March 27, 2010
Nathan called today from Apalachicola, Florida (he can’t pronounce it, either). It’s southeast of Panama City and southwest of Tallahassee. He’s docked along Water Street. While we talked, I told him I was looking at where he was at on the Google Street View and told him I couldn’t see him. “That’s ‘cause it’s dark,” he replied. Oh. It’s dark. Of course.
“It a nice little town,” he said. “Very friendly. A lot of people come by and talk to me.” I can’t remember if he said he arrived in Apalachicola yesterday or today but when he arrived the weather was chilly, and he said he was cold, sunburned, and wind-burned.
He said he spent his last $15 on diesel fuel and has about 80% of his tank filled. The weather forecast is such that Monday he plans to join three other boats at nearby Dog Island and together they will sail for more than two days in open water, heading about 140 miles southwest to Tarpon Springs, near Tampa. Besides fueling, he has been doing other things to get the boat ready for the open sea voyage. He’s got plenty of water and a month’s supply of food.
While the four boats may not always be in sight of one another, they’ll be in constant radio contact, which, I believe, is prudent.
He had last reported to us from Panama City. Either there or on the way to Apalachicola he went to a food pantry at a Baptist church where he met a woman who had just moved to Florida from, of all places, Springdale, Arkansas, about five miles from our house.
One of the boats that he will travel in open water with hails from Fort Smith, Arkansas, very near where Nathan began his journey last November 22. On the 22-foot boat (about the size of Waltzing Matilda) is a couple in their 60s. They told Nathan they had read about him in the newspaper and Nathan speculated that one of the Arkansas papers might have picked up the news story written about him in Louisiana. Unlike Nathan, they did not sail down the rivers, but rather had their boat hauled by truck.
While sailing this week, Nathan passed a shipyard and saw a lot of commotion surrounding a new ship: tugboats, flags, tents. Later he learned that he missed a ship launching that occurred two hours after he passed; but when he saw all the activity he decided not to stop because he didn’t want to sacrifice the good wind Waltzing Matilda was in.
While on the Intracoastal Waterway he stopped at a free dock at White City, Florida. He went ashore to see if he could find a laundromat but he said there was nothing – nothing – in White City. He did see an odd sign there: “No golf carts, skateboards or horses.” Man, in White City you can’t do anything!. Also along the way he saw a sign that on one side told boaters to control their wakes. On the other side, the sign was intended to say “Resume normal speed,” but the sign had broken to where the word “speed” was gone; as a result the sign said “Resume normal.”
“What does it mean to resume normal?” asked Nathan.
At White City he was cruising along and saw an unusual cloud. Or so he thought it was a cloud. “And then I sailed into the mosquitoes,” he said. They were everywhere and he quickly put repellant on himself and some small amounts on the dog to protect her. Actually, I believe he later described them to us as nasty little bugs that dwell around oceans called noseeums. I guess that’s because they bite you and you noseeum.
In other news, Nathan now has a pipe dream of what he would like his next boat to be. He’d like to take a pontoon boat and outfit it with a steam engine. “Then it would be African Queen meets Mark Twain,” he said.
And the journey continues…
Posted by official correspondent Dad Landry
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Waltzing Matilda at Panama City, Florida
March 21, 2010
Hadn’t heard from Nathan for awhile and was getting ready to text or call him when he phoned this morning from Smack Bayou across from Panama City, Florida. He had a hodgepodge of things to talk about:
--He laughed hard when we told him we were celebrating spring in Northwest Arkansas with 9.5 inches of snow and that it was still coming down.
--He was amazed at his first experience with luminescent bacteria in the water. “I’ve read about it but reading about it and seeing it are two different things.” He said a cove he was in came aglow when raindrops stirred up the luminescence. At one point he scooped seawater up in a bucket and the luminescence was so intense that the bucket lit up his entire boat.
--Waiting out some bad weather now (rainstorm with 30mph winds), he’s planning on taking the intracoastal waterway to Bay St. John. There, at Dog Island he will make preparations for running 89 miles in open sea across Appalachie Bay. There will be no oil rigs or commercial shipping to worry about, so during the 24-hour voyage (that amount of time depends upon the wind) “I can just lash the boat down and go to sleep – I’m 90 miles away from anything.”
--While it seems isolated where he’s currently anchored, that’s dispelled at night due to the lights of Panama City. Also, a nearby Air Force base makes a lot of noise. Land where he’s at consists of sawgrass, palm trees and cactus. Also, big oak trees covered by Spanish moss like bearded old men.
