We finally got our outboard back, after waiting a whole week for our fuel pump to come in. Casey brought it back to us, we fired it up and Brad cruised around a bit to make sure it worked. Then we immediately loaded it up onto the boat, along with the dinghy and lashed everything down in preparation of our sail the following day. After waiting for way too long, we were finally ready to head out!
Most people go out for a few shakedown cruises before heading out on their first long passage - meaning small little sails to make sure all the systems are working properly and nothing else needs repairing. We couldn't be bothered by such things, of course, so we were up before the sun on a cloudy, cold Friday morning. We had everything ready to go and were ready to throw off the docklines for good, when we realized that our GPS had mysteriously stopped working. So, we had to pull up the helm floorboard panel and soder some wires before we were ready to go - for real this time.
The sun had just come up when we finally pulled out of the slip and said goodbye to St Pete. We headed out into the Tampa Bay and pointed the boat South towards the Keys. Little did we know that that one hour of sunshine would be the only sun we would see for a full 24 hours.
The wind was light on our stern as we headed out into the Gulf and after sailing somewhat slowly for a few miles, we decided to be brave and throw out our spinnaker. The spinnaker is a large, kite-like sail that you only use (in the case of our asymmetrical sail) when the wind is slightly behind the beam. It is usually bright and colorful and ours was no exception. Having never even pulled it out of the bag, I wasn't even sure what the color scheme was - I was not to be disappointed. This sail is one of the brightest, most colorful things I have ever seen - and not in a good way. But, it did the trick and for a few hours we were making great speed with the spinnaker.
A little bit before sundown, we pulled the spinnaker in and just sailed with the mainsail as there wasn't enough wind to sail with the jib. We did get a small peak of sun at sunset, but only enough to let us know if was still up there. By this point, having not seen the sun, we were already chilled to the bone, and once the sun set it only got worse.
You would think having sailed for so many years that by this time we would have learned to listen to our advice. As the sun was setting, we debated putting a reef in, just in case the wind piped up overnight. But, as usual, we didn't listen to ourselves and we carried on with full sails a-blazing. And sure enough, in the middle of the night, the wind and waves picked up and we were flying! It was good wind though and we were able to control her and make great time.
During our 4 am shift change, I came upstairs at exactly the right time - the jib picked that second to magically unroll itself and start flapping around uncontrollably in the wind. We immediately winched it in so that it wasn't flying around, but with the added sail out, we were now to the point where the boat was getting harder to control. We tried to roll her back up, but of course, that was impossible. So, our only option was to take it down. Brad hooked himself onto the jacklines and crawled up to the bow, where I could barely see him. While bouncing up and down on the waves, we managed to wrestle the jib down and somehow drag it back to the cockpit. We also decided at this point, we had had enough of the crazy sailing and we put a reef in the mainsail.
The next few hours were a bit more comfortable and when the sun came up we were in sight of Marco Island. The wind was perfect for heading farther down south, but we were both freezing cold and exhausted and decided to head into Marco for some R & R.
Oh, and most importantly, the autopilot worked!!! We didn't try it in the heavier winds, we opted to hand steer, but at least for the majority of the trip, it was great being able to just monitor the sailing instead of hand steering through it all!!
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