Florida
March 30th, 2005
We are back on the boat and happy to be able to return to this lifestyle. Life on land is so different, but without a home base with connections, it seems empty of purpose. We spent wonderful time with the kids and other family members, especially my mom. We were at her place for about a month in total. She is such an inspiration and a joy to be with so we were both very content. And, of course, we got lots of boat projects taken care of. By the time we arrived in Sarasota both of us were pretty discontented because Cloud 9 had so many problems, some just small announces, others big expensive problems. But, everything has been fixed, at least for the moment. But, our first day out, the auto pilot failed and would not reset and are windlass failed as well. So, we are once again holed up, waiting for replacement parts. The autopilot has never been very reliable, we think mainly because of the installation which was done by the previous owner who fancied himself as a talented electrician. We have found that literally every thing he installed himself has failed, related to the installation job. But…so it goes with boats, I guess.
We departed Sarasota last Monday afternoon, heading directly to Key West. But, we discovered that our bottom/prop needed cleaning so stopped long enough to clean the bottom, continued a short distance and ended up just anchoring along a beach for the night. We had not had one storm the entire time we were in Fl. so we didn’t really know what to expect, and we got caught unprepared. We were awakened at 4 am with light sprinkles and before we could even get all of the hatches and portholes closed up we found ourselves in a full blown thunderstorm with high winds and growing seas. The high winds and resulting high surf dislodged our anchor and we were headed to shore, which was now only about 1/4 mile away. The driving rain and unlit beach made it almost impossible to see how close we were coming. As usual, I was at the helm while Michael raised the anchor. Unfortunately, the windlass was overpowered and had a lot of trouble (and time) raising the anchor. It finally raised it enough for us to power forward, but not enough to retract the anchor into its fully onboard position. Even with the peddle to the metal it took everything the boat had just to make small incremental motion forward. The lightening was just as horrific as in El Salvador, but unlike squalls which come and go, this one lasted over 8 hours. And for reasons unbeknownst to me, our trusty dusty autopilot failed again, darn that thing! So, I spent the next 8 hours at the helm while Michael worked on the other problems. We finally agreed (it took my strong vote) that it was not safe to sail the 150 miles to Key West, in storm conditions, without an auto pilot or anchor. So, we took safe harbor in a small marina on the island of Sanibel, just south of Ft. Myers. We have ordered a replacement windlass and are debating what to do with the auto pilot. I think that it is time to replace it also, but that is not something we can install ourselves, so will probably have to wait until we are somewhere where we can find the appropriate help.
