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