Ship’s Log
Joanna
Skipper: Bruce Barker
(member #128)
Last updated: May 20, 2001 @ 12:07 CST
Editor’s
Note: V/MYC member Bruce Barker has
departed on a solo voyage aboard Joanna, his 25’ MacGregor. I will post entries from his ship’s log as
they are received. For those wishing to
correspond with Bruce, write to:
Bruce Barker
PMB
Suite 823
101425
Overseas Hwy
Key
Largo, FL 33037
Following
is his account of his journey…
Bruce Barker – Aboard Joanna
Photo Album
December 22,
2000 - Blackwater Sound, Key Largo, FL.
December
28, 2000 – Blackwater Sound to Tarpon Basin, FL.
January
6, 2001 - Tarpon Basin, FL.
January
7, 2001 6:54 a.m. – Buttonwood Sound, FL.
January
8, 2001 9:46 p.m. – Buttonwood Sound to Little Card Sound, FL.
January 9, 2001 9:04 p.m. – Little Card Sound to Black Point,
Bay of Biscayne, FL.
January 10, 2001 7:56 a.m. – Culter Ridge
January 11, 2001 – Coconut Grove, Miami at Dinner Key
January 19, 2001 8:00 p.m. – Tarpon Basin, FL.
January 21, 2001 – South
Coast of Florida, Florida Bay, Everglades National Park
January 24, 2001 8:55 p.m. – Everglades National Park
January 30, 2001– Everglades National Park
Chapter
2: February 3-23, 2001 – Everglades National Park to Boot Key Harbor,
Vaca Key
Chapter 3: March 1-28, 2001 – Boot Key Harbor to Marathon, Vaca Key
Chapter 4: April 9-17, 2001 – Marathon, Vaca Key to Key Largo New
Chapter 5: May 1-11, 2001 – Buttonwood Sound to Coconut Grove, Miami New
December 22, 2000 - Blackwater Sound, Key Largo,
FL.
On
the 19th of this month, Joanna, my 25’ MacGregor, left her
trailer for the first time in a couple of years. My son and I towed her, with every thing I own in the back of a
Ryder truck, here to Key Largo.
Blackwater Sound on the bay side of Key Largo is going to be home until
I get things organized and prepared for travel.
Right
after launching we discovered water seeping in around the fitting where the cable
that pulls the keel up, comes through the hull. Weather was deteriorating so quickly I didn’t dare take her back
around to the leeward boat ramp so we sealed it with 3M 5200 fast cure. Water started coming through that, so we put
two more full 10 oz. Caulking tubes on it and got a motel room for the
night. The next morning it was barely
holding so we put two more tubes on it.
I ‘boxed in’ around the lead area with ridged foam insulation and
layered fiberglass the height of the dinette seats, 12”, so if it did give way
it wouldn’t flood the whole boat. Then
we unloaded the whole truck onto the boat.
I had cut out the inner hull under the cockpit so every space could be
packed… goodbye Styrofoam. With the
boat loaded, the new waterline was above the seats and above my boxed in
compartment. Remember the watertight
compartments in the Titanic that weren’t quite high enough? I’m going to raise the boxed in area later. I realize this wasn’t a proper repair but
I’m kind of a follower of David Crowhurst (see ‘The strange voyage of David
Crowhurst’), the English sailor who had to sail around the world and win the
prize money to save his failing business.
Prepared or not there was only one way for him to go… forward. No delays, no turning back. Although I don’t feel condemned to his same
fate, Joanna was not prepared for this but it was time for me to get out
of Dallas and move on. Forward we go,
with no delays, and no turning back.
Also, my son was in a hurry to tow the empty trailer back and get home
for Christmas. I better go now and get
working on this stuff. I smell the
makings of a disaster. But before I go,
I want to thank you all for making me feel welcome in the club. I don’t get out much and go to social
activities. I don’t usually fell like I
‘fit in’ anywhere. But you all did a
good job of being friendly and making me feel ‘apart of’. Thanks.
December 28, 2000 – Blackwater Sound to Tarpon
Basin, FL.
