Here We Are

We spent the last 3 days traveling in order to reach our destination for the next month, Port St. Joe, FL. We have heard that it is a sleepy little piece of “old Florida” and are excited to explore and play here for a while. Luckily we managed to get into port and secured a few hours before the rain arrived yesterday evening. Today it is windy and rainy and we are doing little exploring at all, instead we are catching up with e-mails, re-setting our clocks to Eastern Time and being lazy.

I understand there is a lot of history here, including the fact that the Florida Constitution was signed here in 1838. Count on more historical tidbits as I learn them.

On the Water Again

Miss Lauren Grace and her crew started the new sailing year off right with a delightful crossing of Choctawhatchee Bay (between Ft. Walton and Panama City) in flat calm conditions! Considering we have certainly navigated much larger bodies of water you may be wondering why this is noteworthy; the short answer is that we took the worst spanking of our boating experience on Choctawhatchee and we will never forget it.

Four years ago when we bought the Lauren Grace in Florida we brought her North to Kentucky Lake in order to facilitate moving aboard. We left Panama City on a bright sunny morning about 11:00 a.m. heading west; did I mention that we were somewhat inexperienced. The weather was beautiful, from a landlubber’s point of view, and we blissfully enjoyed a short passage through a land cut between Panama City and Choctawhatchee. When we came out into the bay it was WINDY, probably about 20 mph and right out of the West. This meant, for you non-boaters reading this, the waves were right on our bow; and they were BIG waves. Choctawhatchee Bay is 30 miles long, oriented East-West and fairly shallow. It was also noon or later when we arrived so there had been time to work up quite a good fetch over that 30 miles and the waves were probably about 3-4 ft and very close together. At the time I was certain they were at least 10 ft! Spray from our bow hitting the waves was going over the top of the flying bridge as the bow slammed into the trough before burying in the cresting wave. In addition the navigation marks were few and far between and it was difficult to focus the binoculars in order to find them (we didn’t have a chart plotter yet and we were too inexperienced to think to turn on the radar on a clear sunny day). We used our sailing skills and tried to minimize the pounding by “tacking” across the waves and then “tacking” back, this provided only a small improvement in the ride but it did manage to significantly lengthen our trip across, thus prolonging the misery.

We have since had quite enjoyable rides across C Bay but we always treat it with a great deal of respect and always try to have anything that can move lashed down as we approach it, just in case. This time we knew it would be a good day when the porpoises starting playing around us nearly as soon as we got underway.




As we arrived in Panama City friends we cruised with up on the Tennessee this past summer were standing by to catch our lines. It has been a good day.

We have enjoyed being on the move again. When we returned from Boise in early January it was freezing in the Western Panhandle, as it was in most of the country. Too cold to enjoy traveling so we remained in our marina on Perdido Key, Fl (just East of Orange Beach, AL) with the heaters running on high.

I have made one New Year's ressolution and that is to better learn how to manage pictures in Blogger; if any of you reading this can provide advice to help speed the learning curve of a Tech challenged grandma pleas e-mail me, as you can see below I need help.

Christmas break was perfect as we enjoyed the time we spent in the best gig of our lives, being Grammy & Grandpa, which Lauren is increasingly shortening to Grampy. You can tell that we are absolute fools where they are concerned.

Lauren is 5 already and quite grown up. She is phoning us on her own now and bossing us long distance.

Anna, our little sunshine, is just 1 and full of the dickens.

She is already saying a few words so I expect she will follow her sister's lead and be talking non-stop soon.

I thought nothing was finer than a brown-eyed girl…until little Miss blue eyes arrived!

The Gulf Coast

After finally getting Lauren Grace out of "sick bay" in Dog River we cruised across Mobile Bay to Fly Creek on the Eastern Shore and shared an enjoyable Thanksgiving feast with our friends Pat & Ruth Kelley in Daphne, AL. After the Holiday we were so ready to move on and get to the blue water and sandy beaches, alas it has been too chilly to enjoy the beaches.

