Pirates don't wear eyeliner

It's been a hot week in St Pete, but a very productive one for me and very beneficial for Waltzing Matilda. This week I have acquired several things I have needed since the beginning of this trip, if things continue to go well I should be able to get Waltzing Matilda fitted for ocean crossing quite well, not that I am ready to cross an ocean but it would be nice to have a vessel that is. I will be taking on a crew member next week as well, a friend I made in New Iberia, LA. is driving out to learn to sail, and to help me build a new rudder.

New gear this week, I have a new mainsail (hooray!), the new main is a storm sail, slightly smaller than my primary main with reef points and a leech line, I have a new Genoa (hip hip hooray!)and am working to make the rigging to be able to run a twistle yard. I traded a donated hand held GPS for a 12.5' fiberglass canoe, now I can get my bike to and from shore without having to rig lift lines to palm trees.

I've made friends with Capt. Nikko, Capitan of the 1929 cutter Quest and Commodore of a local band of pirate pretenders, I call them pretenders because they like to dress up, drink and shoot cannons but don't really pillage or loot anything, about the most dastardly thing I have observed is trash pickup en-masse. I will be sailing next week with the Quest and Magic to a local hurricane hole to get ready to ride out the big blow season.
There is a triathlon going on around the pier today, lots of fancy bikes and tour de pants riders about, just to fit in I made a "race number" for my beach cruiser and tooled along the race route with my little dog in the basket and my "Axles of Evil" banner flying proudly.

It's been nice to be anchored downtown, it enabled me to get some work but I am ready to get someplace quiet.

I don't know if it is homesickness that I am feeling but I miss all the good folks in Fayetteville, I miss the Axles of Evil, I even miss not being able to go anywhere without running into 6 people that know me. This journey is great but I am only 1/3 of the way through it.

Don't anchor so close to me

I am still in St Petersburg, really enjoying this town, great bike folks (sans a few numb nuts on fixies, but thats expected everywhere), great bike paths, cool bikes everywhere, even the post office delivers on bikes. Lots and lots of sailboats, I was recommended St Pete as a "blow boat community" and it definitely is, unfortunately just because someone owns a sail boat doesn't mean that they can operate the thing.

When I first dropped anchor in the municipal north yacht basin I got close to the west sea wall, rigged a line to a palm on shore and a block on my bike, hoisted the line via my topping lift and the bike zipped to shore, I stayed anchored near the west wall hoping that no one would want to come near me since there was a nasty shoal nearby. I awoke the third night there to some yelling and discovered that some people had come in at 01:00 in the crappiest McGregor 22 that I have ever seen afloat and dropped their anchor line right over mine. They were the proud new owners of said McGregor and the guy they bought the boat from explained to me "well I always park here". I'm not one to be a grammar Nazi when t comes to nautical terms but the use of the word "park" instead of the correct term "anchor" was a clue. His lack of nautical knowledge was confirmed when he told me that he removed the swing keel from the McGregor and used "rocks an stuff" as ballast to sail her, he commented that she would only sail downwind and relied on an outboard to move in the other 350 degrees.

I moved my boat away from the McGregor.

The wind began to blow from the east, pushing me closer to the sea wall and shoal, and it continued to blow, and blew harder getting the water choppy and made for uncomfortable sleeping. On the advise of several other sailors who had spent time anchored in the "snake pit" I decided it was time to move Waltzing Matilda away from the west sea wall and get into a better spot to ride out a storm. It was dark when I got her underway and motored across the snake pit, it is hard enough to judge distances on water but in the dark I find it nearly impossible, I made sure to steer clear of all other boats. I got her to a good spot, laid anchor and ran out 8:1 scope, then left the engine running for 2 hours to recharge the batteries and stood watch (in between watching "The African Queen") till 04:00 to make certain that she hooked up and held. Sleep had a lot less rolling and I felt much more comfortable in my anchorage.

Yesterday I was up a mast in the marina when the wind changed, after coming from the East for over a week it started to come from the South, I checked on Waltzing Matilda when the wind shifted and could see she was just fine but a 40' sailboat had anchored to the north of her, I thought that a vessel that big the captain would surely run enough rode out to swing free and wasn't too worried about it.

This morning that boat was gone and when I got to shore another sailor asked me if my hook had dragged, I assured him I was dead on the same spot I had been for 4 days and he informed me that Waltzing Matilda collided with the boat that anchored next to me. I didn't see the collision but when the wind changed and she swung Matilda got her motor mount tangled in the chain of the larger vessel.

They moved their boat.

Still looking for more work, got a little bit of paying work washing boats, but I need more. I am going to rebuild my rudder while here, she needed it when I bought her in '08 and now it is becoming dangerous. This is the best place to do work on my boat, lots of sailors and people are very interested in my stories. On a side note, I finally scored a SSB radio on trade, I listened to the news out of Belgium last night.

