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April 4, 2009
"Be sure the toilet works," Linda would tell me repeatedly. Both did. The heads can either flush overboard or into a tank. The tank can either be drained by a pump on the boat called a macerator or at a pump station on a dock. One of the toilets (head in boat lingo) has an electric flush that sounds like a small chain saw. The other has a hand pump. There are a myriad of pipes running here and there. I didn’t understand them when we left on this voyage. I asked several people who gave me ideas on how the head plumbing worked but even they didn’t know. I felt comfortable that I could dump the tanks at sea or get them pumped at a dock. Linda was happy. Off we went.
When we left Marco Island both of us thought about pumping out the tank, neither said or did anything about it. Our sail out of Marco Island was nice. Following seas and current similar to the trip from Shark River. However, there was much less wind and no white caps, just lazy waves and a nice breeze. The breeze wasn’t enough to push the boat as fast as we needed to go so we motor sailed. That means we had the sails up and motor running at about 1,500 rpm. It was a nice sail. We were tired though from the activity the previous day and took turns sleeping.
Sanibel Island is a barrier island protecting several other islands nestled in a bay called Pine Island Sound. Pine Island Sound branches out the much larger Charlotte Harbor. Punta Gorda sits on the south east edge of Charlotte Harbor. My friend Chris on the 35 foot Catalina left with others and a Captain and sailed straight through by sea to Galveston Bay. He probably left the same day we left Key Largo and is probably reaching Kemah today or tomorrow. My guess is they are tired.
All of the Sanibel Island area is a high dollar vacation spot with beautiful blue water and stark white sandy beaches. It is stunningly beautiful. As we sail along about three miles offshore we can sea the buildings and beaches. Any other time, they would be a great topic for discussion, but not this time.
Just before Sanibel Island, the aft (back) head (toilet) stopped up. In fact, it wasn’t stopped up, the holding tank was full. So, I switched on the macerator. Nothing happened. I pumped on the toilet. Nothing happened. Linda heated up. I twisted and turned, pushed and pulled but nothing, nothing made the tank dump. I could hear the macerator running but nothing happened. Linda heated up a little more. Her only request was to get the toilet running. I couldn’t.
Okay, but that’s not so bad. We are almost into port and we can have it pumped out. That didn’t cool her down but there was nothing to do. So, out came the waterway guide. This high dollar vacation spot has plenty of marinas. Only a couple have pump outs. So, we call South Seas Island Resort because it lists it has a pump station. "Oh yes, we have a pumping station" the nice lady on the phone said. "What is the best way to get there?" I ask. "Come in Redfish Pass, follow the channel, stay away from the seawall, turn right as soon as you get in. A five foot draft is not problem" Cool. We were only about 4 miles from Redfish Pass so that is where we decided to turn in.
I call Bill, our west coast of Florida local knowledge guy as well as our mentor. "I don’t know about Redfish Pass. I think you should go on down to Boca Granda and enter there. You may have to back track a few miles but it’s a good deep inlet." Bill left wiggle room though. "Of course, you could contact Sea Tow and get local information. Maybe they can tell you if Redfish Pass is okay."
I dig out my wallet and the Sea Tow card. Call Sea Tow and am routed to a local Sea Tow location that assures me it is fine to come into Redfish Pass but to stay along the sea wall. "That’s good to know, I said. The girl at South Seas said to stay away from it," I said. "No, stay near it," he emphasized.
We head to Redfish Pass. The GPS (Chartplotter in boat language) says there are red and green bouys to mark the way in. Usually you can see the buoys about a half mile out. Not at Redfish Pass. The buoys were barely visible a hundred yards out. I found them by watching other boats going in. "I don’t see any sailboats going in," Linda said with that cautious tone. But, the Sea Tow locals had assured me we would be fine. So, in we went at the slowest possible safe speed. Boats were piling up behind us, even a very large motor yacht. But, they waited patiently probably thinking they wished I would get out of the way.
After considerable concern and fear, we made it through the pass easily. In fact, the pass was about 20 feet deep. Nothing to worry about. Now, we head to South Seas Marina. South Seas is a luxury condominium, timeshare or something or other. It has a very narrow harbor and I ease in carefully and dock. No one comes to help me dock despite the fact that I requested assistance at least three times. A guy getting out of his boat helped though and we were soon snug to the dock. Linda wasn’t a bit cooler.
