Special Edition - You don't always get it right.

December 5

Find the Bridge

It is only ~200 feet away, huge and it is 11:30 AM.  Obviously you can't miss it .....

If you ever wonder if the good Lord has a sense of humor, that question was answered in full this past Sunday.  Being at this trip for almost seven months now, I began to believe I had life figured out.  Sigh!

It rained from Thursday until Saturday.  Literally buckets and buckets of rain making it hard to walk the dog, get any exercise or grab a bite to eat.   Cabin fever is the right description.  I was doing OK, my admiral not so much.  The weather was scheduled to break Sunday, YEA!!!  We prepped and planned, largely because there was little else to do. 

Our next destination was Panama City on the Florida Panhandle.  There were two routes available to us, the Florida Inter-coastal Waterway or through the Gulf of Mexico.  Both routes were plotted and showed that the Gulf was ~20 miles shorter.  

On Saturday night, we did our weather check and every indication showed perfect.  The rain would be gone, the winds were dying to almost nothing and the wave forecast project fine.  The decision was made to go through the Gulf.  

We woke up to intense fog.  It never occurred to me to check for this.  FOG!!!! .... like you have never seen.  Visibility was ~150 feet in the marina.  Not a big deal.  Fog always lifts, right?  By 9:00 am we had ~.5 mile visibility so we made the "Go" call and off we went.

Three miles out in Choctawhatchee Bay the fog came back with a vengeance yielding only ~200 feet of visibility.  We had to resort to full instrument navigation, chart plotter and radar ...  with all systems programmed to go out in the Gulf.  There was zero opportunity to change navigation because piloting was so intense.  But, this is not an issue, right?  I mean, the fog will lift and the Gulf is wide open.  

Using the instruments, we navigated through the inlet to the Gulf.  On the charts, and in bright daylight, no issue.  In zero visibility, the narrow inlet was INTENSE.

Then we got a harsh reminder about the man (or computer to be fair) that predicts wave height ... HE LIES!  When we cleared the inlet they were not 1 - 2 foot waves but 5 - 7 foot on a 2 - 3 second period.  Think Haulover Inlet.  What the heck!!! 

The right course of action in the Shorebilly is actually to speed up letting the cat hull go to work on the waves.  In zero visibility there wasn't a chance in the world that was going to happen.  This left only turning around.  

Most of you are thinking "what's the big deal? Just spin the boat and get back inside the inlet.  The problem was those dang waves.  Waves that size are high risk of you take them on your beam (side) at low speeds.  We had to keep going straight into them.  The admiral was not happy.  The Shorebilly was taking a beating but holding it's own.  

Quickly a pattern appeared.  Three big (6-7 foot) waves followed by three small (4 foot) waves.  As soon as the the small waves presented themselves the Shorebilly went to full throttle and spun around.  Now we only need to find the invisible inlet, right?  Wrong!

Putting waves that size to your stern will take your blood pressure to an entirely new level your body didn't think possible.  Going too slow will turn you sideways and you will be in a world of hurt.  Going too fast will plow you into the next wave and bury the hull.  Just right requires you "surf" the wave.  We did.  I had enough power on the boat to be going ~10 - 12mpg.  We were going 15 - 18 MPH.  In the fog on instruments only. Following the precious magenta line on the chart plotter was what would lead us to safety. 

The surfing action had the bow of the boat pressed so deep that there was only 6 - 12 inches of freeboard at the anchor.  The biggest no no of all would be to let it stuff the bow.  There is an old saying of "what is the difference between the pig and the chicken at a ham and egg breakfast?  The chicken was involved but the pig was committed."  At that point, we were going oink oink because we were committed.  The bow did not stuff.

Then, we were back inside the break wall and the world went calm.  

Now we just needed to go 65 miles in the pea soup.  We did.

Bridge at ~300 feet

Bridge at 150 feet

We knew the bridge was there, it was on both the chart and radar.  Finding it was the real problem.  Interestingly, I found autopilot to be a savior.  With my looking at the instruments and water, it was hard to keep on course.  This would allow me to focus on everything else.  The autopilot did it perfectly and would actually find the center of the bridge.  Once I saw it, I would take control to get us through and then immediately put it back on.

As you can see, the waterway would get extremely skinny.  In this view, I did a measurement of the canal and it is 160 feet.  It would twist and turn and the shore was just a ghost of an image.

About 1:00 the fog started to lift.  It never really cleared, but visibility expanded to ~2 miles.  Life was good.  No damage.  Admiral still loves me.  But the good Lord was just getting warmed up.

The Evil Teddy Bears

A person of good heart and a charming whit built an entire zoo out of stuffed animals and then lined the bank for all boaters to see.  

Absolutely adorable, right!  I mean, this requires not just one but multiple pictures.  How cool.  So the Admiral went to the bow with her trusty phone and I slowed the boat to a crawl allowing me to go to the stern with mine.  Little did I know I was being set up to take a fall (literally).  

As you know from previous post, Yudee loves to be on the bow and is quite comfortable jumping up to the walkway to get there.  He has done it 100+ times.

This time he missed.  As I was taking my picture I saw him slipping overboard. I reached for him but best I could do was push hard making sure he cleared the propellers.  Nowhere in what I just wrote was consideration given to my holding the phone.  Which suddenly I wasn't and overboard it went.

Now phoneless I still had to get this 65lb dog back in the boat.  Mind you, this is a dog that thinks I pushed him overboard (which I kind of did).  He swam around but was none to eager to get close. I put the boat in neutral ensuring the propellers were still and got him to the back swim deck.  I then braced myself with my left hand on the starboard engine and my right hand on Yudee's collar.  Keep in mind we are in a 150 foot wide canal with a current and I don't want the boat running aground. 

I learned a few things about myself in the next 3 seconds. 

1. Wet hands are slippery.
2. I am not as strong as I was 20 years ago.
3. 65 lbs is a lot to lift with one hand.
4. Dogs do not like being dunked under water shortly after being pushed in that very same water.
5. I remembered there are alligators in the Florida
6. I can still swim in an emergency situation
7. At 64 I can still lift myself back onto a boat in no time flat.
8. My shoes can float.

Yep, you guessed it, I went overboard.  As I tried to pull Yudee one handed out of the water my supporting hand slipped.  I only succeeded in propelling myself into that very same water dunking Yudee in the process.  I don't know which was more terrifying; the thought of alligators in the water (which we saw none) or the Admiral trying to take control of the Shorebilly to come back and get us.   That propelled me back onto the boat like a shot from a cannon.  Getting my shoes back was a plus.

I looked up and the Teddy Bears were laughing at me.

Even Best Buy Fools with Me

We made it to the marina humbled but safe and sound.  I found a Best Buy with the latest and greatest Pixel on sale and off I went.  After I had paid for the phone and an additional $20 for the SIM card, the teller hands it to me and says "now you need to take it to Verizon to get it to work".  That was 20 miles away.  I don't have a car.  I looked at the guy and said "you sell these all day long, what do you mean you can't activate it.".  He couldn't.  But, it turns out Verizon could ... by phone.  Using Terri's phone I got it back up and running.

That was enough adventure for one day.  All is good and our egos are now fully in check.

Until I write again!

With Love (and stay safe),

Terri and Aubrey