Pensacola FL Sailing Blog - sailingnightwatch

Talk about a beautiful weekend. Saturday started with a light breeze from the SE that freshened as the day went on. Temps were in the mid 80’s plus. I went west with plans for spending the 3 day at Redfish Point of Ft Mcree. When I came through the Land Cut into Grand Lagoon, I could see that the spot at Redfish Point was more than full. The place I like to anchor is in quite close to the south shore and the deep entarence runs parrallel to the land running north to the point. It is large enough for 4 or 5 good size boats to anchor with sufficient scope to handle an afternoon thundershower. Anymore boats than that and somebody does not have room to escape. There were too many boats there for my comfort level.

Off to Ft Mcree. Talk about crowded. My wife is still in Colorado with our new granddaughter and therefore I am doing the single handed thing. The anchorage has opened up on the east side for small or at least shallow boats. I come in from the west and motored down towards the east end. There were so many boats I could only make it about 2/3’s of the way and then there was not enough room for me to turn the boat around. I moved back to the west end and found a place perfect to anchor.

Time for an anchoring beer and a quick dip in the beautifully clear water. WRONG. My mind may not be what it used to be, but I do not remember the Jelly Fish being here in May. I thought they came in midsummer. Surprise, Surprise. You could measure them by the gross per cubic yard. So much for a quick dip. The beer was good.

The night did not cool off as fast as I would have liked, but the breeze kept up all night. Sunday I launched the dingy and sailed it around the anchorage for several hours, trying not to get ran over by the powerboats. Never was it their fault, it was just very crowded.
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• Sunday late afternoon did see a sevear thunderstorm about 10 miles to the west. The people in Orange Beach must have got hammered. We did get some overcast from the storm which helped lower the tempreture a few degrees. One thing that has come along with the high def TV is that the local CBS and NBC affiliates are also carrying 24/7 weather including radar. This was very useful in tracking the storms and knowing they were going to miss us. A fair amount of the campers packed up and left in great hast.

Monday I left the anchorage about 8:30 with a 15-20 knot wind ENE. I went out in the Lagoon and played with sail setting trying to get this boat to lay in any other position than beam on the wind. I am yet to come up with good storm tatics for this boat. If any of you Durbeck owners are out there and have some advice, I am ready to listen and try. So far a parachute on a bridle off the port or starboard bow is the best I have heard.