Where is the sun?
Actually just kidding. Glad to hear you are making another cruise this summer guys. You will miss the clear blue waters as we have. This is actually the morning after we anchored at Long Beach as we approached Cortez.
Another Vega anchored at Cortez
Cortez and Anna Maria Bridges are on new schedules mark your chart book. With all the fog on the water this morning you would think that the wind was calm. Not the case. We were getting over 20 knots and gusts approaching gale force. Trying to hold upwind of a bridge is not fun at least it was these two with plenty of room to maneuver. Once past Anna Maria we went wing and wing with full sails at close to 20 knots. Wheeee! All the way across Tampa Bay except for when we had to avoid the cargo ship that wouldn't get out of OUR way. lol. We must have been doing 8 knots or more with the wind, waves and current all on our side. We always use the Sunshine Skyway Channel instead of taking the long way through the actual intercoastal. About the second set of markers we fog thickened and with the squirly boat in such a narrow channel we chickened out. Dropping the wing and wing. I have hit the edge of this channel before when I was going slow and blinked. I didn't want to do it at over 8 knots with sails up. This was a great decision as by the time the sails were down we couldn't see the next markers.
Making along with limited viability the Fisher King ran point and moved to the bow to help look for markers. We started the motor as a back up just incase we needed to change course quickly. When I needed to top off the fuel he took the tiller and made a little mistake of mistaking the warning marker for a channel marker. After all it was pea soup. As I turned around to take over and saw the warning marker I gave the tiller a hard pull just as the sounder alarmed. The genny was pulling us along and the motor was running. Our next little panic was have we passed the turn? No big deal as dead ahead is an anchorage. Trying to balance going to fast and reading a chart we found the marker numbers and decided the second pair ahead would be our turn.
Structure E has a new schedule also! Top and Bottom of the hour! We didn't find this out until after we got no response from the hand held, tried the main radio, tried the conch horn, tried the back up hand held and returned to the first radio. After calling 5 or 6 times we finally got a response. He blamed the bridge inspectors but I guess when you got to go, you got to go. It was 42 after now and we missed the opening that no longer exists. So our haste was a waste.
They are building a new bridge at Structure C
I wish all the motor boats made this little of a wake
Madeira Beach Osprey
Other photos we have failed to get off the iphone until now
Ron and Jo, the first people I actually met in Boot Key two years ago at Super Bowl
s/v Thyme Hyssop & Wry
The Fisher King making palm roses
Pool at the legion
Big Fred
s/v Sea Salt that we met last year in Bimini
No comments:
Post a Comment