We saw our first dolphins of the winter last Saturday (Nov 28) about an hour after we left Mobile Bay astern and entered into the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway (ICW). Actually it was a couple of hours because we stopped for lunch at Lulu's and we didn't see the dolphins until after lunch. Lulu's is kind of a tourist trap, largely due to the celebrity connection, but we like the shrimp and oyster Po' Boys, yum. Regarding the celebrity connection - Lulu's is owned by Lucy Buffett, Jimmy's sister. And yes they do serve a great cheeseburger, and while it might not be paradise it is mighty nice to sit and look out over the ICW while enjoying that burger with a "big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer". After such a feast for lunch we motored on over to a favorite anchorage and spent a chilly night on the hook. Sunday morning was warm and beautiful but the weather forecast was stinky and so we headed a few miles into Florida and checked in at Holiday Harbor Marina where Lauren Grace will reside while we celebrate Christmas in Boise.

That was Sunday, by Monday it was raining and windy, Tuesday was worse and a heck of a storm was moving ashore. Even in the marina we were getting waves, especially after the wind shifted to the Northwest. By Wednesday the winds were 40 mph and the waves were creating all kinds of whitecaps even on the ICW. Before leaving the boat to visit with friends ashore we put a couple of extra lines from the windward side to pilings a couple of piers over. Wednesday night we gathered, along with the occupants of several other boats, at the Innerarity Island home of our friends Tom & Patsy to commiserate about the horrible conditions and swap stories about the restless night we had all had. Turns out that our friends got the worst of the storm, about a half an hour before he was scheduled to collect all the boaters with no cars Tom noticed that something appeared "funny" down at his dock and when he went to investigate he discovered a broken piling and a section of dock missing. Luckily it was daylight and he noticed it before his boat had the opportunity to bounce down on a wave and hit the broken piling. He and Larry are planning to spend tomorrow doing dock repairs while Patsy and I go to Fairhope to do a little shopping ('tis the season) and collect our truck which is sitting at the Fairhope Yacht Club.

This week will be spent getting ready to leave the boat and head to see our girls. We are flying out of New Orleans on Friday and I can't wait! In the meantime there is the refrigerator to defrost, packing to attend to, and a little last minute cleaning to finish. Hopefully by the time we return next year the weather will have settled down and we will be able to have smooth sailing as we explore the Gulf Coast.

Surviving our first hurricane

Well, okay, it wasn't technically a hurricane by the time it got here but these storms are unpredictable at best (and deadly at worst) so the watchword is caution. Of course you may ask (as I did) if we are so damn cautious how in the world did we get ourselves into this position. The truth is that hurricane season is generally considered to be over in November; by this time of year conditions don't usually support development of storms of this magnitude, or if they do develop out in the Atlantic they do not commonly come ashore in the US.

Knowing this we planned to arrive in Mobile in November, but this year Mother Nature decided to mess with us and so we found ourselves waiting for Hurricane Ida. We were both a little uneasy, well, make that downright edgy. As you know Miss Lauren Grace was sitting on the hard, insurance companies like this because in their experience boats ashore do not sustain as much damage as boats in the water. We didn't like the way it felt as the boat was buffeted by the wind. Generally when a boat is in the water she is better supported and does not shudder as much, also when a boat is anchored (as in a thunderstorm) she lies with her bow to the wind and presents less resistance; throughout this storm the wind was on our stern.

About noon on Monday the storm was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm that was also when the rain started. We worked until nearly dark finishing our preparations (detailed here Monday evening) and then all we could do was wait. Sometime mid-afternoon they were predicting landfall around 2:00 a.m., at some point they moved that up to midnight which was fine with us as we were ready to get it over with. Even though we were very tired from a long day of hard work we were too edgy for sleep so we spent the evening watching the storm on the local weather and on the computer (do we know how to have fun or what!). As we watched the storm was slowing down and landfall was being pushed back; finally about 2:00 a.m. I was unable to keep my eyes open any more and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. At some point Larry must have crashed as well because when I awoke around 4:45 am he was sleeping. The wind was from the North and our stern was facing North, our stateroom (a fancy word for bedroom) is in the stern and I think that there was a change in the sound of the wind but whatever it was I couldn't go back to sleep so I got up and checked the computer only to find that Ida had slowed down and was taking her sweet time. That was probably good news because the longer she spent over the cool water of the Northern Gulf the less punch she would pack when she did come ashore. The bad news was we were still waiting. Larry got up and checked outside where it was still raining hard then he went back to bed.

