NUTS & BOATS The monthly newsletter for to-be and already-are cruisers 2006 #2
Publisher: Trish Lambert
www.takehersailing.com
(C) P. Lambert 2006
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NUTS & BOATS The monthly newsletter for to-be and already-are cruisers Volume 4, Issue #3 - February/March 2006
Publisher: Trish Lambert
www.takehersailing.com
(C) P. Lambert 2006
Welcome to our new subscribers! IN THIS ISSUE
If you would like to get your own free subscription, use the box at the right to subscribe. OUR PRIVACY POLICY
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CRUISING MUSING
The Dog Days of Winter, Florida Style by Skip Randall February 2006-- I was sipping my morning coffee in the cockpit, admiring the emerging fine winter day, when the urge hit. Got to get out on the water. In my book, spontaneous sailing days often turn out to be the best. It had been a while, so it would good to get the juices flowing, mine and the boat’s. I flipped on the VHF and got the latest forecast from “monotone Mike.” Northwest winds at 10 to 15 knots, slim chance of rain, and temps in the low 70s. Nothing to stop me there. By midmorning, the sail covers were off, the dinghy was overboard and tied off to the dock, and I was reversing out of the slip. What a gorgeous day! I had a nice 15-knot breeze on the beam and all of Choctawhatchee Bay as my personal playground. It was just me, a few dolphins and some seagulls and pelicans. There was only one other craft out there, a sailboat way on the other side of the bay. I flipped on the autopilot and kicked back, went below to make a sandwich, and came back up to dine al fresco and underway. After lunch I flopped over to the other beam reach and headed back at a leisurely pace across the bay, with autopilot still at the helm. Finally, as a beautiful sunset shaped up, I headed back to the marina and eased Nehalennia into her slip. That was last week. Now I’m sitting inside a battened-down cabin with rain pelting the deck. I’m up to my neck in thermals, woolies, and fleece. A rude cold front has sagged down from somewhere in the Midwest, bringing cold north winds and plummeting temperatures. Such is winter here on the Gulf Coast. I will probably have another great sailing opportunity in a week or so, but today it definitely feels like winter—but not as much as some of my more recent winters. I think back to my very first taste of East Coast winters, five years ago in Annapolis, Maryland. What a difference a dozen or so degrees in latitude makes! I had moved Nehalennia from San Diego in mid-September and enjoyed a great two months of fall sailing on the Chesapeake. But by Thanksgiving, the dominant sound in the marina was the rumble of the travel-lifts as boat after was hauled from first light to dusk. By Christmas the marina resembled a ghost town, with those few boats still in the slips tarped over and winterized. Then came sleet, snow, ice, freezing rain--all the hallmarks of a midAtlantic winter. Sailing was a dim memory; life was a matter of cold weather survival for this stubborn liveaboard. A couple of years ago I spent the winter in Charleston (South Caroline) for the winter. Much different scene. Even though it got cold, the water never froze, and a few hearty souls were occasionally out sailing on the bay. And now, on the Florida Panhandle, I’m closer in climate to my original sailing grounds—San Diego, California. San Diego and Niceville, though at about the same latitude, are vastly different in attitude. San Diego sailors don’t have a handle on winter. Anything below, say, 50 degrees is considered “bitter cold.” The perennial great weather has been a huge people magnet, and now the area is seriously overpopulated (with the accompanying cars and boats as well). So on a nice winter day like the one I had earlier this month, San Diego Bay is clogged with vessels of all descriptions--from trawlers, to tour (“party”) boats, to container ships, to Navy subs and destroyers. It can be like driving the flippin’ freeway at rush hour. Kick back in the cockpit? No way. Go below to make a sandwich? I think not, unless I want to risk getting T-boned by another vessel. So, after wintering on all three coasts (West, East and Gulf), I’ll take my stretch of the Florida Panhandle any day. Well, perhaps any day except between June 1 and November 30. If it weren’t for those pesky hurricanes and the muggy summer weather, this place would be a sailor’s paradise. Then again, it probably would be way overcrowded. I guess you just can’t have it all, all the time. And I am glad that I spent one winter in the frozen north (okay, frozen midAtlantic)--it makes me appreciate the dog days of winter, Florida style. | 
