Late spring update

Ok, this is my late spring up date.  Since my last post I have been down to the gulf twice.  The first trip was in March to check on the boat and make sure it had weathered the winter ok.  It was good to see Surprise, like seeing a long lost friend.  I climbed aboard was pleased to not be greated by that familure stinch, :) but was greated by a normal boat smell... while I was gone I had had the forward holding tank removed and a leak repared, It had been leaking from a fitting, the previous worker had used teflon tape on the fitting, not a good thing, so it was taken out cleaned up and replaced with caulk, no leaks, thats a good thing.  It has gone a long way to controling the odor. 
The next problem was the batteries had went dead, the solar panels are working but there is something that causes them to not put out to the batteries, I discovered this on my second trip to the boat in April.  So the result was dead batteries, and all the food in fridge bad, that included the fish in the freezer, so that was a new smell, lol.  So went into clean up mode.  got it cleaned up, now it smells like fish and clorox, lol.  its going away slowly.  So got batteries charged, still need to tackel solar problem, but need that to be when I am down there, I need to be invlolved in the fix. 

This trip saw my first real sail on the gulf, wow, what a great sail, and I realized, that I REALLY love to sail on open water, it was new experience, but I loved it.
We left the night before and sailed from Turner down to Navy cove, where we Phillip my crew spent the night.  What a night that was, has to be the roughest night I ever spent aboard.  The wind was out of the north, and blowing 20 knts, no shelter so had it on the nose all night.  Oh didn't mention setting anchor, well it was on wrong roller, so here I am in 2 ft rollers moving a 40lb anchor in the dark, what a mess, dropped it chipped the glass on the toe rail, a repair for later.  Got it switched, anchor set. had a light dinner and hit the rack.  Got up early had coffee, and frozen bfast sands heated up in microwave, thank goodness for Genny. 
While we were working in this we got by the wake from a freighter a mile away, wow, what a wake, hit us broadside as we were still head to wind.  that was close, stuff went flying, I had a cabinet open and thens took flight, I grabbed what I could with my hands, hip, and knee, and them Phillip jumped it and help hold it until the wake was gone.  With all secure we fired up the engine pulled the anchor and headed for the ship channel. 
We put the main up and then motor sailed through channel, once far enough out we put out the jib and sailed on a close reach for 20 miles. What a sail! it was great, watching the water change color to a bright blue, seeing the jelly fish floating by.  It was great.  We sailed all day till mid afternoon we realized we had goofed off to much the wind was not serving us well so we fired up the iron jib adjusted our course and headed towards Pensacola, or more towards Pensacola.  We motor sailed for probably 2-3 hours until wind had picked up and then sailed into the Pensacola to big lagoon in the dark.   Going through the cut we found the muddy bottom as we had strayed out of the channel, was confused by a mark for the air station, it was a red on the wrong side of the channel, any way we got off easy enough, then made to the lagoon, to anchor, where we again found the bottom.  Note to self "trust the chart plotter" and not someone else that wandered into shallow water and was lucky not to run aground.  ;)  So we backed off, trusted chart plotter and anchored in 10ft.  All in All it was great sail, learned lots and had lots fun.  That evening Phillip's parents invited us to there boat for beef stew, that was piping hot, it warmed our cold bones.  After a nice evening of good friends good food and good drink, I made my way back to Surprise.  Running the dingy aground on the way back, I was 100 yards off shore, but it was very shallow, but made it off and back to the boat, and good nights sleep. 
The Next day I took off, choosing to motor back along the ICW.  It was nice ride, till the bay, I put the jib up surfed all the way back to the marina, what a great sail. 

The next trip was Spring break with the kids, what a wonderful trip that was. 
We arrived later afternoon on Saturday 2 April 2011.  We topped off the water, got food and then went to sleep.  We got up early and took off in the fog, made out on to the bay safely and set sail.  We sailed all day long, all the from the marina to Pensacola.  It was a great sail, the kids first sail on blue water, they enjoyed, a little bit of sea sickness but it passed. 
We spent the three days in big lagoon.  What a great time.  exploring seeing dolphins from the dingy once, time on the beach.  Awesome trip.  Was great to see kids enjoying themselves. 
One highlight was the storm one night that weathered.  Anchor held, had 60 knts once, average was probably 30-40 knts.  Outside of that storm it was a great week, with another sail off shore back to the bay.  We made it all the way to the lower east corner of Mobile bay where we anchored for the night.  We got up earl the next day motored to Lu Lu's for a later lunch and live music that night.  A great finish to our week on the boat. 

Ok, that gets us to 23 May 2011. 
I am hoping for another trip on the boat in June.  This will be a much longer trip.  we are hoping to make a run to Tampa Bay and back.  I am planning at least 6 days to get there.  Taking our time do some sight seeing along the way.  Then do Disney while the boat is anchored in Tampa or tied to mooring ball. 
The only thing will put a kabash on this would be getting job.  But the way things have been with the job market, I don't see that happening.  So it should be a great trip.  But will have to wait and see how it goes if it goes.  More to follow on that.  I have to be careful with the weather as its the beginning of hurricane season. 

More later
Capt. Bear s/v Surprise