--He’s down to his last 35 dollars. He’s hoping to get some work in Panama City for about a week, perhaps as a bike mechanic. He’s been hanging out with members of the local homeless community. Consisting mainly of Vietnam veterans, their ranks swell in Florida during winter months. “The homeless people have been taking care of me. They fed me a meal they had gotten from a dumpster. I intentionally wear rags when I’m ashore – no one robs me, no one bothers me.” The economy is depressed in Florida where he is at. “No work here – it’s really bad.” Nathan informed one unemployed but not yet homeless man about South Louisiana where there is a lot of work based on the oil industry. The man took the news enthusiastically for himself and for his son-in-law, a certified welder. One 35-year-old homeless man Nathan met was from Pueblo, Colorado, where Nathan grew up. And, of course, as the “You Know You’re From Pueblo If…” Facebook site describes how ex- Puebloans greet each other around the world, Nathan and the homeless guy asked each other where they went to high school. I guess it’s how ex-Puebloans size each other up. Youse guys from Pueblo know what I’m talking about.
--Pueblo, of course, is not the only home tie Nathan has. He flies an Arkansas flag on Waltzing Matilda. At Fort Walton, Florida, a man on a pontoon party boat wearing an Arkansas Razorbacks t-shirt yelled at him: “Wooo, pig, sooey!!!!!!” Y’all from Arkansas know what I’m talkin’ about.
--The Valkyrie that Nathan had earlier been sailing in tandem with has dropped out of the trip due to health problems of one of the people aboard.
--Sailing conditions have been mixed. “Had some good sailing the other day; had some bad sailing the other day – had to run the motor all day. Sea conditions were so calm that I could see my reflection in the water.
--Mattie the dog continues to adjust to the Adventure of Her Life. She got a new squeak toy and “freaked out when she first bit on it and it squeaked.” Mattie then barked or growled at it “but when she figured it out she loves it. She also discovered the unpleasant realities of stickers and cactus.” On shore, she got a cactus needle stuck in her paw and while wrestling with it, she also got it stuck in her stomach. Trying to extricate herself, she decided to lie down in – a cactus! Nathan had to rescue her and pick her clean. Mattie wants to chase squirrels, but Nathan keeps her close while ashore due to the threat of alligators. “As far as the gators are concerned, I’ve nicknamed her ‘Morsel.’ That’s all she’d be to a gator – one quick bite and she would be gone; nothing left but for the gator to spit out her collar.”
Hadn’t heard from Nathan for awhile and was getting ready to text or call him when he phoned this morning from Smack Bayou across from Panama City, Florida. He had a hodgepodge of things to talk about:
--He laughed hard when we told him we were celebrating spring in Northwest Arkansas with 9.5 inches of snow and that it was still coming down.
--He was amazed at his first experience with luminescent bacteria in the water. “I’ve read about it but reading about it and seeing it are two different things.” He said a cove he was in came aglow when raindrops stirred up the luminescence. At one point he scooped seawater up in a bucket and the luminescence was so intense that the bucket lit up his entire boat.
--Waiting out some bad weather now (rainstorm with 30mph winds), he’s planning on taking the intracoastal waterway to Bay St. John. There, at Dog Island he will make preparations for running 89 miles in open sea across Appalachie Bay. There will be no oil rigs or commercial shipping to worry about, so during the 24-hour voyage (that amount of time depends upon the wind) “I can just lash the boat down and go to sleep – I’m 90 miles away from anything.”
--While it seems isolated where he’s currently anchored, that’s dispelled at night due to the lights of Panama City. Also, a nearby Air Force base makes a lot of noise. Land where he’s at consists of sawgrass, palm trees and cactus. Also, big oak trees covered by Spanish moss like bearded old men.
--He’s down to his last 35 dollars. He’s hoping to get some work in Panama City for about a week, perhaps as a bike mechanic. He’s been hanging out with members of the local homeless community. Consisting mainly of Vietnam veterans, their ranks swell in Florida during winter months. “The homeless people have been taking care of me. They fed me a meal they had gotten from a dumpster. I intentionally wear rags when I’m ashore – no one robs me, no one bothers me.” The economy is depressed in Florida where he is at. “No work here – it’s really bad.” Nathan informed one unemployed but not yet homeless man about South Louisiana where there is a lot of work based on the oil industry. The man took the news enthusiastically for himself and for his son-in-law, a certified welder. One 35-year-old homeless man Nathan met was from Pueblo, Colorado, where Nathan grew up. And, of course, as the “You Know You’re From Pueblo If…” Facebook site describes how ex- Puebloans greet each other around the world, Nathan and the homeless guy asked each other where they went to high school. I guess it’s how ex-Puebloans size each other up. Youse guys from Pueblo know what I’m talking about.
