s/v Monomoy's blog

A Voyage For MadmenPeter Nichols; HarperCollins 2007

In 1968, nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held: to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop. It was a feat that had never been accomplished and one that would forever change the face of sailing. Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory. For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death.

In this extraordinary book, Peter Nichols chronicles a contest of the individual against the sea, waged at a time before cell phones, satellite dishes, and electronic positioning systems. A Voyage for Madmen is a tale of sailors driven by their own dreams and demons, of horrific storms in the Southern Ocean, and of those riveting moments when a split-second decision means the difference between life and death.

We really enjoyed this book.

You can order it from Amazon.com.

DoveRobin Lee Graham; Harper Paperbacks 1991

In 1965, 16-year-old Robin Lee Graham began a solo around-the-world voyage from San Pedro, California, in a 24-foot sloop. Five years and 33,000 miles later, he returned to home port with a wife and daughter and enough extraordinary experiences to fill this bestselling book, Dove.

This is a pretty good read.

You can order it from Amazon.com.

Wind was forecast to be around 10 knots in the morning and building to 10-15 knots by afternoon. We headed out after lunch with Ken off our stern.

The wind was more like 2 knots when we made it out onto the Bay. Ben and Ken were on the VHF discussing whether or not either of us were actually moving.

Pogo took her routine position of dolphin patrol, but we didn’t really see any this weekend.

The temp warmed up enough for Carol to wear her new bikini for about two hours.

Ken (s/v Private Stock) was the only other sailboat, aside from us, with sails up on the bay. We did notice a few in the distance along Santa Rosa Island, but sails were down. So we have lots of pictures of Private Stock.

Ken decided to drop his 110 jib and raise his drifter.

After a bit he swapped back out for the 110 when the wind picked up to around 6 knots. The next three pictures were taken from the same distance, just zoomed in each time.

The wind calmed right back down to zero, so we headed back to the marina. Though we had little wind overall, it was still nice to be on the Pensacola Bay, plus Carol wore a bikini in January!!

Our original plan was to head out Saturday and return on Tuesday. School is out of session for Monday in observance of Reverend Martin Luther King, then is out of session Tuesday for teacher planning day. The weather forecast began really nice for all 4 days, but as it seems to be the new routine, the forecast changed overnight. At least it appeared we’d get in a nice daysail with temps in the 30-40s, but only 5 knot wind.

We headed out around 9am CST to blue skies.

Pogo was ready for some sailing.

There were a few other sailboats who joined us on the Pensacola Bay.

Family photo.

Dad and son photo op.

Blake was enjoying the nice weather.

Another sailboat on the bay.

The Pensacola Bay was smooth!

There are courteous powerboaters! Fourplay slowed considerably as they passed and provided nearly no wake! With the bay as smooth as it was, the courtesy was much appreciated.

Another sailboat caught in the doldrums.

Pogo on typical dolphin patrol.

Cocktail time!

The wind picked up to around 7 knots and white caps just started to form. It made for faster sailing, though made the temp feel much cooler. This group was clearly enjoying themselves on the Pensacola Bay. They called out and waved as the sailed by.

The wind continued to build and the bay chopped up considerably. Overall the wind wasn’t bad at 12 knots gusting to 18 knots, but the salt spray coming over the bow is much more fun in 100 degree summer temps, so we headed back to the marina.

As we were approaching the marina, Ken on s/v Private Stock was heading out singlehanded, but decided to turn around after we informed him of the conditions on the bay. He can easily singlehand his boat, but it isn’t much fun when you’re battling the weather. He decided to motor around the bayou since he was already out of his slip, so he could allow his diesel to get up to normal operating temp. About the time he decided to motor about, a large barge came through without any prior courtesy notice over the VHF, so Ken had to tuck off to the side.

After the barge passed, Ken went about motoring around the bayou for a bit.

It’s time to perform some routine maintenance on Monomoy, so we changed out the primary and secondary fuel filters to knock that task out. We’ll be changing the oil and transmission fluids Monday.

It was time to relax like these fellas.

Conrad and Roxanne from s/v The Great Escape took their new kayaks out for a try.

We ended the day be heading over to The Oar House via dinghy for a cocktail with Ken, Conrad, and Roxanne; we ran into Barry (s/v Just Cruising) and company while there, so it felt like Palm Harbor was taking over The Oar House.

