The weather lately has been cool at night and windy all day. The temperature has been getting a bit warmer during the day, but the wind just hasn’t stopped. We had decided to go to Apollo Beach for a few reasons. We had some time to kill before our reservations in Sarasota, and we didn’t want to travel too far in this weather. Tampa Bay is quite large and can get rough. When we left our dock at the Tampa Convention Center we were fairly tucked in and protected, but once we got to the open water everything changed…
Once we got to the open waters, the waves were building. We had thought that the direction the wind was coming from would make it a smooth ride. We were wrong. The waves were hitting us from the side, or beam, and rocking us back and forth. Luckily the marina we were heading to was only ten miles away. We pulled into the channel and were suddenly in the middle of commercial traffic again. There were large boats coming and going, increasing the un-comfort of the already uncomfortable ride. We ended up allowing a tug to pass us, as we were going to be turning into the channel to the left. I called on the radio and told him our intentions, and he replied with a “thank you”, but I sensed some hesitation which made me look at the chart a bit more closely. I had thought we could make the turn into the channel and cut across to the other channel we wanted to be in. Upon looking closer, it seemed to be too shallow to cut through. Maybe this is why I heard the hesitation? we were turning into a commercial traffic channel to a power factory and we really had no business turning into it… Confused, I aborted and turned around in the channel to get back out to the main channel. Looking at the charts, there was no real clear way to get to where we wanted to be without going through charted shallow waters. There must be a way in!? I followed the deepest water I could find on the charts and Lauren and I watched the depth finder closely as it continued to drop in depths… We got to around four and a half feet of water as I was approaching and that is our lowest possible to still be floating. I felt a slight brush with the bottom but was finally to the marked channel which is kept to a minimum of five feet. Whew! The wind was still blowing, but now we were behind the island and more protected. We came around the bend and in front of us was a wall that ran parallel to the channel. I saw no marking on which side to go on and this scared me. Luckily there were some fisherman in a boat and I called out to them asking “which side do I go?” They were pleasant and told me the correct side and how to get to the marina we were looking for. We worked our way to the end and turned toward the marina. I called on the phone as directed and the dockmaster told me he was not on site at the moment to help, but explained where our dock was.
The final turn to the docks brought us directly into the wind again. The winds were now around 15+mph and expected to increase throughout the night. We made the turn and saw that we were going to be between two boats with nothing in between except one wood post in the rear, and it was a super skinny spot. On top of this, it was going to be a tricky maneuver to get us turned into the spot with the wind. On the first approach, we almost had it, but not quite. I was afraid of banging into the sailboat next to us and the wind started pushing me the wrong way. I called out to Lauren “abort! abort!- I’m backing out and doing this again!” She acknowledged and I shifted to reverse. Now the current and wind were working against me. I eventually got us backed out and noticed a shipyard worker in a small excavator watching us. I got us backed out and was ready to start another approach and saw him working his way toward the dock to assist. Yay! Sometimes a hand is needed. We came back toward the dock and I started the maneuvers again, this time getting it right. Lauren was able to toss a line to the helper, and I was able to get the stern line secured with only a minor ‘pineapple’- our code word for ‘we’re going to hit something!’ before securing the ship. We have come to accept the fact there will be some slight ‘bumps’, and since we’re steel, we’re not too worried about it unless its another boat. Once the lines were secure and Frank had his walk, the bikes were unloaded and we were ready to explore.
Our ride took us a few miles to the Manatee Viewing Center, which is where the warm water that is discharged from the power plant is now a refuge for manatees. More big business propaganda at its finest. After this, we rode to a grocery store a couple of more miles away to get some supplies. At this point it was getting to be dusk and there were no breweries within biking distance, so we headed back toward the boat. The rest of the night was spent having dinner and researching our next destination. We were unsure of where this would actually be, but the weather was not settling down yet, and we felt we wanted to get farther south as soon as possible to get to the ‘good’ weather. an anchorage in Bradenton was an option, as well as some other anchorages nearby, but the weather may dictate where we end up if and when we leave tomorrow…