We go in the marina office and this cutesy blond girl is busy working the radio and phone and helping give directions. "Hi, I’m on the Royal Crescent and we need to pump out," I say relieved that I will finally get Linda to cool down. "Oh, are you the boat that called me. We only pump out at 10:00 AM and you cannot stay here until then because we don’t allow nonmembers to stay here. I didn’t realize you meant you were coming in now." I could feel the heat coming from the side Linda was standing on. All sorts of conversations and calls were unsuccessful in finding a pumping station that would take us or that could take a boat our size and draft.
We ask about anchorages but no one knows of any. Are these people brain dead? They live here! Anyway we made our way out of that narrow harbor without hitting anything, cut across the bay to the intracoastal waterway and head toward Cabbage Key, a place Bill said was excellent. We called ahead...actually I called ahead because Linda would have melted the phone. We got reservations to dock and headed there. I thought we should dock because we could use the air conditioning to cool Linda down.
Cabbage Key turned out to be a great place. It had a bar and a restaurant and a few little cottages. It is a private island that boasts a 38 foot elevation, the highest in the area. It has a great little restaurant that I think was built in 1944 and has been really popular ever since. The walls of the restaurant are papered in one dollar bills, thousands of them. They invite people write a message on dollar bills and tape them to the walls. Periodically, they collect them all and donate them to a charity. I think it was a muscular dystrophy charity but I’m not certain. Of course we pasted a bill with "Royal Crescnet http://www.bringroyalcrescenthome.blogspot.com/ on it. I actually had to use two bills. I taped them in the most conspicuous place possible but I doubt anyone will see it or be able to read the URL but it would be fun if someone did.
We were extremely tired when we went to bed. The air conditioning was nice and Linda was even cool enough by now to sleep next to.
Our plan was to leave the next morning and head north up the intracoastal waterway about an hour or so to Uncle Henry’s marina. He had a pumping station and was willing to help us out. He was very nice and I even thought about calling him to see if he could have someone fix our system while we were there. The problem with this was we would be faced with the choice of backtracking an hour to get into the Gulf to turn back and head north or just head up the intracoastal waterway. Since Linda was cool enough to sleep next to, I though it might be best to let this rest until tomorrow..
Post again tomorrow
Royal Crescent.
"Be sure the toilet works," Linda would tell me repeatedly. Both did. The heads can either flush overboard or into a tank. The tank can either be drained by a pump on the boat called a macerator or at a pump station on a dock. One of the toilets (head in boat lingo) has an electric flush that sounds like a small chain saw. The other has a hand pump. There are a myriad of pipes running here and there. I didn’t understand them when we left on this voyage. I asked several people who gave me ideas on how the head plumbing worked but even they didn’t know. I felt comfortable that I could dump the tanks at sea or get them pumped at a dock. Linda was happy. Off we went.
When we left Marco Island both of us thought about pumping out the tank, neither said or did anything about it. Our sail out of Marco Island was nice. Following seas and current similar to the trip from Shark River. However, there was much less wind and no white caps, just lazy waves and a nice breeze. The breeze wasn’t enough to push the boat as fast as we needed to go so we motor sailed. That means we had the sails up and motor running at about 1,500 rpm. It was a nice sail. We were tired though from the activity the previous day and took turns sleeping.
Sanibel Island is a barrier island protecting several other islands nestled in a bay called Pine Island Sound. Pine Island Sound branches out the much larger Charlotte Harbor. Punta Gorda sits on the south east edge of Charlotte Harbor. My friend Chris on the 35 foot Catalina left with others and a Captain and sailed straight through by sea to Galveston Bay. He probably left the same day we left Key Largo and is probably reaching Kemah today or tomorrow. My guess is they are tired.
All of the Sanibel Island area is a high dollar vacation spot with beautiful blue water and stark white sandy beaches. It is stunningly beautiful. As we sail along about three miles offshore we can sea the buildings and beaches. Any other time, they would be a great topic for discussion, but not this time.
Just before Sanibel Island, the aft (back) head (toilet) stopped up. In fact, it wasn’t stopped up, the holding tank was full. So, I switched on the macerator. Nothing happened. I pumped on the toilet. Nothing happened. Linda heated up. I twisted and turned, pushed and pulled but nothing, nothing made the tank dump. I could hear the macerator running but nothing happened. Linda heated up a little more. Her only request was to get the toilet running. I couldn’t.
