Well, I thought we’d be sending this message from the Dry Tortugas, but once again we’ve maintained our flexibility and rolled with the punches. When we left Sarasota we headed down to Venice which was only 15 miles away. The offshore forecast had seas 5-7 feet so we decided to give it one more day and we continued down to Boca Grande. We anchored off of Useppa Island in Pine Island Sound (thanks for the tip, Raf). When we arrived, there was a sailboat hard aground trying to kedge off. Another cruiser had gone over in their dingy to help but to no avail, so we lowered ours and headed over to lend a hand. They were very glad to see our 15hp which did help make the difference and they were soon back in deep water. Since we had the dingy down we took off after the many dolphins swimming and feeding in the area. This appears to be a very beautiful cruising area and I’m sure we saw just a glimpse of what exists. I’d recommend a boat with a much shallower draft and no masts to really cruise Florida’s west coast.

Anyway, we were off early the next morning, another perfect sailing day, heading for the Dry Tortugas 122 miles to the SSE. We were 20 miles closer to our destination when I decided it would be a good idea to inspect the autopilot’s belowdecks behavior since it’s recent refit (and due to the fact that it makes noises that we normally don’t hear with the engine running). Otto was doing a marvelous job, but I noticed the bolts on the steering quadrant had loosened up. After retightening them my attention became focused on the leak around the base of the rudder post’s packing gland. It had been there awhile but was so small that I had hoped to deal with it at our next haulout in another year or two. However, watching the small amount of water come in with every stroke of the autopilot’s ram and the realization that we were heading to relatively remote areas and that real, nominally priced boat facilities were only 20 miles away, we decided to abort and changed course to San Carlos Bay and the anchorage and shipyards at Ft. Myers Beach.

The yard we selected is Gulf Marine Ways and Supply. Our boat looked tiny sitting in their 150 ton travel lift! We took advantage of this yard time and did what many cruisers eventually must do … raise the waterline. Lee, the yard manager, even gave me the bottom paint and brushes to do the job! The next morning I dismantled the autopilot ram and tiller arm and the steering quadrant (I’ve done this way too many times now) and John quickly unbolted the packing gland and freed it from the hull. He took that over to the shop to clean it up while I cleaned the inside of the hull for its rebedding. There are 4 bolts that hold it in place but I found 5 bolt holes plus an additional large void that had simply been filled with chalk which in almost 20 years had become quite saturated and no longer kept the water out. We filled the voids with epoxy and rebedded and repacked the packing gland.

We’re back in the water and are making new plans to leave here and head straight for Key West, 102 miles due south, but as usual with us, don’t hold your breath. We’ll continue to go with the flow and enjoy wherever it is we wake up to each day and just maybe, someday, that will be somewhere we actually planned to be.

Later,

David and Claudia