04/06/2008 Sunday:  The seas have been flat all day. Variable and essentially no winds. We have been motoring. FYI the depth is close to 10,000 feet. Haven't seen anything all day except for one huge platform, two tankers, and 5 birds. The birds were weary travelers who came to rest on our boat for a short time.

Everything is working fine. It is a slow go. I have decided I much prefer to go E to W, or N to S, or S to N across the GOM. All of the above are better than W to E. It always seems the wind, the waves and the current are always working against you. Oh well, if I wanted to go fast, I wouldn't be in a sailboat.

I discovered in the wee hours of the morning that my batteries are not charging properly. They drain far too quickly. Fortunately, I have the engine, the generator, and plenty of fuel to keep them charged. I will have them replaced in Key West.

We'll keep chugging.

04/07/2008 Monday:  About 4:00 this morning I decided to quit fighting the wind, waves, currents, and batteries and sail with the wind to Panama City.  Great sailing last night. This morning guess what NE winds dead on the nose along with the waves. We have been fighting that all day again. Also had significant thunder & lightening storms with 30 to 35 knot winds gusting to at least 43. That has ended now and the sun is shining but the rollers are still coming from the NE along with the wind.
 

We plan to continue trucking to Panama City. I think the winds are supposed to move around to the SE later and that will be perfect for Panama City. Stay tuned. That why sailers can never tell you when they are going to meet you at a particular place.   Ken McCoin said sailing was like camping out. In some respects, it definitely is.  We are both fine. We both slept good last night and felt great this morning.

We haven't told anybody but Pat has actually had a stomach bug (not seasickness) since we left and has not felt well.  She has not talked very much, so all of you know she definitely wasn't up to her usual self.  Today, she is feeling much better.

04/09/2008 Wednesday, 19:32, 30 03.99N, 86 31.23W. We are approximately 38.6 miles west of Panama City.  Major catastrophe today!  During the cocktail hour, we were out of ice. We should have gotten the ice maker out earlier and made ice, but it was just too dang much trouble.  I did run the water maker today, however, to fill up one of our two tanks (the other one was full); just to make certain the watermaker still works.  It does. 

We had a good day even though the wind was still blowing 20 to 25 knots and 5 to 6 foot seas most of the day (both almost directly on the nose). It finally settled down about 17:00 PM to 2 to 3 foot seas, sunshine, and 15 knot winds. Perfect.  We have poked along to time our arrival in Panama City tomorrow morning. We are right on schedule.  Don't expect too many phone calls tomorrow. We will check in, wash down the boat, and go to bed (hey, hey, hey)!  We'll catch up you later and work the battery and auto pilot problems.  Life is tough!

Saturday April 19th:  Leaving Panama City about 1:00PM for destinations south.

Sunday April 20, 2008:  28 40.96N and 84 38.63W 

We finally got off from Panama City Marina Saturday at 15:00.  The seas were rough.  The wind and waves were piling up and pushing into the channel dead on the nose.  The seas were only about 6 to 7 feet but they were rolling in fast and pounding. 

After we cleared the channel and turned off the wind it became quite wonderful.  We sailed all night long south and then later east. 

The seas were 6 to 18 feet and the wind was blowing at 35 knots all day today.  Whoops, that's a typo.  Make that 6 to 18 inch seas and 3.5 knots of wind.  The wind almost totally died this morning so we motored most of the day.  We started sailing again a couple of hours ago, but the wind is still only about 5 knots so we are barely making 3.3 knots SOG.  Fortunately, the winds are out of the west so we can sail SE.

The sun was shining and warm all day, so Pat & I started working on our tans.  The water and sunshine are so gorgeous here.  I can't believe there are not more boaters on the water.  We only saw the lights on two boats all night last night; and have seen only about 1/2 dozen or so today -- mostly fishermen.  It is amazing too that there are absolutely no rigs, platforms, or workboats. 

Don't know for sure where we will be stopping next we are generally headed toward Tampa Bay and/or Fort Meyer.  We will probably skip Tampa Bay and go on to Sanibel Island or Marco Island.  But, it is too early to tell.

Monday April 21, 2008:  Time 5:55 PM (CST)  27 18.46N 83 03.27W  Trucking 139 degrees at 5.5 knots motor sailing.  Winds less than 4 knots.  Seas less than two feet.

Another beautiful day with no wind.  Oh well, I am not a sailing purist.  If I can sail at two knots or crank the engine and do 5.5 knots, I crank the engine.

But, beautiful blue water, sunny skies, a boat, destinations with white sand, and Pat to share it with me.  It doesn't get better.

We motor sailed most of the day making near 6 knots while burning only about 1/2 gallon an hour of diesel.  We did sail for several hours making only 2.5 knots to give the engine a rest.

We are 71 miles out of Sanibel Island.  We should arrive there sometime in the morning.  It looks great except the marina only has 6 feet of water at low tide.  That should be enough.  We are tentatively planning to spend a couple of nights there before moving on.  If we don't like what we see in the morning, we'll just keep trucking south.

Sanibel Island is supposed to have the top shelling places in the world, so they say.  We'll see.

Nothing else new.  Very little marine traffic.  We have already passed the Tampa Bay entrance and only saw three large ships this afternoon.

Tuesday April 22, 2008:  26 27.00 N and 82 01.89W.  We are currently at dock at Sanibel Marina on Sanibel Island in San Carlos Bay.  We arrived at the sea buoy at 07:45 this morning which is still about three hours from the Marina.  At 8:15 we called the marina (no reservations) and were told they would have a slip for a couple of nights but we would have to wait until it was vacated.  So we tootled about for a couple of additional hours sunning on a beautiful day, checking out the bay and trying to get an exact handle on the entrance to the marina.  The marina says it has 6 feet of water.  The Sun Dream draws 5 feet 2 inches.  It should have been high tide when we came in so I was expecting more than 8 feet of water.  The lowest I saw was 6 feet 5 inches.  Glad it wasn't low tide.  We finally arrived at the fuel dock at about 12:00, topped off our diesel, and moved to end of a small dock.  Not really big enough for the Sun Dream but it works.  We are the only sailboat here.  All others are power boats and most in the 25 to 30 ft range.  They can only accommodate about 6 to 8 larger boats (sail or power)on the ends of the docks.

Haven't seen much of the island yet.  Had to have a short nap to try to get back on a landlubbers schedule.  Everything we have seen though would be a perfect shot for a picture postcard.

We'll take pictures and try to update the website tomorrow.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008:  We had a relaxing day.  Slept really good last night for seven whole hours.  It was great.  While Pat did the laundry, I put the dinghy in the water.  We spent almost 4 hours in the dinghy exploring just the canals near the marina.  It seems almost every house is built on a canal – at least in this area.  There are some great houses with handy boats on the canals.  Florida is a state I could live in.  We ate lunch today at “Grandma Dot’s,” a supposedly great restaurant right here at the marina.  It was very good.  The grouper sandwich and the fish & chips were excellent.

I have finished updating the website. If you have time, check out the new pictures.

We have decided to go ahead and leave Key West Friday for Marathon, FL. We have to keep moving. Time is running out for this trip; but there will be others.