Beautiful Sailing (Florida Boating, Post 22)

Thursday, February 11

Our day hadn’t started off very well, having gotten stranded by low tide, despite our best navigation efforts.

Here’s what we’re using for navigation – these three examples are from Wednesday.

After the tide came back in and we finally got underway, we had a beautiful sail. Initially we had to motor due to shallow waters, a narrow channel, and unfavorable winds.

But soon we were getting our sails up!

Here you can see how the boat heels over when under sail. The the horizon is horizontal, but not the boat.

More mesmerizing water.

John’s happy.

I’m happy.

The kayak’s happy.

The water is amazing.

I’m sure you’re all bored with the repetitive pictures of water, but that’s all I care about. That’s why I’m here, putting up with the lack of creature comforts, the cramped damp, the constant motion, the uncertain weather and tides. Just look at that water!!!

And I’m not posting even a fraction of how many pictures of the water I actually took!

Here we are at our second anchor.

This time we think our tide tables are right.

The water is going to go down tonight but we should still stay floating. It’s at 5 feet now and should stay above one foot at the lowest, says John.

You can see we’ve got some wind, 10-20 mph. It’s choppy out there!

Just like yesterday, after we got anchored we took off in our kayak. We had a lot of wave action, so getting into and out of the kayak from the boat was a challenge. I’m excited to be getting my core strength back after surgery!

The nearby island wasn’t just mangroves – it had an actual sandy beach. It reminded me of our vacations in the tropics a decade ago, back before we moved to California and back again, and started moving every year and buying rentals and remodeling houses; back before I returned to my environmental science career and was only coaching a few clients, long before my cancer diagnosis, and back when we only had one, young dog, and life was much simpler.

Here I am in my kayaking outfit, lol.

John always has the same outfit.

That’s our boat way out there in the background. Surely we’re far enough out to not run aground tonight, don’t you think?


Here’s the google satellite image of our second anchorage.

Here’s hoping for a better night than our first one!

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