How Exciting! Today is the day that we take plunge and move S/V Free Spirit from Cutts Edge Marina in Palmetto, FL to our new homeport in Clearwater, FL. She will now only be 15 minutes from us and I expect that we will be on board with her in the evenings now as we continue the adventure and never ending list of projects to get her done.
Wow! What an experience to move from out of our slip while under the cover of darkness. We left at the approach of the high tide due to the draft that we needed under the keel. Turns out that 10 minutes into the trip, it happened! Yes, we got stuck!! Followed the directions on the uncharted path to well and with the tide not quite being at the height yet, we found the soft mud underneath. Nancy got her 1st lesson on using a high lumen light and not flashing it on the rigging so I can and locate the actual piling markers. After about 15 minutes of not being able to get unstuck, we called in for assistance with Sea Tow. We were told they would be at least an hour. So we continued to move ever so slowly back and forth, left and right, running from one side to the other just to move her. (I think she forgot how to move, personally). Finally, we clear the channel and slowly make our way to the ICW channel, Sea Tow comes by and says hey are you still stuck? We advised him no and chatted for a few before he said he would lead us out to the main channel when guess what happens?! We get stuck again! At least this time, we only had to back up slightly and shift over a little. Then we were off for the day!
We had a total of 3 call in bridges for openings to let us through and that was an exciting experience. Waved to bridge controller as we passed thru and they gave us the loud honk! Cool!!
One of the scariest moments was the 1st under bridge crossing we had. Now keep in mind we know or at least assume the mast is 55 feet off the deck. We don’t know how high we are off the waterline to get the total footage we need to be able to cross under the bridges. There was a sign for max crossing height but the problem was you couldn’t see it until it was too late. That being said, the max height for this bridge was 66 ft. Now, it clearly looked like we were not going to be able to make that crossing and the last thing we wanted to do was to lose the mast or tri-color light. The current was pushing us through and no amount of attempting to reverse and re-asses the situation was going to work… so on we go (yes, there may have been some yelling back and forth involved) and we cleared it… holy smokes, “We Cleared it” so we know we are ok up to 66ft. Great… 2nd bridge… oh boy, that is even less and we repeat the same steps (including the yelling at each other to back up) because this one the max height to cross was only 63 feet. We made that one as well. The mast nor the tri-color touched so I can safely say that we able to clear 63 foot without any issues for future references. Although, I don’t want to do that again anytime soon.
Got to spin in circles and watch some dolphins frolic and play in the ICW while we waited for one bridge to open. And note to self, stay off the ICW on labor day weekend. Some people are not nice to people who are motoring a sailing boat (no sails were up). Several boats came up way to close and made it their mission to see just how close and how much spray they could get up on our decks. Then proceeded to let us know that we are certainly #1! What a bunch of jerks but I digress…
The rest of the voyage was uneventful for which I was happy. I (Nancy), managed to snag in a little snooze while under way for about about an hour (thanks Andy) and slept like a baby. I packed a ton of food for the 8 hr trip and we hardly made a dent in the meals I brought. We mainly snacked throughout the day.
We arrived into the new marina at around 2pm and we were met with surprise that there was a dingy parked in our slip. We are my no means able to drop anchor and find out who it belongs to, obviously were seen coming in and the owner quickly moved the dingy over to another slip that was not occupied. We yelled from the boat to the people on the dock that we were coming in to our slip and to please move out of the way. Keep in mind, this is the 2nd time we have motored on this boat. The first being 250 feet from the haul out space to our temp slip in Palmetto and we found out that she is not easy to move and takes a hot minute to respond to any requests to move any direction. So here we are coming in hot and fast because of the current. Everyone on the dock, drops what they are doing to come down and help. Nancy throws lines and the help to pull this heavy girl into her home. Not an easy feat by any means. Andy pops open not only one beer but two and quickly drinks them both to calm his rattled nerves. It takes us both a few to calm down from the adrenaline rush to get off the boat and say hi to everyone and thank them for their assistance where we find out they are all our permutant or semi permanent neighbors and new friends.
After a bit and a rest, we repositioned the boat by pulling and tugging to her her where we wanted and tied off, added the fenders and crossed the lines at the back, plugged into electricity and packed up for the day to head home. Our day was complete and we all were in one piece and life was good at the moment.
For your viewing pleasure, Andy went live on Facebook during the voyage. I couldn’t figure out how to copy the video so I am attaching the link here if you would like to see it. https://www.facebook.com/SVFreeSpirit.Project/videos/3336380543253396/
Photos from the day are below. Now that we are home, the work really begins. We starting planning out projects of what to do… most importantly, getting electrical in, at least one functioning head so we can use the facilities if we are not at the marina, a functioning galley so I can whip up our delicious meals, getting AC in so we can stay cool and have some heat in the winter (there is winter in Florida?) and a place to be able to sleep. We can stay in the marina up to 8 nights a month, so that is basically every weekend for us.
Stay tuned to the updates as they should happen more frequently now that have more time to work on the boat (or so we think).
