Rosa went first and played all around for about 1.5 hours, then she came back and Mike had a try.  It was very neat to silently coast into the shallows and barely disturb 3 stingrays and what looked like 2 trout.  I can see how this is a cool toy, but it certainly was a workout!  After playing we put the board on the boat and got ready for a rainy night.  We didn't sleep too well so next morning after coffee we pulled anchor and headed home.  A least this time the winds were favorable so we sailed off anchor all the way to the slip never starting the motor.  Nearing the dock we doused the big jib and main while an older couple in a pontoon boat looked at us with fascination.  Rosa and I have docking under sail well choreographed, so we sailed in and dropped the stays'l at the last moment, coasting into the dock without a bump.  Once we had all the lines stowed we were startled when the same couple blew their horn and clapped congratulations for docking without a motor, something they'd obviously never seen.  They also mentioned something about us being 'daredevils'.

Now to this weekend.  Mike had Friday off, and he's had 2 weeks of 2-workdays, so he wanted to go cruising.  We had previously bought provisions and filled the diesel and water tanks, so we were ready to go once I got home from work.  We were pushed off the dock by 4:30 and by 6 were exiting the Destin pass.  Mike had done his weather research and the wind forecast indicated south winds 12-15 kts with 3' seas until about 2AM at which time the winds would decrease.  We'd done 3-day trips to Pensacola and PC before except it was always 1 day to get there and 1 day back, so only 1 day for fun.  This time we had planned an overnight passage with a landing in Pensacola around 3AM.  Both Pensacola and PC have excellent channels, unlike Destin, so a late night landfall wasn't too scary.  Another thing I told Rosa, was that if we sailed offshore then we wouldn't have to watch out so carefully about running aground or other boats, because there's nothing to run into offshore(Mike was wrong).  This way we could travel and trust the autopilot while we relaxed.

However, our initial exposure to the gulf was bad!  Going out the channel the coasties seemed to have moved several of the channel markers, and as we approached the main spill into the gulf the waves stood up to 7' which we were motoring into and made quite a mess in the boat as we weren't prepared.  Rosa wanted to turn around but I assured here things would get better, which they quickly did.  However the boat was still rolling until I managed to get all 3 sails up and then the boat performed like a champ.  We set off easily towards the west, the motor shut down and us quickly making 6 kts over even and clean swells.  We quickly started to enjoy how well new boat handled in these situations, and the amazing stars came into full view as we passed Okaloosa.  There was no moon, so it was very dark but the stars were spectacular, very pretty!

Onward we sailed until we started hearing the buuurp, pompom, and ba-boom from AC-130 Spectres blowing something up.  We even saw them dropping flares and for a while they flew right over us. Eventually the perpetual explosions started to wear on us.  I called Uncle James to talk about sailboat stuff and Rosa took a nap on the starboard walkway of the deck, nudged between the doghouse and the toerail bulwark.  We were about 3 miles due south of the big radar tower between Okaloosa and Navarre when...

Wham... scrape scrape, slight decelrataion.  I said to James "whoa what..." while Rosa started to say "Mike" then suddeenly a stronger and more dulled wham, with a deceleration like we had ran aground.  Instantly stopped!  Mike was thrown on the floor in the cockpit and Rosa stumbled awake as the boat rocked.  I said to James "What the H*** I think we hit something!" and dropped the cell phone in the dark cockpit.  Rosa tripped into the cockpit and said we had run aground.  We were about 2.5 nm offshore in 75' of water so a grounding was not likely, but we definitely hit something.  Whatever it was, the boat with full sails pushed on and by the time I could get the spotlight we were beyond whatever it was.

Needless to say, this shook us up!  We've never hit anything, and most times we'd run aground it was a) my fault, b)daylight and c) not offshore in swells in the middle of a moonless night.  We immediately started down the crash list and went to closing and checking all thru-hulls.  There were no leaks.  There was no crazy vibes, and the rudder still worked.  No need to call the coasties. The autopilot kept us going and we were immediately up to 6.5 kts.  I marked a spot on the chartplotter, we won't go near there again due to superstition.  Whoops, I need to call uncle James!!  I called him up and related what had happened.  He was freaked out also as that's not a good thing to hear from family who is cruising offshore fore the first time on their new boat!