The record shows that Ida first came ashore on Dauphin Island at 5:40 am on November 10, 2009. For those not familiar with Alabama geography Dauphin Island is about 20 miles or so South of Mobile , it is a barrier island on the Western mouth of Mobile Bay. After Dauphin she crossed the bay and came ashore again near Bon Secour which is on the Southeastern tip of the bay. then she churned North up the bay. Because the eye wall had fallen apart we did not get the wind shift that generally accompanies a hurricane and the winds continued strong and gusty from the North/Northeast.

We had been expecting a storm surge and an extremely high tide, the arrival of the storm coincided with high tide and by 5:30 there was about 2' of water in the lot at Dog River Marina. This photo was taken about 6:30 am because I forgot all about getting the camera earlier.

In the photo above where you see the posts there is a dock behind those boats that is underwater, the long silver things you see are sailboat masts that were on blocks beside the dock, as you can see they are awash.

By the time I remembered to start taking pictures the tide was already going out and by 7:30 the dock was awash as you can see

And by 8:30 the flotsam had been stranded on the lot and things were mostly dry.
Here is Miss Lauren Grace with here pretty new bottom paint, the big timber you see floated under us on the tide, amazing that it could come in between the blocks that are supporting the keep and come to rest against the forward block. The final photo of the flags was taken about noon and you can see that the wind was still quite strong.

The day continued raw, windy and rainy but this morning (Wednesday) dawned bright and sunny, although still quite windy. So today we spent the entire day drying out the lockers on the flybridge (and all the contents) and then returning the "stuff" to the locker. We took the opportunity to re-arrange things a bit as well as divest ourselves of some stuff that we decided we don't need to haul around anymore. There was even water inside the table on our sundeck that my brother-in-law Hank made for us to keep our spare props in! We had stuff (ropes, bag chairs, swim flippers, fishing tackle) spread out all over the foredeck to dry in the sun.

To summarize we have spent a day preparing, a day drying out and putting things back together (and we still aren't finished), and some tense hours just waiting. What did we learn from Ida? Perhaps just that we can.

"On the hard" and waiting for Ida.

I have had a few questions about the photos that I included in the last post showing Miss Lauren Grace out of the water so perhaps a little explanation is in order for the non-boaters out there.

The blue contraption that you see in the photo is called a travel lift, you can see way better photos if you click on the link. Simply put it has two big slings that are suspended between the two sides. The lift is driven by the operator out onto two concrete piers that have conveniently been placed at exactly the same distance apart as the legs of the lift. The slings are lowered deep into the water and the boat is driven in between the concrete piers. The operator slowly tightens the slings and lifts the boat out of the water, then he drives the lift (with the boat resting in the slings) over the ground to a parking spot where the boat is slowly lowered and supported by blocks placed under her keel. At that point the lift is driven away from the boat and stands are placed to help support the hull while she is on land, aka "the hard".

We have spent most of today getting ready for Hurricane Ida. Actually she was downgraded to a Tropical Storm about noon but precaution was still the order of the day and so we moved everything that could blow loose or blow off out of harm's way. You don't realize just how much "stuff" this is until you have to put it somewhere; I mean if we had somewhere else to put it it wouldn't have been there to begin with. For example the seat cushions on the flybridge live on the flybridge, there is no room for them elsewhere; likewise the cushions for the chairs on the sundeck. Ditto for the long handled brushes, the boat fenders, flags and coolers. We put the window coverings, the fenders, the buckets and the cushions in the back of the truck; which, conveniently, we had moved down here from Northern Alabama this weekend while Ida was busy blowing up into a Category 2 storm.