Jet Skis in range will be fired upon

When I first started this journey I had a few very relevant fears that included: sinking before I made it to Little Rock, running aground, getting rescued by the Coast Guard and crossing the Gulf of Mexico.

Although I didn't sink before Little Rock, I have run aground more than 100 times and the Coast Guard is really pretty cool, (just remember to take money and dry socks into the helicopter with you).

I finally crossed the Gulf of Mexico, and it was all I expected it to be, maybe more. I motored through the ICWW to Apalachacola and stopped there for a few days to do laundry, top the fuel tank and wait for better weather, the wind was headed to my destination but there was way more wind than I was comfortable sailing in. I have learned that the wind comes in two speeds, too much and too little, usually when there is to much it is coming from where you want to go, this wind was headed towards where I wanted to go but sailing downwind takes a lot of attention and can cause plenty of trouble, plus there was too much wind so I waited a few days and met some great folks, even met some folks from ocean Springs, MS.

Early in the morning on a bright Tuesday the wind was just about the right speed, I was ready to sail and face one of my big fears. As I crossed the bay to the barrier islands the water was very choppy and the wind was from my stern, I thought to myself, “if the bay is this rough the Gulf is going to be terrible”. There is a difference in the waves between a bay and the Gulf, the bay waves are close together and going in all directions at once, the Gulf waves are much more spread out and fairly predictable. The buoy twenty miles out was telling me that the waves were 6 feet high with 15 seconds in between them, I guess that 6 ft is an average because the waves were much higher at times and much lower too, but with them so spaced out it wasn't difficult to navigate. I got to use my spinnaker sail for the first time (the big colorful parachute looking sail) but discovered that I could make the same speed running a Genoa, plus it is much easier to jibe with a Genoa. I also learned that when trying to jibe single handed with a spinnaker the spinnaker makes on very effective sea anchor, and getting said sea anchor unwrapped from the keel is pretty difficult to do and involves spinning circles while the dog gets sea sick.

All day long I ran with the wind, I had made a big pot of beans and rice the day before so I didn't have to cook, the winds and waves built to about 20 knots and 10', about sunset they began to calm down a bit and in the dark hour between sunset and moon rise I had the creepy experience of hearing the wave breaking behind me but only seeing the foam that occasionally splashed up over my stern. Since there was no one else out there and I was more than 12 miles off shore I had no lights on, I was using no power at all except turning on my GPS once an hour to check my heading and speed. Finally about 04:30 I hove to and slept in the cockpit floor for about two hours, I turned on my anchor light while I slept just to make myself more visible, I could hear another vessel and saw lights on the horizon but for the most part I didn't see anyone until I was with in 30 miles of the shore.

Finally after 44 hours I came to shallow water and dropped anchor to get some much needed sleep, I only slept 4 hours then headed to the closest key and took Mattie for a walk on the most amazing beach have ever seen, there were sponges and coral washed up everywhere with large sand dollars and thousands of perfect seashells. The anchorage was too close to a channel for comfortable sleeping so I sailed a few more miles south and laid anchor at a place I though looked like a nice quiet cove with a little strip of sand. By noon there were over 100 boats in that cove, and then the jet skis showed up.

I have never really hated jet skis before, I've actually thought they looked fun, but I have learned “instant asshole, just add Jet Ski”. The fender that I rigged on my anchor to mark where my line ran was what some kid decided to use as his racing buoy on his jet ski, there was plenty of room to play on the thing but he had to circle my boat and see how tight he could turn, then there was the girl that was coming so close she was spraying hot exhaust water on me and fouling the air with gas fumes, I wanted to string a line between myself and another vessel to yank one of those idiots off. Fortunately the weekend parties left and the cove became a nice quiet anchorage again, the next morning I sailed for St Petersburg. I took a channel to the Gulf but had to run the motor to get through it, the cylinder head began spraying water into the alternator, the alternator quit about the same time the bilge pump stopped working, and there were jet skis, lots and lots of jet skis.

I finally made it into the Gulf without running aground, and got the mainsail hoisted, it was a nice day sailing except that the traveler broke and I had to stop to fix it (this is the piece that holds the boom in position), then the boom vang broke. I was making 3 knots when the wind died and after sunset it began to blow again, from the direction I needed to go. I was getting close to the channel to enter Tampa Bay and had hardly any wind when I ran aground on the point of Mullet Key, I put up all sail possible to heel the boat over and finally after about an hour of banging around in the sand she broke free, thats when I noticed the current was so strong that I was sailing backwards. I crossed the main channel (deep with lots of current) and got into shallow water, dropped anchor and slept for a few hours.

