Saturday January 9, 2010

The Boat Marina, Fort Walton Beach, Florida

The weather hold in Fort Walton Beach is a good lesson is patience. It is better and safer to be sitting on the dock wishing I were on the Gulf than actually being on the Gulf and wishing I were tied up at the dock. Below freezing temperatures at night are what is causing the hold. It is warmer during the day. The air temperature at 4:00PM is 41 degrees and the sky is clear. The sea temperature is 57 degrees. Today the winds are blowing out of the north at 15 knots. Waves on the Gulf are 5 to 7 feet. The temperatures are slowly increasing as the jet stream causing the Artic Blast is slowly changing direction.

After a breakfast of bergool (an old sailors term for oatmeal) I started to clean and straighten up the boat in anticipation of Dave’s coming onboard. To this point I had been using the V-birth in the front of the boat as a storage locker. The Gibson guitar as well as my duffle bag of clean clothes and dirty laundry bag needed to be moved aft to make room for Dave.

It is surprising how dirty a boat can get on the inside after only one week. I spent several hours with the bleach spray-bottle wiping down the all the inside. I started on the surfaces in the galley as that seemed to be the most in need of cleaning. There were spaghetti sauce, oatmeal and mustard splashes visual reminders of meals onboard.

Tug came by and sang several sea shanties and recommended a book by Richard Adraidowics and Pete Kasin. My favorite sea shanty is “Goodbye, My Lover, Goodbye”. It is a Great Lakes sea shanty about a young sailor heading out to sea. It describes his emotions as he is leaving his lover for an extended voyage. It tells the how he longs to be with his lover while on the open water. Thinking about your lover is something all sailors must have in common. Because that’s one of the things you do when you are out on open water. I think of Sandy and our family all of the time.

Bill called and said that we needed to leave one hour earlier for the airport to pick up Dave Luther because the airport is in the Eastern Time Zone and we were in the Central Time Zone. Dave’s plane was due to arrive at 5:00PM. Tallahassee was a three hour drive.

Dave was waiting for us at the arrival area. Our timing was spot on. Once we loaded Dave’s gear in the trunk of Bills car, we headed directly to a restaurant for dinner.

It was well after dark when we arrived back at WaterMark and the winter cold had returned. Dave stowed his gear. I turned on the little electric space heater to high to heat up the boat and drive the dampness back into the air. We reviewed the charts and navigation strategies for crossing the Gulf. Still too windy and still too cold. We decided to stay put for one more day.