The biggest job was taking down all of that new canvas enclosure we had installed last summer and carefully rolling it in sheets so as not to scratch it. This process involves at least 15 zippers and more snaps than we can count. Of course by this time it was raining and so we had to carefully dry the Strataglas before we covered and rolled it.

Finally we moved the truck a few miles up the road to a parking lot at the grocery store to protect it from the possible storm surge. So now we are sitting inside waiting for Ida to arrive, with "stuff" stacked on every available surface. We have a path to walk through and a seat for each of us down in the cabin. Perhaps the best description would be "organized chaos", with emphasis on chaos. It feels like we are camping out in our own living room.

Stay tuned and we will fill you in once the storm passes.

Hello from Mobile, Alabama

Here we are in Mobile, AL at good ole Dog River Marina waiting to see what Hurricane Ida is going to do. Miss Ida has come calling very late in the season but that does not necessarily make her any less dangerous. Then again the water temperature is cooling and so she may fizzle out before she gets here, time will tell.

We arrived in Mobile last Friday and the wind was blowing from the SE, this meant that the weather was warm and humid and the waves on Mobile Bay would be up, and on our bow. Really we started picking up waves for the last 10-15 miles down the river. The worst part of the trip was on the river due to all of the floating debris (in the form of large logs) which was difficult to see because of the waves. Yes we could have waited a day, but a cold front was forecast to come through overnight and we reasoned that the next day would be just as windy from a different direction (N/NW) and with the wind on our stern we would wallow down the bay in the cold. We opted to travel while it was sunny, dry and warm.

Miss Lauren Grace has been hauled out to have her bottom painted and some new zincs installed, a minor transmission repair and new cutlass bearings will complete her "well baby" check-up.

Since she was lifted out of the water last Monday the painting & zincs are completed; now we are waiting to see what the storm will do before she is disabled (by uncoupling the engine shafts) to fix the cutlass bearings. That is because if Ida heads this way (considered by many to be a slim possibility) we will need to take her back up the river to hide out until the storm passes; if the storm fizzles then she will get her new bearings early next week and we will be on our way East to enjoy the Florida Panhandle.

Our ride down river from Demopolis was mostly uneventful but we did have the most frustrating locking at Demopolis that we have EVER experienced at any lock. Our departure from the marina was seriously delayed due to early morning fog that we thought would never burn off. Quite a number of boats in the marina and a nearby anchorage were calling the lock on both the VHF radio and the phone (which probably ticked him off) and his response was always the same: “I won’t lock anyone until this fog clears” along with the information that he had “a northbound tow in the pit and cannot lock anything until he leaves and I cannot force him to leave until he is ready”. Eventually a Southbound tow moved down to a position above the lock (moving in the fog) and so now there are two tows ahead of all the pleasure craft. Finally about 10:00 am the lock called for all southbound pleasure craft that want to lock down to come and hold above the lock”. Off we go; the southbound tow is already in the lock and he does not have to be split so we expect things to go reasonably quickly. Only it does not. The lockmaster decided to call the boats in one by one and tell them exactly where to tie up and only when a boat was secured did he call for the next boat, it took forever to stack the boats in the lock. Then, just as the last boat was getting secured, two more boats called and ask him to hold the lock. He still had one pin left and he did hold for them which cost us another 15-20 minutes. When the water level in the chamber was down he called us one by one and told us we could untie and exit. Never have we had a locking like this in the U.S. By the time we exited Demopolis lock over 2 1/2 hours had elapsed since he called us down! Needless to say our mileage for the day was disappointing, however I did have plenty of time to take this great shot of the roller dam there.

On the bright side due the delay at Demopolis lock changing the pace of our travel south we found a delightful anchorage that we had never used before. We had not known there was such a pretty little lake just off of the waterway about 64 miles above Mobile. A couple of sources mentioned Three Rivers Lake but others did not, everything I could find was complimentary and so we decided to give it a shot and we are sure glad we did because we enjoyed a restful night and met new friends Sue & Dave aboard "Saltwater Therapy" in the process.

I must say that the homes along the Lower Tenn-Tom are a sore disappointment after the beautiful environs of the Tennessee River.