We then returned to the marina for grilled steak and a nice Cabernet Sauvignon, followed by gathering under the marina gazebo for social hour.

It was a really nice way of ending the day. Today (Sunday) has some discrepancies between forecasters on how the weather/wind will end up, so we plan (hope) to get out for another daysail.

The morning started foggy with a cool view of s/v Peacemaker heading into the Port of Pensacola.

Here’s a picture of Peacemaker later in the day once we were out on the water.

Another picture of Peacemaker, which is a large sailing vessel, next to another much larger ship at the port.

We had the pleasure of touring Peacemaker right about a year ago and posted photos on on our blog at that time.

http://sv-monomoy.com/2011/01/crew-of-monomoy-tours-sv-peacemaker/

Carol was enjoying the relaxing sail.

The bay was fairly flat, so it was perfect for some folks to take advantage of fishing.

Pogo was on dolphin alert.

This fellow was enjoying the sun breaking through the clouds.

As we slowly sailed along in the bay, we passed a Christmas tree floating in the water. We thought about that for a moment and considered how that poor tree was just the center of happiness a few weeks ago and now it has been abandoned to the bay by some inconsiderate persons (improper way of disposal).

The wind never made it over 5 knots, but we weren’t complaining, since we enjoy relaxing sails.

Ben on the radio with Captain Ken of s/v Private Stock.

Here’s Private Stock in the distance.

The bay slowly had other sailboats appearing.

The sky cleared/clouded all day.

We passed a sister-ship on the bay..

…who tacked around and headed back toward us.

It appeared they had their own dolphin patrol dog.

They cruised up alongside and we hollered back and forth for a short time chatting about sailing. They seemed very familiar, but we weren’t sure where we had perhaps seen or met them before.

After providing our blog and email address to them, they pulled away and headed back the direction they were originally going.

We then recognized the name of their boat and realized we had met them briefly on the dock before; they also happen to be friends of our friends Tammy and Marlin of s/v Keeldover.

There were a few other boats still sailing the bay, but I think the light wind sent a few back to port.

Monomoy does well in light wind; she has a lot of canvas and would typically be a light boat, though we have her waterline raised around 4 inches due to all of the gear we carry aboard. We can still sail 5 knots in 4 knots of wind, so we were having a good time.

Pogo still on dolphin patrol.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvHT7yzy2j0

We have a four day weekend coming up, so we are really keeping our fingers crossed for good weather, so we can get a few days of cruising in.

No sailing today on January 7, 2012, but we did see dolphins. We took a trip over to Fort Walton Beach via car to the Florida Gulfarium and were treated to some great shows; Blake even had the chance to feed and pet a dolphin. If you’ve never been, it is worth a visit. We’ll let the photos and videos tell the story of our fun day. Oh, and that is a palm tree behind Carol in the first picture; ha!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPV1XVqsIoM

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSDpBUNzlIM

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1vzqdaBMx4

What a way to end 2011! The weather forecast originally called for great weather through Sunday, January 1 of 2012. Our plan was to depart Wednesday sailing to Ft. McRee, Thursday to Ingram Bayou in Alabama, Friday back to McRee to join friends, Saturday head to Little Sabine for New Year festivities, then return to the marina on Sunday.

We headed out as planned on Wednesday morning to a gorgeous Pensacola Bay.

The Captain was pleased.

Chicken nuggets for lunch while sailing; tough life this kid has.

Dad and son.

Temps warmed up enough for Carol to put on a bikini. She wasn’t sure if the temps would warm enough, so she only brought one new bikini.

Dredging of the Pensacola Pass was underway.

There were only two power boats and one sailboat at Ft. McRee.

Mom and son.

Late afternoon snack on the hook.

We took a dinghy ride to explore around Battery 233. That’s Monomoy in the background.

Ramp leading up to Battery 233.

View looking from ramp to cove.

Battery 233 sign.

The doors to the Battery were open. We peaked inside, but the flashlight we brought had nowhere near the power to cut through the pitch darkness inside, so we didn’t go very far inside.

View from atop the Battery.

Blake and Mario.

Ben taking a walk to explore.

If you look close you can see the dolphins swimming.

Sunset in Ft. McRee.

Sunrise Thursday morning started off looking really nice…

…but NOAA had changed the forecast in the not favorable direction. Ingram Bayou is 6-8 hours from Ft. McRee, so we decided to change plans and head to Little Sabine about 3 hours away instead. Here’s the view at Ft. McRee as the sky clouded up, appearing to agree with the new NOAA forecast.