Okay, but that’s not so bad. We are almost into port and we can have it pumped out. That didn’t cool her down but there was nothing to do. So, out came the waterway guide. This high dollar vacation spot has plenty of marinas. Only a couple have pump outs. So, we call South Seas Island Resort because it lists it has a pump station. "Oh yes, we have a pumping station" the nice lady on the phone said. "What is the best way to get there?" I ask. "Come in Redfish Pass, follow the channel, stay away from the seawall, turn right as soon as you get in. A five foot draft is not problem" Cool. We were only about 4 miles from Redfish Pass so that is where we decided to turn in.
I call Bill, our west coast of Florida local knowledge guy as well as our mentor. "I don’t know about Redfish Pass. I think you should go on down to Boca Granda and enter there. You may have to back track a few miles but it’s a good deep inlet." Bill left wiggle room though. "Of course, you could contact Sea Tow and get local information. Maybe they can tell you if Redfish Pass is okay."
I dig out my wallet and the Sea Tow card. Call Sea Tow and am routed to a local Sea Tow location that assures me it is fine to come into Redfish Pass but to stay along the sea wall. "That’s good to know, I said. The girl at South Seas said to stay away from it," I said. "No, stay near it," he emphasized.
We head to Redfish Pass. The GPS (Chartplotter in boat language) says there are red and green bouys to mark the way in. Usually you can see the buoys about a half mile out. Not at Redfish Pass. The buoys were barely visible a hundred yards out. I found them by watching other boats going in. "I don’t see any sailboats going in," Linda said with that cautious tone. But, the Sea Tow locals had assured me we would be fine. So, in we went at the slowest possible safe speed. Boats were piling up behind us, even a very large motor yacht. But, they waited patiently probably thinking they wished I would get out of the way.
After considerable concern and fear, we made it through the pass easily. In fact, the pass was about 20 feet deep. Nothing to worry about. Now, we head to South Seas Marina. South Seas is a luxury condominium, timeshare or something or other. It has a very narrow harbor and I ease in carefully and dock. No one comes to help me dock despite the fact that I requested assistance at least three times. A guy getting out of his boat helped though and we were soon snug to the dock. Linda wasn’t a bit cooler.
We go in the marina office and this cutesy blond girl is busy working the radio and phone and helping give directions. "Hi, I’m on the Royal Crescent and we need to pump out," I say relieved that I will finally get Linda to cool down. "Oh, are you the boat that called me. We only pump out at 10:00 AM and you cannot stay here until then because we don’t allow nonmembers to stay here. I didn’t realize you meant you were coming in now." I could feel the heat coming from the side Linda was standing on. All sorts of conversations and calls were unsuccessful in finding a pumping station that would take us or that could take a boat our size and draft.
We ask about anchorages but no one knows of any. Are these people brain dead? They live here! Anyway we made our way out of that narrow harbor without hitting anything, cut across the bay to the intracoastal waterway and head toward Cabbage Key, a place Bill said was excellent. We called ahead...actually I called ahead because Linda would have melted the phone. We got reservations to dock and headed there. I thought we should dock because we could use the air conditioning to cool Linda down.
Cabbage Key turned out to be a great place. It had a bar and a restaurant and a few little cottages. It is a private island that boasts a 38 foot elevation, the highest in the area. It has a great little restaurant that I think was built in 1944 and has been really popular ever since. The walls of the restaurant are papered in one dollar bills, thousands of them. They invite people write a message on dollar bills and tape them to the walls. Periodically, they collect them all and donate them to a charity. I think it was a muscular dystrophy charity but I’m not certain. Of course we pasted a bill with "Royal Crescnet http://www.bringroyalcrescenthome.blogspot.com/ on it. I actually had to use two bills. I taped them in the most conspicuous place possible but I doubt anyone will see it or be able to read the URL but it would be fun if someone did.
We were extremely tired when we went to bed. The air conditioning was nice and Linda was even cool enough by now to sleep next to.
Our plan was to leave the next morning and head north up the intracoastal waterway about an hour or so to Uncle Henry’s marina. He had a pumping station and was willing to help us out. He was very nice and I even thought about calling him to see if he could have someone fix our system while we were there. The problem with this was we would be faced with the choice of backtracking an hour to get into the Gulf to turn back and head north or just head up the intracoastal waterway. Since Linda was cool enough to sleep next to, I though it might be best to let this rest until tomorrow..
Post again tomorrow
Royal Crescent.
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