I knew there was going to be a shuttle launch the next morning and wanted to see it, I set my alarm for 06:00 and stayed awake till 06:15, the shuttle launched at 06:20 (doh!). The tide had risen and I was able to use the current to get into Tampa Bay, then the wind died, when it returned it was coming from the direction In needed to go. There wasn't much wind and I was just creeping along when I heard “POP” and my main sail fell off the mast, seems I broke the main halyard.

Finally made it into St Petersburg, this a great town, the new head gaskets are coming in via USPS and Waltzing Matilda is at anchor in the city's municipal anchor cove. I climbed my mast this morning and retrieved the main sheet halyard, the homeless people are treating me royally and I am going to hit the bike shops to see if I can get some work.
I recorded my crewmate giving me a wake up call, enjoy

Waltzing Matilda near St. Petersburg

Sunday, April 4, 2010

“I’m in 6-inch seas, with about 30 seconds between waves. There’s not a cloud in the sky.” So said Nathan as he was sailing about 15 miles out of St. Petersburg, Florida.
He had laid up for two and a half days near Tarpon Springs to rest up after his long open sea crossing on the northeast portion of the Gulf of Mexico. While anchored, Waltzing Matilda was aground during low tides, but did not keel over. As a result, it steadied the boat and helped Nathan get rest. “I didn’t realize how exhausted I was.” He had spent most of the several days of open sea crossing awake at the tiller.
Nathan is planning on spending at least two weeks in St. Petersburg, maybe more. “St. Petersburg is a sailing community and they don’t believe in power boats in this community,” he said. He needs to work on his boat: a cylinder head is leaking cooling water and it may have ruined his new alternator by spraying salt water on it. But he’s got the funds to do it. “Earlier I had been down to 15 dollars but when that got posted online, I got $185 in donations.”
Since hurricane season is only eight weeks away, Nathan is considering staying in St. Petersburg for a few months until the season passes. He’s thinking of trying to get a job in a sail shop to learn sailmaking so he can modify sails he salvaged off a wrecked boat to fit Waltzing Matilda. “I have the material, but I don’t have the knowledge or the machines.”
He’s become a judge of beaches. “The first beach I stopped at was nice. It was a nature preserve. The next one was obnoxious: it was a beer drinking preserve.” He saw one beach covered with what he thought were rocks, then he realized that it was a crowd – a big crowd – the beach was covered with people. Today, Nathan described what was before him: “All I can see is condos and condos and condos. I can see 20 miles of condos. It’s kind of disgusting.” He said he met a couple of teachers who told him that the population in the part of Florida he was at was very dense. “That’s your fault,” Nathan said he told them. “You’re teachers. The population shouldn’t be dense.”
Also, “I learned now why everyone hates jet skis. I’m thinking of putting up a sign: ‘Jet skis within range will be fired upon.’ I had put out a pylon to mark my anchor and some kid in a jet ski comes and uses my anchor as a racing pylon and goes whipping around it. A girl on a jet ski comes by and sprays exhaust all over me. It’s hot and it smells like gasoline. Then they go and start doing donuts in front of big tour barge. The boat is honking its horn at them and the jet ski people just flip it off. They don’t realize that boat can’t stop.”
However, “the flora and fauna here is just amazing,” Nathan said, and he’s seen things he can’t identify. He found a dead jellyfish and saw a starfish and was delighted with the live sponges washing up on the beach. Yet, there was the foul smell of a mangrove swamp that even “made the dog gag.”
“I was on one beach and I heard a rustling in the grass,” he said. “Then I saw these little crabs that had one big claw. Fiddler crabs! Millions of them! They covered the entire beach and as they ran for cover there were all those little crab feet making noises. They were really pretty, too.”
Nathan said the local water temperature was 72.2 degrees; 200 miles offshore he said the water is 84 degrees. And he was able to look 15 feet down into clear water. Later, when he sails further south, he said the water is clear to 50 feet down.
“The weather down here for next week will be just awesome: 10-knot winds from all directions, and 2-foot seas. Typical of spring in this area. After all that rough Mississippi Sound weather, this is nice. There are biting fleas, flies, mosquitos and bugs but no mosquitos on islands with no fresh water.”

Waltzing Matilda Completes 70-Hour Open Sea Voyage‏

Friday, April 2, 2010
Received some phone messages from Nathan yesterday indicating he had successfully made his first open water trip in the Gulf of Mexico and was anchored near Tarpon Springs, Florida. During his 70-hour crossing he was at the helm for about 65 hours. After making the trip he got some sleep and he and Mattie the Dog took a swim: 80-degree air temperature; 67-degree water. He wasn’t sure of the exact name of where he was at, but based on what he told me and by consulting Google maps, I believe he’s at Anciote Key a couple of miles offshore.
--Correspondent Dad Landry