Panama City

We pulled into Panama City Marina -- very inexpensive -- last Thursday right ahead of a line of thunderstorms. We'd left Carrabelle, actually just off Dog Island, on Wednesday morning, and hoped for a quick and uneventful trip around the capes, but ran into heavy thunderstorms that afternoon just south of Cape St George.

I'd modified my reefing lines since the last storms on the Ft Meyers to Carrabelle trip, but then waited too long to reef, and had a little trouble. I tried to pull in the jib first, but in 30+ knot winds found I couldn't physically do it, so I had to use one of my jib winches. That worked great, but I still had to reef the main.

I let loose the halyard and went forward -- I'd already let the sheets fly -- but had a lot of trouble getting her down. I even rigged a downhaul thinking it was due to the high winds. I wasn't able to get it down far enough to hook the cringle, but figured with the down haul around the winch and cleated to the mast, it was good enough.

However, when I got back to the cockpit, I discovered the clutch was stuck. As soon as I popped it, the mainsail sagged, so I went forward again and hooked it. This is at least the second time I've had this happen, so I should have known better. Anyway, we hove to for a bit, then I put out some jib, and we began fore reaching south away from the shoals until it passed over and the winds died down. By this time we'd cleared the first cape and could head more northerly.

The winds were mostly from the SW, the direction we needed to go, so progress was slow, however, we were only about 30nm from Panama City at dawn the next day. At this point, we were around the capes and should have had an easy run up the coast, but without a whisker pole, we couldn't sail too far off the wind, only 5-10, without the headsail collapsing and loosing way. The forecast for the afternoon called for worse thunderstorms than the day before, so I decided to go ahead and motor sail to beat it in, which we just did.

The marina was only 1.12/ft, so I decided to go ahead and come in for a few days to make it a little easier to visit my Marine buddy, Terry, and his family. They took me out to breakfast and later to dinner on Friday, and I took Terry out sailing Saturday. They also took me over to WM to pick up some gear I needed to setup my whisker pole.

I epoxied the end back on today, but also need to setup the new blocks I picked up for the guy lines. Once I do that, get water and fuel, we'll be ready to go. The only question now is where.

I don't see any reason not to go out to the gulf, although the winds might be pretty light. I can work my way a little south and west to check out my whisker pole, then either continue on or head back in and wait for weather. I figure we can go as far as Biloxi before we have to commit.

Hopefully I'll be able to post another entry before we head out, but it's quite possible the next one will be in Galveston -- at least I hope so. However, I'll still be posting my position on shiptrak.org, NV5L, so you can always follow me there.