December 29, 2022: I battle headwinds and choppy water before settling down to a smooth cruise in the Gulf ICW.
(continued from Orange Beach, AL to Pensacola Beach, FL)
Here’s the movement Anchor Pro recorded overnight. The line moving away is the trail of me actually driving away in the morning after weighing anchor; I took this screen grab after I left.
I slept like crap. Between the noise from the anchor rode in the roller as the boat swung back and forth in the wind and the rattling of my mast guy wires and burgees, it’s a wonder I got any sleep at all. I must have been up a dozen times during the night to take a look and make sure we hadn’t drifted into the shallows or the beach. I don’t know why I did this; my anchor alarm worked perfectly well. In fact, it documented our wild swinging all night.
The wind was still howling and the boat was still swinging when I gave up on sleep and got up to make my coffee. The windows were all wet from an overnight drizzle and the salty condensation that builds up overnight and near dawn in the morning. The windows and hatches were closed all night so at least that wetness didn’t creep in.
I began to think about my next solo challenge: getting the anchor up and stowed without letting the boat get blown back into the shallows, where it could get stuck. But I’d deal with that after coffee — and dawn.
I did my morning chores as well as I could, trying several more times to get my pups to use their “pee place” fake grass mat on its tray. I can’t remember details — heck, that was two months ago as I write this — but I suspect I got some measure of success. They are small dogs and with full bladders, something has to give. Being rewarded with cheese after taking a pee on a mat does tend to encourage them a bit.
When they were fed and I was coffeed up and the sun had brightened the day enough to see what needed to be seen, I decided to go. After all, there was nothing appealing about the anchorage to make me want to stay. Not with that never-ending wind.
Weighing Anchor Solo, in the Wind
I checked the engine oil — as I do almost religiously each travel day. Then I pushed the button to start the engine. It started right up. I was thrilled that the days of battery switch workarounds was apparently over. Although it wasn’t very cold out, I let it warm up to at least 100°F.
Again, I had a choice: I could weigh anchor from the bow, where I could actually see it come up or I could weigh it from the helm where I had control of the boat and could steer us away from shallows once we were free. I decided to weigh it from the bow. I wanted to be prepared for the rode to jump the roller again, although I was pretty sure it wouldn’t.
Here’s the end of my anchor in the stowed position. You can see the roller below the anchor shaft; that’s what the chain and rode move over as they go up and down. The adjustable guide was in the full up (to the left) position and not offering any guidance. I moved it full down, which did prevent the rode from jumping the roller, but it also snagged the anchor when I tried to drop it later. This is the position I’m working with now.
Why was I sure? Well, I’d taken a good, hard look at the roller sometime between our last anchor weighing debacle and leaving the Wharf and had spotted a curved metal bar that swung up or down. It was in the up position. I’d swung it down. I suspected this little piece was responsible for keeping the rode over the roller. This would be my test.
But I’ve since come to realize that it isn’t just this metal guide that ensures the rode and chain stay over the roller. It’s technique. You can’t just put your foot on the Up button for the windlass and keep it there until the anchor is up and locked into place. The reason: as you pull in rode, the boat gets pulled closer to where the anchor is on the bottom of the water. The boat moves. Sometimes it moves pointed straight at the anchor rode and sometimes it doesn’t. If the boat is at an angle to the anchor rode and you force it up with the windlass, of course it’s going to want to jump the track. The trick is to pull some rode up and stop when the boat starts doing a weird movement. Wait until it settles down. And then pull some more up. Repeat until the anchor breaks the surface and slides up into its secured spot.
I suspect this is why Alyse had trouble with the anchor and Janet didn’t. Alyse just put her foot down until the rode jumped the roller. Janet took her time about it.
I took my time about it, too. Standing on the bow, it was easy to see how the boat moved in relation to the rode. Every time the boat swung so the rode was on an angle to the roller, I stopped the windlass. When it settled down, I started it again. Eventually, I was pulling in chain — I have about 50 feet of it — and the angle between the roller and the water got steeper and steeper. When I got to the red mark on the chain — 25 feet — I stopped.
I figured I’d pull the rest up from inside where I could control the boat once the anchor was free. I walked back down the gunwale to the aft cockpit and went inside. Then I was at the helm where I could push the windlass Up button. It cranked up some more but then stopped.