--Pueblo, of course, is not the only home tie Nathan has. He flies an Arkansas flag on Waltzing Matilda. At Fort Walton, Florida, a man on a pontoon party boat wearing an Arkansas Razorbacks t-shirt yelled at him: “Wooo, pig, sooey!!!!!!” Y’all from Arkansas know what I’m talkin’ about.
--The Valkyrie that Nathan had earlier been sailing in tandem with has dropped out of the trip due to health problems of one of the people aboard.
--Sailing conditions have been mixed. “Had some good sailing the other day; had some bad sailing the other day – had to run the motor all day. Sea conditions were so calm that I could see my reflection in the water.
--Mattie the dog continues to adjust to the Adventure of Her Life. She got a new squeak toy and “freaked out when she first bit on it and it squeaked.” Mattie then barked or growled at it “but when she figured it out she loves it. She also discovered the unpleasant realities of stickers and cactus.” On shore, she got a cactus needle stuck in her paw and while wrestling with it, she also got it stuck in her stomach. Trying to extricate herself, she decided to lie down in – a cactus! Nathan had to rescue her and pick her clean. Mattie wants to chase squirrels, but Nathan keeps her close while ashore due to the threat of alligators. “As far as the gators are concerned, I’ve nicknamed her ‘Morsel.’ That’s all she’d be to a gator – one quick bite and she would be gone; nothing left but for the gator to spit out her collar.”
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Live from Pensacola
Surfing is not as easy as it looks, I'm not kidding it is really much more difficult than skate boarding. A friend I made in Ocean Springs called me up yesterday to tell me he was right near Pensacola and wanted to know if I was up for surfing. We headed down across the bridge to Pensacola Beach and stopped at a surf n skate shop so I could rent a board then off to the beach. The wind was coming in from the South West and making a very choppy sea with 4' waves. I couldn't get out past the breakers to the good waves and kept getting my ass handed to me, at one point I got tumbled almost all the way to the shore. It wasn't the best day for a beginner to learn to surf, I have only been out on a board once before in California and that was 1-2' waves, this was just pounding me mercilessly and freezing cold, even with my wet suit on I couldn't feel my feet. The life guards had the red flags out indicating dangerous currents and surf but even using the rip tide to my advantage I couldn't get past the breakers. It was fun, great fun!
I am at a small marina in Chico Bayou just off Pensacola Bay and may be leaving out soon. The trip here was fun despite having to motor all but 8 hours of the way. Next stop is someplace further East, the water is getting clearer and a bit warmer but I really need to get to warm clear water. I really need to find a used surf board too, and a used dinghy.
I am at a small marina in Chico Bayou just off Pensacola Bay and may be leaving out soon. The trip here was fun despite having to motor all but 8 hours of the way. Next stop is someplace further East, the water is getting clearer and a bit warmer but I really need to get to warm clear water. I really need to find a used surf board too, and a used dinghy.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Waltzing Matilda: setting sail after a month.
March 7, 2010
“Oops, there goes a dolphin right next to me,” said Nathan in a mid-afternoon phone call from the Intracoastal Waterway on the east side of Mobile Bay. He’s planning on making Pirate’s Cove at Pensacola, Florida, by tonight. He set sail from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, at noon yesterday. “I was doing my captain’s log and realized that I had been in Ocean Springs for a month,” he said. Indeed, it was the weekend of February 6-7 that he had been shipwrecked on Horn Island, was rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter and had his boat towed to Ocean Springs.
After casting off yesterday, Horn Island was his first destination. “If you fall off your horse or fall off your skateboard you have to go back to where you took the fall.” He anchored at Horn Island for the night, along with new friends Rick and Cathy who are sailing in tandem with Nathan in their boat the Valkyrie. Although secured by the new anchor he bought while ashore at Ocean Springs, Waltzing Matilda broke loose and began to drift, but Nathan said he only ended up about a mile offshore. Another problem he encountered was his second bout with snagging a crab trap. The trap line or lines tangled with his propeller, meaning he had to proceed under sail until he could put on a wet suit and go overboard to untangle the mess.
