Jim Mackey and I recently returned from a winter sailing vacation in Florida.  Until a year ago, I had not seen or heard from Jim since we graduated from high school.  We had often camped together when we were Boy Scouts.  Subsequently, we both developed an interest in sailing.  So naturally, we decided to do a sailing/camping trip.

 

One of the cruisers we met along the way called us as a “hobo cruise” because of the small size and limited amenities of Jim’s boat.  The boat is a Nimble 24 ft. ketch-rigged sailboat. It is about the size of what I assume a jail cell would be, but without a high enough ceiling to stand up.  To get a better idea of the conditions, think of camping in an 8 by 20 foot crawl space under a house.  It has 4 bunks.  Two we used for sleeping and the other two were covered with our personal gear above and food and water storage below.  We were on the boat for 35 consecutive days, and slept on the boat every night.  Surprisingly, in spite of the close quarters, we got along fine, really.  We sailed from Sarasota to the southern-most tip of the Florida mainland and back.  We anchored each night in protected locations along the Intracoastal Waterway, or behind islands offering shelter from the Gulf of Mexico.  Depending on the weather, we sailed either in the protected ICW or outside in the Gulf.  We aborted the original plan to cross the Okeechobee waterway and do a circumnavigation of South Florida, because it would require a week of constant motoring to reach the east coast.  Later we decided not to go to Key West because it was high season and the marinas and anchorages in the Keys were already severely overcrowded.  Instead, we spent extended periods of time exploring the wilderness areas of the 10,000 islands, Whitewater Bay, Florida Bay, Everglades National Park, Everglades City and Flamingo. 
 

When people ask me “How was the trip”, I say, “It was great, it was terrible and it was everything in between”.  It was great in that we got to see wonderful vistas, wildlife, and new places, from gorgeous waterfront mansions, to areas so wild and desolate that, at times, there were no signs of other human presence.  Wildlife abounded daily in the form of dolphins playing around the boat, eagles soaring above, osprey with chicks in the nests, manatee lumbering along, tarpon and sting rays jumping, crocodiles lurking, pelicans waiting for handouts, other miscellaneous birds, and schools of fish being chased by various predators.  We also got to meet interesting cruising people from all over the country.

At times it was terrible when the weather was hot and humid and we fed the mosquitoes and tiny biting flies. There are 43 varieties of mosquitoes in the Everglades and every one of them was competing for our blood.  “Terrible” also describes the few days when the wind and sea conditions were outside of my comfort zone.  One very windy day I was wondering if it was time to put on my life jacket, and there was Jim below deck calmly brewing a pot of coffee.  We obviously have different experience and confidence levels!   We knew we were very different to start with (the classic odd couple) and we often called each other Felix and Oscar.  To exacerbate my discomfort, Jim has lived his whole live flirting with danger, including Vietnam, commercial fishing in Alaska, and his first wife, just to mention a few.  Now, to keep life interesting, he needs to push the limits.  His boat has a theoretical maximum speed of 6.5 knots.  We often hit 5, sometimes 6 and as much as 7.2 knots. 

The more typical days dealt with the challenges of cooking on a single burner stove, finding grocery stores, fresh water, occasional hot showers, laundry facilities, carrying supplies to the boat and trash and sewage from the boat.  Most of south west Florida has still not recovered from the ravages of recent hurricanes, so it was difficult to find many of these amenities that we expected to be abundant.  The boat has a DC lighting system, but we couldn’t afford to run down the batteries by using lights very long after dark.  After dining alfresco and watching the usually magnificent sunsets, we went to bed at 7 PM, when it got dark, and got up with the first hint of dawn at 6:15.  Some days we were sailing by 6:30 AM.  We usually found a suitable   anchorage by 3 or 4 PM.  We had a solar shower water bag heating in the sun all day, so we would bathe before dinner. 

Most of sailing is quiet and serene, punctuated by moments of surprises and panic.  Early in the trip the backstay snapped when Jim over tightened a jib sheet.   Fortunately the boom was still on the topping lift and sheeted in tight.  That kept the mast from falling forward.   Later, near our final destination, the motor quit just after going under a lift bridge with the tide against us and the bridge already down.  We dropped the anchor while we tried unsuccessfully to restart the motor.  Finally, a fisherman towed us to a marina where there was a mechanic who was able to fix the carburetor.  We never went aground, hit anything, snagged a lobster pot, got lost, capsized, or ran out of water or beer.  Two relatively minor and fixable mishaps are not bad, considering all the accounts of sailing disasters I frequently read about. 
 

The task of sailing and navigating in the waters of southwest Florida is complicated by the abundance of shallow waters, and the fact that all mangrove islands are low and look alike.  You can be 3 miles from land and have only 4 feet of water depth.  The modern GPS makes navigating simple, compared with just a chart and compass method of the past.  Charts, however, are still necessary for planning and back-up.  The real nuisances are power boats, parasailers, and the floats on crab traps that are scattered everywhere in the Gulf.  They must be avoided to prevent entanglements with the keel and motor shaft.  Only a small percentage of large power boats are courteous enough to avoid leaving huge wakes.  Jim routinely evaluated their wakes and conveyed our degree of displeasure with hand signals and verbal expletives.
 

To his credit, Jim now holds the bragging rights for crossing the Cape Romano shoals which extend from Marco Island.  Sailboats generally can’t do that, nor would they try.  The unique and most endearing quality of Jim’s boat is that with the centerboard up, the boat can maneuver over waters as shallow as 16 inches.  We were able to take a short cut across the shoals and save about 10 miles.  Ten miles is huge on a small sailboat where our average day’s progress was about 20 to 25 miles.  We traveled a total of 427 nautical miles at an overall average speed of 3 knots (3.4 mph). 

Depending upon your tolerance level for the inherent hardships, you may not enjoy this form of cruising.  Jim will continue to do this until he runs out of blood.   Although I conclude that this was a great experience, I don’t need to do it again.  I shall continue to enjoy sailing, but I like the luxury of my home at night.