That’s when I realized that the anchor was probably stuck pretty good in the muddy bottom. (I knew there was mud because some mud was coming up on the chain.) That was actually a good thing. I wanted it to be firmly in place down there. That’s the purpose of the anchor.
I stopped the windlass and let the boat shift a little on the chain, which was probably running straight down into the water. I tried again. The chain moved a little. I waited. I tried again. The anchor broke free and, within a few seconds, came up to the surface. A moment later, it slid into place securely. I could see mud on it, but I didn’t care. I could always hose it off at my destination marina.
Now the boat was drifting freely in the wind, rotating as it moved, headed right toward the shallows. I pushed the throttle into idle forward and steered it back into the wind, toward the way I’d come into the channel.
No problem. Getting the anchor up solo had actually been easier than doing it with a crewmember — and in pretty challenging conditions. I think my success really helped raise my mood.
Santa Rosa Sound
My notes say I left the anchorage at 7:15 AM. I traced my previous day’s path back out of Little Sabine Bay, passing the marinas I would probably have slept better at. The water was calm. I paralleled the causeway until it ended at the bridge. I passed beneath it into Santa Rosa Sound.
This water was not calm. The wind was blowing waves down the length of the sound and it was a heavy chop headed right toward me. The boat pushed against it, rising and falling, sometimes with a crashing sound and often with a huge splash of water over the bow and into my windshield. (Hosing mud off the anchor would not be necessary.) I put my wipers on and settled in for a long morning, following the channel markers right down the middle of the sound to stay out of shallow water. My notes say I was doing about 7.5 knots at 2000 RPM.
Here’s a very short video I shot with my phone not long after entering Santa Rosa Sound.
I made notes along the way about the boats and bridges I passed. Juliann Torrance was a tow I’m pretty sure I passed once before; it was heading westbound and I passed it at 9:25. Ten minutes later, I went under the Navarre Beach Causeway, which was right around where the sound started to narrow down a bit. Nearly an hour later, I was passed by Journey Forward, a large sport yacht obviously in a big hurry. I continued to putter along at 7.5 knots, but the water was calming considerably. At 10:50 AM, I was passed by two jet skis headed westbound, with their riders wearing wetsuits.
I passed Juliann Torrance (again?) in the Gulf ICW. We were both in the channel so we passed kind of close.
As I drove, my pups slept soundly on the seat beside me. Rosie is pretty funny sometimes when she sleeps on her back with her paws in the air.
By 11:30 AM, I’d reached Walton Beach and the Gulf ICW was a narrow channel. The water had calmed and there were lots of pleasure boats coming and going, including a tour boat outfitted to look like a pirate ship. I’d toyed with the idea of docking in town for an hour or two to grab lunch, but the free dock I saw online didn’t look easily accessible and was too close to that pirate ship, which was loading up passengers. I decided that it wasn’t worth it.
Beyond that was Choctawatchee Bay, which was big and wide enough to get some chop. By that time, I was tired of just puttering along and decided to open up the engine a bit. As I made the turn northbound toward Shalimar, I pushed the throttle forward to 2800 RPM and got the speed up to 14 knots. I didn’t slow down until I reached the point in Shalimar just south of Two Georges Marina, where I had reservations for one night.
Parking at Two Georges
But first things first: fuel. One of the reasons I’d chosen Two Georges was its very low fuel prices. I topped off the tank, taking 60 gallons. The fuel was so cheap I almost wished I needed more.
They then directed me to a slip on the other side of the marina, remarkably close to land and the townhouses there. One of the benefits of having a smaller boat with a shallow draft is that they can fit me in almost anywhere. But that’s also one of the drawbacks — they tend to put me into tight, shallow water slips that they can’t put other boats.
This one had short finger piers between every two slips which meant that if I wanted to get off the boat, I’d have to back in. And this was my second big solo challenge: backing the boat into a tight slip with no assistance.
Because no, no one from the marina came over to help.
Okay, fine. I had this. I backed it in slowly, using the thrusters to keep me straight. When I thought I was far enough back, I brought the boat to a stop and got out with a line. I needed to come back a tiny bit more, but I was able to just pull the boat. The good thing about the slip was that it was sheltered from the wind — which was light anyway — and had no real current. By the time one of my neighbors came by to offer assistance, the boat was already secured.
And that started what would become a three-night stay at Two Georges.
(continued in At Shalimar, FL)
