Sailing to the Florida Keys III ~ New Horizons

December 2, 2011
Leaving Longboat Pass
Destination: Venice
25 Nautical Miles
Estimated Time: 6 hours

We left Longboat Pass at about 10:00 am, headed for Venice, Florida. Again we had to go through the Longboat Pass Bridge, asking the Bridge Tender to open the bridge for us. We headed south on the Gulf. At first, when we headed out it wasn’t so bad, the winds were coming from NE and sailing wasn’t so bad.

The sea was rolling a bit but not as bad as yesterday. Yesterday it seemed as if we were on a roller coaster that swayed from left to right but today, it wasn’t that bad. What was bad was the wind gusts! Boy! Those wind gusts came up all of a sudden and made the boat really heel to the right…when the wind gusts hit the boat it makes the bow want to go straight into the wind and make it go all crazy!!! It took all the strength in my hands to hold on to the wheel and straighten the boat out, but not too straight or else the boat heels more and it feels as if the boat is going to capsize.

On this leg of the trip Keith took the helm a little more then usual. Poor guy when he wasn’t jumping around trimming the sails or letting the jib out he was at the helm driving. I did give him some breaks. J

Maxi was a good boy too. He slept most of the day and towards evening we gave him a chew bone, one of the ones his brother John gave him for Christmas last year (the last one) and he happily laid in the cockpit chewing it down!!

We made really good time, we averaged about 4 knots for most of the way except for when the wind gusts came really bad and pushed us all the way to 7 knots!! That was scary when the wind gusts were so bad that it made us go that fast!

We made it into Venice Inlet by 4:30 pm. It was still light out and we felt really good. Thought we’d gotten in early enough to anchor, make dinner and relax for the evening.

Keith had done some research on the area…lots of comments about this anchorage from people passing by and wanting to anchor for the night. They said that it was great…that the channel was deep enough and that there were lots of areas where to anchor for sailboats. But as we were coming in…it looked really tight!

We had just turned into where we would be anchoring when, Thunk!! We ran aground!! I was ready this time and quickly reversed and got us off the sandbar!! Phewwwww!! This time I WAS watching the depth meter but the sandbar came upon us so fast there wasn’t anything left to do but reverse! Okay…so we got off that sandbar. We’d reversed and went another way…this way the channel was a bit deeper and we were able to almost get to the place where we were going to anchor…when AGAIN…Thunk!! We ran aground again!!! Again, I was able to reverse and get us OFF that sandbar. By this time the sun is setting…it’s getting darker and colder and we were pretty frustrated!! We found a deep enough area to anchor and called the Yacht Club…that is close to the city park…where we were suppose to anchor for the night. They told us that yes, they USE to have an area that sailboats could anchor but, since, the Yacht Club had taken up all that area, dredged the channel for their private use and for their members!! That we were not able to anchor there!! They sooooooooo kindly suggested we try the Crow’s Nest, a marina and pay for a slip and they also suggested that if we didn’t want to pay for a slip we could go back out into the Jetties (rock wall) of the Gulf and anchor.

We called the Crow’s Nest, they were in the process of closing for the day and they told us the fee was $2.00 a foot. We have a 30 footer so, with tax and all it would be $67. They told us that we would have to hurry, Keith told them he was going to talk to me and he’d call them right back. After talking about it a minute we decided to go ahead and get the slip for two nights but, by the time Keith called them back, they’d closed!! L By this time, Maxi had not gone potty for over 10 hours and he was beginning to whine. This was making Keith and me really anxious! We decided to go back out into the Gulf and anchor.

We hurried (as fast as the engine of the sailboat could go…which isn’t very fast) back out into the Gulf and anchored as quickly as possible so we could get Maxi off the boat and onto land to do his business. By this time it is really dark! We got into the dinghy and began to go ashore, only to find out that the Jetty extended wayyy out and there was no beach that we could see!! We decided to go check the other side of the jetties because we’d seen a beach on that side earlier when we were coming in. Of course, to do this we had to cross the entrance to the inlet in the dark. The waves coming in from the gulf were pretty strong. As we got close to the beach, the waves were so strong that it almost made the dinghy capsize and dumped a bunch of water into the dinghy! We were instantly soaked!! But, we made it to the beach! Poor lil guy Maxi!! He jumped out of the dinghy as soon as he saw the beach and instantly went potty! We went ahead and took him for a short walk down the beach. By this time we are so tired, we want to get back to the boat, make something quick for dinner and go to bed! So we put Maxi in the dinghy and Keith picks up one side of the dinghy and I pick up the other and we slide it into the water….a huge wave came crashing/roaring down into the dinghy…scares the hell out of Maxi who jumps out the dinghy onto the beach and just keeps running!!! It’s dark. The waves are coming in faster; I leave Keith and take off after Maxi!! *sigh* we had to get really stern with Maxi as we put him back into the dinghy; he was so scared and so was I! I didn’t know how we were going to keep Maxi in the dinghy while I helped Keith push the dinghy into the water and not be drowned by the waves!! We got the dinghy off the beach.We were in the dinghy, I had an oar and was pushing it down into the beach to push us off and into deeper water…Keith was trying to start the engine and it wouldn’t start!! It started on the third try!! We got off the beach and began our semi-long trip back to the boat in the dark, soaking wet! All of us, including Maxi were totally wet and trembling because the wind was blowing pretty hard and it was soooo cold!!

Well, we made it back to the boat without further incident. We had turkey avocado sandwiches for dinner and were in bed and fast asleep by 9 pm.

When we decided to anchor out in the Gulf we thought we’d do it for one night and the next, we would get a slip at the Crow’s Nest to rest, go to the grocery store, charge up the boat’s batteries and fill up the water tank.

Stay with us….More New Horizon Adventures coming right up!! J