Leaving Cape Coral Sunday, the plan was to fuel up and get ice at Ft.Meyers Beach, and head out Sunday night. As things always seem to happen, this plan got thrown out when we got to Ft.Meyers too late and the fuel dock was closed, so departure was delayed until Mon. morning. Fueled up and with a box full of ice we headed offshore in the morning, rounding the south end of Sanibel Island and setting a northerly course. The winds were very light and dead on the nose, so our trip starts out with the diesel pushing us along at 5 1/2 knots. Weather forecast was for 10 to 15 knots of breeze, but it just wasn't there. Our origional intentions were to set a course towards Appalachicola, then head west when we got a little above 29 north. By Mon. afternoon, forecast hadn't changed, and we fell off west about 10 degrees, and made a course for Mobile. This would shave off a few miles, and probably keep us out of any major currents. Mon. night we had a lightning show behind us, and in front of us, but long way off and winds stayed light and on the nose. Early Tues. morning we got a little bit of the seas off the storms, but just a little lumpy, and nothing much. Tuesday, winds started to clock around to the east, but still very light, but we managed to sail some. Tuesday night we had another lightning show, this time in front, behind and off to starboard. Broke out the rain gear, and waited. But it all missed us again. Winds did pick up some, but the seas stayed pretty calm, and we finally got really sail the boat. A 12 hour run netted 75 miles, now were cooking. By Wed. morning winds are back down to 5 to 10 knots, and boat speed is way down again. So we motor sail. Wed. was the bad day. We had two stoves on board, a built in alcohol stove and a little propane unit. We had a full gallon of alcohol so should have plenty of cooking fuel. Then the first time we tried to pump up the alcohol tank, the pump broke. So we are totally dependent on the little propane stove, and only have one small bottle of propane. Hot meals are going to be rare. Wed. night late, Peter is on watch, when the auto pilot goes off. Peter woke me up, not knowing for sure whats up. Low voltage. HMMMMMMMMMM Whats this. Then we notice some water on the cabin sole around the engine shroud. Water line on the engine is split, and it's spraying on the alternator belt. It's charging just enough to put out the warning light, but not enough to keep the battery up. I had replaced the alt. belt before we left, and it has stretched a little, and the water just made it slip. A quick look shows the hose is split right above a hose clamp. Someone way overtightened the hose clamp in the past, and it just cut the hose off at the top edge of the clamp. An easy fix, remove the cut off hose end, replace the clamp and tighten up the belt. Off we go again. But still having to motor sail as very light winds. This continued untill Thurs. afternoon, when the wind just totally died. By 5pm Thursday, we still have the sails up but it is purely wishing. By now we are concerned that we will not have enough fuel to motor all the way back, if we don't get any breeze. Throttle back to a fast idle, which is just about 4 knots, and keep on going. If worst comes to worst, we will get close enough to call Tow Boats for some diesel. This is the way we came back, and we did make it on diesel. Using a dipstick to check the fuel levels, we ran for 24 hours on approx. 6 gallons. Engine is a Yanmar 2QM15. At normal cruise it burns about 1/2 gallon an hour, so cutting back throttle really makes a difference. Some pretty strange things though. We never saw a single dolphin until we got west of Pennsacola. We saw four large turtles which is more than would be expected, and absolutely zillions of flying fish. And never got into any glowing algae at night. This is a good solid boat. Can't give you much info. on it's sailing abilities, as we only had the one stretch where we had any wind, and were sailing pretty close hauled for that 12 hour period. But under that point of sail, it's pretty fast. Overall this is the calmest trip I can remember across the Gulf. Seas were generally in the 1 to 3 foot range, sometimes 2 to 4, and there might have been an occasional 5 footer, when the thunderstorms were roaming around us, but pretty rare. Check out the water in the attached photo.