All appeared OK and the boat kept chugging, but both Rosa and I felt that every time the bow impacted a wave and we decelerated slightly we were envisioning another impact.  All night we were concerned that the previously open and deep gulf which was supposed to offer safe passage was instead festooned with myriad objects to run into and poke holes in our boat.  Since this was on our minds, we conjectured upon the cause, the most likely being a drifting piling or tree.  But how do Dolphins sleep?  Could we had hit one?  And Rosa mentioned a submarine, but I figured if we hit a steel submarine, or cargo container, we'd know it.  Volcanos?  Possible elsewhere but not here.  We were supposed to takes shifts keeping watch but the impact kept us both wired.  So we talked boat sinking disaster plans and methods of staying afloat and alive, a somewhat morbid conversation.

However by 1:30AM we'd made great time.  We were only 5nm from the Pensacola Pass ship channel, and then the wind died.  It went from a great breeze to just dead, with the same swell rolling the boat around.  We quickly sparked the engine and made quick time into the pass.  We pushed hard and got to anchor by 2:30am.  Rosa did an awesome job as spotter for the buoys without the flashy lights.  We intended to go well into the Fort Mcree anchorage area, but we kept running aground and I didn't have sense enough to look at my old GPS which has a safe route marked out.  As it turned out we anchored on top of one of the route's way points.  We had hoped for a nice sleep after hours of nervous offshore sailing, but instead we were terrorized by vampiric avians, monster mosquitoes who had probiscus capable of poking through the afghan blankets we attempted to shield ourselves with.  I soaked myself in DEET while Rosa wrapped herself with only a slight breathing hole, neither method was acceptable.  We slept poorly.

Despite our lack of rest, we still woke early.  Like oh-dark-thirty early when a huge damn motor boat rolled by throwing us out of the berth onto the floor.  Some people!  Ok then we napped until about 10, luckily the buggers don't like the sun I think.  We woke and drank coffee and breakfast, and pulled anchor to motor up into the main anchorage.  The short dinghy ride rewarded us with a deserted beach, which we quickly understood why.  The mosquitoes swarmed us and covered us bodily.  I inhaled several, so hungry they were, and I called an immediate retreat to the big boat to obtain backup.  Some battles are best walked away from, so instead we went to the spoil which had sparse grass and we found to be much less buggy.

Atop the Ft McCree spoil

However, this just wasn't much fun, and it was too hot to sleep so we decided to sail on to old downtown Pensacola.  We only had to motor a short while and spent the remainder of the time sailing.  Approaching the commercial docks we were surprised to see a rocket attached to a ship, and I had just finished a Cussler book where the Red Chinese tried to kill America by launching a smallpox bioweapon with a ship launched rocket.  Pretty neat,

Rocket ship intent on destruction of the US or oil ship?

Near downtown Pensacola we anchored about a mile offshore in shallow water.  I didn't want to pay for Palafox Pier again, and the chart showed a sketchy channel to Seville marina, so we decided to spend money on a nice dinner instead.  We took the dinghy on the long ride into the little public park and beached the dinghy.  We were greeted by colorful local fishermen and some nice local homeless chaps, after which we started to walk around.  The heat that drove us from Ft. Mcree was more intense here, so we ducked into an odd art museum to look at several strange exhibits.

For Trippy Kittens

"Three Ladies" that would have scared me as a child

A strange flute

We walked around a bit more discovering it was the Pensacola brew fest.  Awesome, except they were still setting up and I couldn't get any samples.  We went on to a museum, but they were closing, and it was super hot so we decided to shoot for an early dinner.  We decided on the illustrious Atlas seafood restaurant not far from our dinghy.  It was a very fancy place, and our seafood pizza, parmesean crusted grouper and crab-stuffed mahi were very good, but also very expensive.  We decided on a night on the boat, being exhausted from the previous night.

Our anchorage was calm and windy and pleasant, so we slept well.  The next morning we couldn't decide on anything to explore downtown, so we set sail for Pensacola Beach.  The sail was very slow, and mostly we tidied up the boat after the boisterous sails.   We eventually cranked the motor and got into little Sabine harbour by 3pm.  We took a short walk ashore and visited the beach then hastily returned to the boat as a storm brought wind gusts to 40kts.  We thought we would be hit by a tornado but it was just a strong front.  We burned 2 hours waiting for bad weather that never came, and decided to stay on the boat. 

The weather was actually nice getting cool and dry, and it blew hard all night.  In the morning we set sail early to catch as much wind as possible on the way home and before long we were scooting mightily under sail himeward in the ICW.  As we approached the Navarre bridge we were delighted to see a catamaran regatta with at least 50 boats.  Unfortunately we were too slow to get into the fray, but they certainly made us look like we were standing still!

After Navarre the wind died and it was time to motor all the way home. As we entered the bay we noticed our friends John and Peggy in uncle Pat's old boat looking good.  We traded pictures.  Shortly thereafter we arrived back at the dock, and time for chores to get ready for next weekend!