EC2012 - Day 1

Everglades Challenge 2012

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Our day began with breakfast at IHOP.  Several other Watertribers were also eating there, enjoying a last big meal before our adventure.  We arrived at the beach by about 6AM and made our final preparations.

Emily took care of filling our water

Suiting up for a wet ride

The winds were in the mid teens from the south, had been blowing hard all night and most of Friday, and we were under a Small Craft Advisory.  We quickly decided that sailing out in the Gulf was not an option for us and decided to stay on the “inside,” sailing in the ICW.  After roll call, Chief walked up and down the beach reminding us that we did not in fact need to leave the beach if we did not find the conditions safe.  We felt fine about leaving but had our sail double reefed, which brought our sail area down to about 32 sq ft.  The horn blew at 7AM and people slowly trickled off the beach.  Em sat in the middle of the boat and I dragged the boat out past the sandbar just off shore.  I hopped in and we were off!

We're off!

Since the wind was from the south, we started on a starboard tack, heading southeast towards the Sunshine Skyway bridge.  The conditions in the crossing were lumpy, the waves were about 2 ft and the wind continued to build.  After several long tacks, we were finally approaching the first bridge.  With the combined wind and current, there was no way we were going to sail under the bridge.  We saw several other Tribers pulled up on shore on the eastern side pulling down their masts and walking under the bridge.  We followed suit and were through and going again in about 20 minutes.

Macatawa and MisterMoon pulling the boats under the Anna Maria Island bridge

We continued to sail near two Core Sound 17 sailboats, one sailed by MisterMoon and the other by DragonSlayer and SmokinJoe.  We repeated the procedure at the next bridge and continued to short tack down the narrow northern end of Sarasota Bay.  Eventually the bay opened up and we were able to sail some longer tacks.  It was now afternoon and the wind was 20+ knots, still from the south.  Sarasota Bay is very long with lots of fetch, and the waves continued to knock us around.  As afternoon turned to evening, we decided that we would end our day early rather than continue to be beat up by the wind and waves.  We watched the sun sink over Longboat Key and made one final tack towards shore.  We found a nice mangrove to tie up to that protected us from the wind and settled down for a nap in the boat.

Route for day 1:
We square symbol with the three lines shows where we "camped" for the night