The Longest 800 Miles!!

We arrived in Florida on Monday 5-19-08 with intentions of leaving that weekend. Unfortunately we were held up a few days by some things that needed to be finished up with the boat. I spent the majority of my time in Florida relaxing and helping out with the boat repairs. As we were backing the boat up to get fuel and take off, Dan realized too late that the boat wasn’t shifting correctly. We plowed into another boat in the marina and mangled the other boat with our anchor. It was probably one of the most chaotic 15 min of my life as we tried to get a 30,000 Lbs boat out of the marina with out hitting another boat. At this point Dan decides with out reverse he was not going to attempt to stop at the fuel dock. With all this going on, and the waves were fairly large, I was seriously considering jumping off the side to swim back to shore. All I could think about is how I didn’t want to get seasick while stuck on a boat in the middle of the gulf with no fuel, and who knows what else would go wrong. To go along with all this, sailboats have a cruise control that will make the boat hold a bearing degree that you tell it to. We had spent the whole week waiting for the mechanic to fix the auto-pilot and finely decided that he was not capable of fixing it, so we left anyway. All I heard was "It’s going to really suck if you guys sail that far and not have the auto-pilot". I have to be really honest, I was extremely nervous. After 10 miles I knew I was getting sick. The other kicker was after looking at our top speed if the conditions were awesome we would make it in 7 days if we sailed through the night. For the first few days getting adjusted to the motion was definitely hard to do. On our first night out, I woke up to the boat shaking so violently I was sure we were either really damaged or going to sink. Everything inside the boat was scattered everywhere and I was being tossed around like a rag doll. When I poked my head outside and saw the waves coming at the boat were at least 10’ higher then where I was standing I almost shit my pants! Fortunately the morning came fairly quickly and the waves got a lot smaller. After throwing up a few times, I started to feel better and realized quickly that the only thing that was severely damaged was my appetite. After a few days of not eating much, things actually started to get a lot better. I got adjusted to the movement and was able to enjoy myself a lot more. When I left I said "I want to slow my life down a little", Sailing is exactly that. After 8 days of sailing it felt like we were flying when we would get up to 6 mph. There is plenty of time to just think and look at water flow by. I occupied my time reading a book, listening to my Ipod, and just relaxing! It was surprising to how many platforms we saw scattered all over the gulf. Although we saw a fair amount of really large ships, I didn’t see one smaller vessel more then 20 miles off shore. We spent very little time running the engine and although we tried to conserve water on day 6 we ran out of both fuel and water in our holding tanks. The only way left to make it was with the sails. One of the biggest disappointments was we never stopped so we could fish. I would fish, and when we would get one it was not possible to stop in time so it would just snap my 80lb test. The last few days out we really had to conserve power so enjoying the extra things like cold drinks and lights were not an option anymore. Because we were out of water we could not rinse off or wash dishes. I was definitely feeling a little on the gross side! On day 7 our toilet quit working and we had to resort to the bucket or off the edge of the boat. On day 8 we finally saw land again, and as we were trying to navigate into Corpus Christi we found ourselves stuck in the mud. At this point we were all ready to get off the boat and get back to civilized life. At almost 1K for the tow boat expenses, we were finally out and able to make it the final 15 miles to shore. We got the boat parked, had a great lunch and we headed back to Austin so that I could catch my flight on Wednesday 6-4-08. All and all, I have to say it was an experience that I will always remember and has changed my view on things. I would not be able to give you the answer if it is something I would ever do again, yet I would not trade my experience for the world.