Ship’s Log: Days 61-65

Tuesday, Nov. 9 

We were more than 50 miles from land in any direction and with only starlight, the Gulf was a very dark place.  We could occasionally see the lights of a commercial fishing boat and passed near a few, but much of the time we were very much alone.  The wind held in the 20 knots range and the waves became larger, although it was difficult to gauge the size in the darkness.  We mostly heard them as they hissed past Telesis and could faintly see the graybeards on some of the crests that broke near Telesis. The wind continued to move more to the east until making Clearwater became questionable.  We punched into the GPS the coordinates for Tampa Bay and took up a new heading of about 155 degrees, again more comfortable, but farther to go, moving our arrival to later in the afternoon.

The seas continued to get more and more confused and the wheelpilot steering was having difficulty so I took over and manually steered the remainder of the night.  Every 15 to 20 minutes a train of two or three large, steep, close together waves would pass under us.  The first wave would push Telesis up and before the bow could drop over the backside, the second wave would strike Telesis’ under body with a thunderous thud, bringing us to a near stop.  We also shipped a lot of spray from these waves.  Each of these poundings was very discomforting, but Telesis seemed to handle them better than we.  Nothing for us to do but keep going.

As dawn approached, the wind dropped a bit and the seas were not as threatening when we could see them.  Nancy and I discussed our options and decided to make for Clearwater.  It would be wet motor sailing more into the wind, but we were less than 40 nm away and could be into harbor by mid-day.  We also expected the wind and waves to calm the closer to shore we came.  Fuel was a bit of a concern, but we had five gallons in a can as reserve should we run out.

By 10:30 A.M. we were in site of the shoreline and by noon we were at the entrance to Clearwater.  Before entering the cut, I added the last five gallons of fuel as insurance against running out as we navigated the shallow, narrow channels.  By 1:00 P.M. we were tied off at a slip at the Clearwater Municipal Marina.  We were tired and hungry, but very pleased to be across.  And who was there, ready with a beer for us, Patsy and Moderation Too.

Unfortunately, all the spray and waves breaking over the fore deck had Telesis very wet below, so we pulled out the carpets and rinsed them off and left them outside to dry.  I also sprayed off the decks as salt had collected on almost every surface of the exterior.  Nancy straightened up below, we ate a little and were both in bed sound asleep before it was dark.

Such was our Gulf crossing of 165 nautical miles in 28 ½ hours at an average speed of 5.79 knots on which we used 21 gallons of fuel.  Had we taken the most direct route from Apalachicola to Clearwater, we would have traveled 158 nm, so our wandering with wind shifts only diverted us about 7 nm off a direct course, or about an hour and twenty minutes extra time.  While I kept dead reckoning via charts, the GPS made confirmation of navigation a comforting element, not to mention the amount of fatigue the self-steering saved during the passage.   As another veteran of the crossing said: “In the last two weeks I have never heard anyone on any kind of boat talk about a nice, comfortable crossing.”

Friday, Nov. 12

We fueled Telesis and were underway by 10:00 A.M.  We passed out of Clearwater to the Gulf and sailed offshore south past Egmont Key and the entrance to Tampa Bay to Longboat Pass.  We sailed on a moderate north wind broad reach and then a wing and wing run for about three hours then motor sailed on a beam reach with a light east wind for four hours.  We entered Longboat Pass at about 5:00 P.M. and anchored inside at N27 26.5′ W82 40.9′ having covered 39.5 nm.  We ate a light supper and were to bed early.  We still seem fatigued from our gulf crossing.