Pensacola 2024

[Captain Kidd]

I've been thinking seriously about selling the Hunter. I've only sailed it once each of the last two years. None this year til now. Some years I haven't sailed it at all. My wife is not interested in overnighting on it anymore. I told her I wanted to take one more "big" trip on it before I sell her. She's ready for that so she arranged to keep my daughter's kids on fall break so that Tiffany could take that "big" trip. We decided on Pensacola since I have another grandson in college there hoping we could see him while there. My goal for this trip was not necessarily a lot of miles like the Georgia coast trip 5 years ago: just good sailing and some fun.

Here's a report on our (me and my daughter) trip. If I told the whole story, it would turn into a book. Here's the "cliff's notes" version. (copied from my personal FB page with edits: here's link to see post which includes videos :https://www.facebook.com/robin.leffertskidd )

Saturday, October 5
All day, morning to midnight prep. I mean - when you have to take even the kitchen sink, it takes a while. I was pooped! I had washed the boat a couple weeks earlier, but the days leading up to departure were busy so final prep had to wait.

Sunday
Travel. Listened to a.m. church service on FB. Went to church and dinner with Luke (my grandson) at Cheddars in the evening. Overnight at the Pensacola Christian College Campus House.

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Monday
Winds were forecasted to be NE 10-20 for most of the week due to Milton, so I decided on an east to west trip. We launched from Navarre. Sailed on a reefed main alone. Was a very comfortable sail of 18 miles to Pensacola Beach. On the way my rudder developed some play in it. Was a bit concerning. We attempted to dock at Quietwater Beach to check it out. Big mistake with that easterly wind and long fetch (I let my concern for the rudder cloud my judgment re the issues at Quietwater). Quietwater wasn't so quiet; the waves pounded us into the dock. As quickly as we could we motored away from the dock and dropped anchor. All we had to do was tighten some screws/nuts. Wind and waves made it very bumpy so we decided to pull anchor* and motor around to Little Sabine Bay which was my original intent. Very protected from the wind and waves. Beautiful night. (*note: pulling the anchor under those conditions was very difficult. I was using a 25 lb bulwagga with 18' of heavy chain. It literally took all the strength I had to pull that anchor up.)

A beautiful day crossing the bridge to the Navarre ramp.

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boat rigged and ready

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Tiffany at the helm. couldn't hardly pry her away

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pic taken from condo by Tiffany's friend (the same friend she did the marathon with) whose family just happened to be staying at a condo on Little Sabine Bay. Sunset - if you look closely, you can see Anago anchored in the bay.

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night in the bay

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Tuesday
We moved closer to shore and waded onto land. We walked to the boardwalk, met up with Luke and enjoyed a wonderful seafood lunch at Crabs. When we returned to the boat, the tide had gone out a bit and she was grounded. With some effort the three of us were able to push it to deeper water. We said good-bye to Luke and headed for Sand Island just south of the NAS, an 11 mile sail. The winds were light so we put up full sail and actually motor-sailed the last hour. On the way we were visited by a dolphin (we saw numerous ones throughout the trip) that breached several times including once right beside the boat!! We could have almost reached out and touched him! Once at Sand Island we anchored by the shore* and walked around the whole island. We then moved to deeper water and anchored for the night. (*I wasn't happy with my stern-to anchor job at the shore and got pretty frustrated).

waded ashore

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lunch with grandson

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company along the way

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walk around Sand Is

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anchorage

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Wednesday
Winds were forecast to be the strongest of the trip. Forecast was right and we saw winds in the mid-teens gusting to the mid-20's.  We pulled anchor (I had removed the 18' of chain, but with the wind blowing it was still quite the chore getting up that big anchor - like the previous day it took two tries to get it up). We set out on our 7 mile sail and hoisted our headsail. Was very comfortable sailing. As we neared the western end of Big Lagoon the waters piled up and it got a little lumpy but was great fun. We entered the narrows at Perdido Key and motored into the marina, enjoyed a lovely lunch of Po-boy sandwiches at the Sunset Grill. It was early so we decided to get an Uber back to Navarre to retrieve our vehicle and trailer. On the way back to Perdido Key we drove along Santa Rosa Island and even stopped to catch the sunset with the gulf waves crashing on shore. Then we got some ice cream where we enjoyed some time visiting with Tiffany's best friend and family who just happened to be vacationing in Pensacola Beach. I slept the most soundly of the trip that night. Tied up at a dock is a little more relaxing than being anchored out (at least in my mind).

seastate

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sailing jib alone

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winds for the day

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victory lunch

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after retrieving vehicle

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Thursday
The plan was to take out at the Galvez ramp right across the water 1/4 mile from the marina. As we were winching the boat up onto the trailer, the winch post failed at the base! Ugh!! Not gonna get the boat on the trailer without that. What to do? The Lord provided! A guy at the ramp recommended a marine service which in turn recommended a trailer repair guy just a few miles from us (Hammerhead Trailer Repair if you ever need one). We took the boat back to the marina, dropped the trailer off and came home boatless.

winch post

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Return trip
Monday and Tuesday I returned alone and picked up the trailer, retrieved the boat, met Luke for lunch at Burger King across from campus and came home.

Takeaways
Had a great time! Tiffany loves the beach and water. Some hard work involved. The trip actually left me exhausted. Anchoring was difficult, tricky, and tiring. The rudder thing was a bit concerning but turned out to be quite simple. Really enjoyed time with our freshman college student, Luke. Sailing was really nice with mostly steady winds. Skies were clear and sunny, temps perfect. Trailer mishap was a shock but not too surprising really when you have old stuff.

I undertook the trip with mixed emotions. I felt strange enjoying a vacation knowing Milton was going to pound central Florida. But there wasn't much I could do about it. I have several friends in the Tampa area. Turns out they all faired pretty well all things considered.

What's next?
I'll likely put her up for sale and stick with the CIY. We'll see.

Note: I failed to insert two pics - first is the repaired post and second is daughter and I stopping on the way home at Whataburger for lunch in Flomaton. In honor of my wife who loves whataburgers. LOL

[Norm L.]

Not just a good sail but coupled to great family time. Hard to beat days like that.