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Since my plans to go sailing today fell through due to the thunderstorms here in south FL today. I
thought I might share last weeks outing with you all.
On Good Friday morning i got the itch to go but no crew to be found. I had never sailed solo
before and when I mentioned it to my wife she said absolutely - NOT. I mentioned to her that she
would be well taken care of with all the life insurance we have on me but she didn't think that
was very funny. After a few phone calls I found a guy from work willing to go so we got the boat ready
and headed for the Sanibel causeway. When we parked the wind felt like it was blowing at about
3mph which was very discouraging, especially since it costs 9 bucks to go over the new Sanibel
bridge with the trailer. So, we got the boat rigged and shoved off and hoped for the best. Once we
got away from the causeway the wind picked up to about 10-12 mph and gave us almost a perfect
straight sail to fort myers beach. When you sail straight from Sanibel causeway to Ft Myers beach
you have to parallel the boat chanel for a ways and since it was Good Friday there were a lot of big boats crusing and we did a lot of bouncing up and down on their wakes.
We were about 300 yards off fort myers beach when one of the bolts making cross bar to tiller
extensions connections just fell out! I couldn't believe it but all the parts except for the
little spring landed on top of the hll and stayed there. I quickly snatched them up and used the
other rudder to point us into the wind. I quickly reconnected the crossbar to the rudder with just
the bolt and nut and noticed that the self-locking nut was worn out and I could turn the nut by
hand - no wonder it fell out. Then just as we got the boat pointed to beach on Ft Myers, the main
sail somehow became unhooked at the mast head and started to fall down. My crew quickly grabbed
the halyard and struggled to keep the main up while I again got us pointed back into the wind. Geez! what else is gonna happen? We ended up not trying to rehook the sail but instead headed for the beach as fast as we could to make the necessary repairs. I think the main may have gotten unhooked with all the bouncing up and down from the wakes. On the way in I noticed that south off the peir the beach was packed with people. so I set a new course for the north end of Ft Myers beach. As we approached, a couple in a power skiff were idling parallel to the beach and on a collision course with my boat. as we got closer they actually waved at us but held their course. I gave him this wierd hand guesture like WTF and pointed to the place were we would collide. He then immediatly sped up to get out of our way and I thought to myself, "have another beer dude".
After we landed and got things fixed up. We shoved off again and I let my crew man the rudders and main and we headed for Sanibel Light house point. After a few tacks we landed and hung out for awhile before heading back to the causeway.
It was an awesome day. One of those kind that keeps ya coming back for more.
Cheers,
~John
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