We weighed anchor and headed to Little Sabine.

While underway, Blake made us one of his delicious pizzas.

We passed this fellow flying his spinnaker only.

Carol took the helm for a bit.

DirecTV blimp in the distance.

Pogo standing tall.

By the time we dropped the hook into Little Sabine, the sky was looking better.

Pogo took notice.

Time to relax.

Blake was playing his new Nintendo 3DS in the cabin.

After while, Ben and Blake took Pogo to shore, so she could do her business.

Carol and Pogo.

Friday morning was looking gorgeous. The new forecast by NOAA turned out to be wrong. They should have held tight to their original forecast, which would have actually given them some credibility and we would have headed to Ingram Bayou rather than Little Sabine for Thursday night.

Dolphins came out to play.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diCK5xgANIE

Mario sunning.

The weather was warm enough for Carol to sport her new bikini again.

There was very little wind, but we were happy just poking along at 2 knots. Wind was predicted to be 10-15 knots, but it was more like 3 knots.

We passed this vagabond boat. They had their diesel running, which was very loud, had a kicker off the stern (presumably in case the diesel dies) and were dragging their dinghy sideways behind their boat.

We sailed back to Fort McRee and dropped the hook for the night. s/v Sea Lilly passed by. We thought they were cruising into McRee, but they headed on West, so we think they must have headed to Pirate’s Cove for New Year.

Blake opened his new coloring kit he received from Captain Ken (Private Stock) for Christmas.

The sunset was really nice!

We grilled up some restaurant style cheeseburgers; mushrooms, bacon, Swiss cheese, etc.

Fog rolled in around 3am Saturday morning, but NOAA predicted it would burn off by 9am.

Around 8:30am it actually appeared the fog was burning off, so we weighed anchor and headed out for a sail. NOAA predicted 5-10k wind all day with sunny skies. We were really looking forward to sailing all day with plans to head to Little Sabine for New Year festivities.

Dolphins were out early.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9yKETSvI0c

By around 9am we were just by the Pensacola Pass and the sun came out. Temp warmed to 75 degrees. Carol donned a bikini. I promise all of this is true, but it lasted only about 20 minutes, so no pictures were taken. The fog that appeared to have burned off, rolled right back in and fast. We passed s/v Night Watch as they headed to The Wharf in Alabama.

The fog rolled in so thick, you could hardly see the bow of our own boat from the cockpit. Carol took watch with a horn in hand at the bow, while Blake took watch off our stern; both shared beam scanning duties. Ben held the helm while carefully navigating the fog. Once a minute we blasted the horn and every 5 minutes we would broadcast our position over VHF for any concerned traffic. Here is the last photo taken before all eyes/ears/hands were stead fast at navigation duties.

We made it back to the marina about 12:30pm and safely tied up. Here is a picture taken of the Bayou Chico bridge from our slip about 30 minutes after safely securing Monomoy. You can just make out a small sailboat, which was insanely heading our direction as he continued on out the channel into the Pensacola Bay fogginess.

The fog never really lifted. It would give false impressions that it was beginning to lift, but then would quickly thicken back up. Horns could be heard through the day off in the distance. As we returned to Bayou Chico we passed other boats heading out. We would courteously let them know that it was dangerous to head out with no visibility, but they would shrug their shoulders and continue on. Later we would hear the Coast Guard very busy on the VHF handling radio calls from distressed boaters. I don’t believe we ever heard of any real danger/emergency, but mainly just boaters who became very scared when they couldn’t see anything on the water. It is a freaky feeling when you detect a slight sound in the foggy distance, then a boat appears out of nowhere within a very short distance to your own boat. At one point we heard a barge and radio’d our coordinates; the barge captain replied that they had us on radar and we would safely pass if our position was held.

It is now 7am CST on New Year’s Day and the fog still lingers, though not as thick, and has lasted over 24 hours.

It was a very enjoyable trip and a fantastic way to end the old year. Not many places you can spend sailing the last few days of the year. We truly wish weather forecasters could be held more accountable for their predictions, but it will probably remain the only job you can get wrong everyday, but still keep your job.

We’re looking forward to a great 2012. Happy New Year to all!

From the crew of s/v Monomoy.