Along the way we saw a couple of boat names that we particularly appreciated. “Alligator Hilton” was an 80’ houseboat with two satellite antennas (for TV reception) and a hot tub on the top deck. We could only speculate on the origin of the moniker “Locomotive Breath”, on a sailboat no less! And we couldn’t help but chuckle when we saw a big Grand Banks with “Wrong Knee” emblazoned on her stern; yep, it was just what you thought an operation on the wrong knee earned him a new Grand Banks for his pain and suffering!

It's so Cliche, BUT...

It really is a small world or at least a small country since I haven’t really seen all that much of the world. I know that I have shared other experiences in this vein but this is the most incredible story.

In this small world is the small town of Demopolis Alabama on the Tenn Tom Waterway. We don’t particularly care for it here and had not intended to be here longer than a fuel stop and overnight dockage but the weather (don’t worry I’m not going to wine about that again) caused us to remain a day longer than we anticipated. More for entertainment than any real need we borrowed the courtesy car for a run to the grocery store which is on the northern edge of town. Since the marina is on the southern edge of town we had to travel through the “downtown” area and that is when I noticed, in the window of a cute little shop, some Christmas ornaments. Of course we had to stop.

As we entered the store a clerk asked if she could help us and I replied that we just wanted to check out the ornaments. She then inquired where we were from, our accent (or lack of one) was probably her first clue, and then again it's likely she knows everyone in town. We never know how to answer that question because we are no longer from any particular place; however, recognizing that others want to know where visitors to their town hail from we often say St. Louis; which is what we said yesterday. The clerk smiled and said “I used to live in St. Louis, well St. Charles really”. Naturally I replied that I had grown up in St. Charles. The usual kind of conversation ensued.

Clerk: “Where did you go to school”?
Me: “I went to a small little country high school at Orchard Farm.”
Clerk: “I went to school there!”

This was just too surprising because I grew up in a rural area North of the town of St. Charles which was then a fairly small town itself. I think my graduating class (of about 40 or so) was the first class to spend all fours years at and graduate from O.F.H.S.. Prior to about 1962 high school students were bussed to the town of St. Charles because there were too few of them to warrant a high school (there were only 3 scattered elementary schools each with about 4 rooms). Talk about small! Then came the amazing part.

Suspecting that she was younger than I am I asked what year she graduated and we determined that she must have been a freshman back when I was a senior. As we were chatting about what a coincidence our meeting was the clerk said: “I was there when they did the play The Sound of Music”. “OMG, I was in that play, I was the crabby nun” and she replied, “I sang in the back-up chorus”.

As I said it was a small school and I grew up there and had no recognition at all of this person which surprised me a little. When we asked where she lived she said her parents lived in a trailer court; then we mostly knew that she lived right on highway 94 just outside of town. A little more conversation and we were able to determine which of the 2 trailer courts she had lived in (Princess Jodi, for those of you who remember). We tried to see if we had any mutual acquaintances but nothing clicked there. It might be important to note that at this point in the conversation none of us had introduced ourselves. Then she said, “people had unusual names up there” and I replied that there is a lot of German heritage so that might be why they sounded strange to her.

“Well”, she said, “I remember one name was Valentine”! Unbelievable! Larry said that his name was Valentine.

Clerk: “Where did you live?”
Larry: “You know that subdivision that was across the highway from the gas station and about a block down, I lived in the only two-story house in that subdivision”.
Clerk: “I’ve been to your house!”

Oh My God! She couldn’t remember why she was at his house, just that she had gone there with several other girls who lived in the trailer court; perhaps to visit some of his younger sisters/brothers.

The strangeness continues because we learned that Ann (by now we are on a first name basis) only lived there for two years before returning to Demopolis. And Larry’s family only lived there for two years before they returned to Texas. We aren’t sure if it was the same years but there was obviously some correlation in the time.

What are the odds that we would ever encounter this person? Even if we both stilled lived in the area I would think the chances would be slim and here we are many miles away.

So here’s to a really small world; and to Ann Jones, from Demopolis and Larry & Theresa Valentine also from Demopolis, at least for today.