Being back at sea after being ashore made Nathan philosophical. “When I’m ashore I get very lonely but when I’m at sea, I’m fine. I don’t understand it. Being around other people makes me feel alone but when I’m isolated at sea, I don’t have time to get lonely. I’ve heard other sailors say the same thing.”
His month ashore was a great experience, Nathan said. “I had a lovely time in Ocean Springs. A lot of people regret me leaving. I’ve made some good friends there.”
Upon arriving in Pensacola, Nathan is considering more shore time there, perhaps working in the local shipyard or in the hospitality industry due to the upcoming spring break for colleges.
A personal note from Official Correspondent Dad Landry: Thanks to our longtime friends Carol Moore and her daughters Shawn and Jay who showed great hospitality to Nathan while he was in Ocean Springs. Recently Carol’s husband and Shawn and Jay’s father, Fred, passed away from Alzheimer’s disease. Nathan’s mother and I have been friends with Fred and Carol since before Nathan was born and Fred always thought highly of Nathan. When very young, Fred also had some wild sailing adventures – including a shipwreck or two – on the Great Lakes. I’m sorry he was not able to share in Nathan’s trip.
And an editorial note from Nathan: “I have discovered that the alpine hitch is the greatest knot ever. Anybody who takes the time to look that up will discover what I mean by that.”
And that’s the report from Ocean Springs, the Intracoastal Waterway, and soon Pirate’s Cove at Pensacola.
Post script by n8, follow the progress of the Valkyrie and know that I am nearby, they have a SPOT device that updates their GPS positin via the innernets, also I have posted more photos
“Oops, there goes a dolphin right next to me,” said Nathan in a mid-afternoon phone call from the Intracoastal Waterway on the east side of Mobile Bay. He’s planning on making Pirate’s Cove at Pensacola, Florida, by tonight. He set sail from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, at noon yesterday. “I was doing my captain’s log and realized that I had been in Ocean Springs for a month,” he said. Indeed, it was the weekend of February 6-7 that he had been shipwrecked on Horn Island, was rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter and had his boat towed to Ocean Springs.
After casting off yesterday, Horn Island was his first destination. “If you fall off your horse or fall off your skateboard you have to go back to where you took the fall.” He anchored at Horn Island for the night, along with new friends Rick and Cathy who are sailing in tandem with Nathan in their boat the Valkyrie. Although secured by the new anchor he bought while ashore at Ocean Springs, Waltzing Matilda broke loose and began to drift, but Nathan said he only ended up about a mile offshore. Another problem he encountered was his second bout with snagging a crab trap. The trap line or lines tangled with his propeller, meaning he had to proceed under sail until he could put on a wet suit and go overboard to untangle the mess.
Being back at sea after being ashore made Nathan philosophical. “When I’m ashore I get very lonely but when I’m at sea, I’m fine. I don’t understand it. Being around other people makes me feel alone but when I’m isolated at sea, I don’t have time to get lonely. I’ve heard other sailors say the same thing.”
His month ashore was a great experience, Nathan said. “I had a lovely time in Ocean Springs. A lot of people regret me leaving. I’ve made some good friends there.”
Upon arriving in Pensacola, Nathan is considering more shore time there, perhaps working in the local shipyard or in the hospitality industry due to the upcoming spring break for colleges.
A personal note from Official Correspondent Dad Landry: Thanks to our longtime friends Carol Moore and her daughters Shawn and Jay who showed great hospitality to Nathan while he was in Ocean Springs. Recently Carol’s husband and Shawn and Jay’s father, Fred, passed away from Alzheimer’s disease. Nathan’s mother and I have been friends with Fred and Carol since before Nathan was born and Fred always thought highly of Nathan. When very young, Fred also had some wild sailing adventures – including a shipwreck or two – on the Great Lakes. I’m sorry he was not able to share in Nathan’s trip.
And an editorial note from Nathan: “I have discovered that the alpine hitch is the greatest knot ever. Anybody who takes the time to look that up will discover what I mean by that.”
And that’s the report from Ocean Springs, the Intracoastal Waterway, and soon Pirate’s Cove at Pensacola.
Post script by n8, follow the progress of the Valkyrie and know that I am nearby, they have a SPOT device that updates their GPS positin via the innernets, also I have posted more photos
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