Waltzing Matilda Prepares for Two Days in Open Sea

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