Pensacola FL Sailing Blog – sailingnightwatch

January 12, 2014

THAT WAS A DRILL, WE ARE STILL HERE

Yep. Got up early, ate cereal while looking up all my weather apps. I am over loaded with info most of the time. Today I could not get Chris Parker the weather guy on SSB. A front went through at about 1 AM and the atmospheric conditions were bad and could not hear anything. So I chicken out and stayed. That was good.

We are traveling with this couple going to the Bahamas and they are following along. We decided to go to West Marine to get a few things and we rented bikes to do some touring on the way. Got our stuff, ate some lunch and rode around. Rodger, you would have been proud. Land cruiser type bikes. That was good, because I can not remember the last time I rode a bike.

It was a beautiful day, and we will stay at least a couple more days because the weather is iffy and we could be stuck in Little Shark River or Marathon. Little Shark River is in the mangroves of the everglades with nothing but bugs, Marathon is nice but expensive. We need a weather window big enough to move to Marathon and then up to Key Largo to stage for the trip across with out doing a 24 stint. The Mate does not want to do that if possible. I am if full agreement.

On our Facebook page the mate is writing a daily what’s happening with lots of pictures. May be of interest. Our Facebook is: http://www.facebook/ralphknoerr.

WE HAVE WIFI January 5, 2014

It is Sunday night and we have WIFI. That is good. We spent 3 days at Cape Haze and no WIFI or TV. Not good. We were there to avoid bad weather. Friday we got winds during the night in the 30’s. We were in this great hurricane hole that had a bottom of mud. Friday about noon we were dragging and the weather was not that bad. Put out about twice the anchor line and we held through the night with mid 30 winds.

We left this morning for Cabbage Key and a hamburger in Paradise. Did that and walked around the island. A very enjoyable Sunday afternoon.

Tomorrow morning we leave early for York Island. It will give us protection from the next cold front coming our way. It seems to be diminishing in severity. The temps are only going to be in the low 40’s. They were taking mid 30’s a couple days ago. Come on, I am in south Florida, not Pensacola. We will see. After this anchorage, we are going into a marina to do laundry, fuel up and top off the water. Then we will wait for a weather window to head to Marathon in the Keys. We will wait for a window there and head up to Key Biscayne and maybe pick up my son to go across with us. He wants to fish the Gulf Stream.

This past week has been chilly and overcast. Oh and no wind when we were moving. We have sailed maybe 4 hours the whole trip and then only an hour with out the motor running. This to will pass. I think the didoes on the alternator got fried. The alternator is not putting out any power to the batteries. Really not good. I have a spare alternator that I will put on while we wait out the bad weather. Maybe get it fixed at the marina we are going to . Or we will wait till Marathon.