I
woke up this morning and Joanna wasn’t laying bow to the wind as the
other two anchored boats were. On
investigation I found that she had entangled herself in the anchor trip
line. It was around her rudder and swim
ladder. What happened? First, I won’t leave the swim ladder down
any more. Other than that, the wind had
died during the night, very light and variable. She apparently turned around without swinging around the
anchor. I had used poly for the trip
line, which floats. So when she turned
around, the trip line wrapped around her.
If I had used nylon, maybe she would have gone over the top of it, like
she did the anchor line. A disaster
usually has several contributing factors.
The only one missing here was a strong blow towards land. Joanna could have dragged her anchor
by the trip line and we could have hit an expensive anchored boat, rocks, docks
with expensive boats, or maybe even an expensive beach house. Don’t some GPS units have an audible drag
anchor warning? I guess I could use the
depth gage as a last minute warning assuming we don’t hit any anchored boat on
the way to shore.
I
can navigate! We are to have strong
winds from the West so I decided it would be a good time to move Southwest to
Tarpon Basin, a more protected area which will also be closer to supplies. It required following the ICW (Intercoastal
Waterway) which wasn’t visible where I was.
So I had to take coordinates (latitude and longitude) off the navigation
chart, enter them into the GPS as waypoints, make a route, then just follow the
arrow on the GPS. I tried to figure the
latitude and longitude of the first waypoint, but every time I checked it I
would get different numbers, too different.
I’ve read tape measures all my life and now I can’t figure a scale on
the border of a navigation chart? My
memory of trying to navigate Texas highways from Amarillo to Dallas last summer
and ending up in Oklahoma began to haunt me.
But on the third try I got it right.
From that time on it got easier.
I found when rechecking a number of coordinates taken off the chart, its
faster and easier to spot errors by checking all the latitudes and then
checking all the longitudes. It’s like
mass production. I did my waypoints and
routes and weighed anchor. I had to
motor the 2-1/2 miles, as Joanna is not ready to sail yet. With the GPS in my lap I followed the arrow
and I couldn’t believe it when I entered the 100 ft. wide cut maybe 5 yards off
of center. That navigation stuff really
works! I am much encouraged and many
fears have abated.
I
set up one of the solar panels late today for the first time. I’ve been running off the #1 battery now for
a week and it’s just now down under 12 volts.
I should have set both panels up yesterday and earlier today. About all I run is an anchor light made out
of a couple of utility lights which I pull up to the spreaders, and a cabin
light I run about 6 hours every night.
The cabin light I use is a 12 volt, 12” fluorescent I got a Home
depot. It was inexpensive, puts out
enough light to read, write by, and clean toe jam (very important since daily
showers aren’t available). And the
light only uses 0.4 amps. A separate
adapter has to be bought at Radio Shack though to kook it up to the boat wiring
(just the plug end).
January 6, 2001 - Tarpon Basin, FL.
Maybe
doing your laundry by throwing it over-board in a net bag wasn’t meant for
8-foot depths with a grass and mud bottom.
A
fellow yachtsman told me I wouldn’t need a trip line on my anchor unless there
was a rocky bottom so I took it off.
January 7, 2001 6:54 a.m. – Buttonwood Sound, FL.
That
same fellow yachtsman told me about hot showers, washing machine and daily
dingy dock space at a trailer park called Smilin’ Islands off Buttonwood Sound
so I move yesterday and had my first hot shower. Anchored N25o 05.493’ W80o 27.119’
Joanna – In front of Pelican Island,
Buttonwood Sound
January 8, 2001 9:46 p.m. – Buttonwood Sound to
Little Card Sound, FL.
What
it took for me to finally dress Joanna up in her sails was a
dentist. I broke a tooth over the
weekend and when I went to a dentist on the Keys and he wanted $135.00 to pull
a tooth, I figured I would just go to Miami and find a cheap dentist. So here I am anchored down half way to
Miami. I had a rough time today at the
drawbridge on U.S. 1 that goes to the Keys.
As I motored in toward the bridge there was a very large, expensive
yacht sitting there waiting for the bridge to rise. What I didn’t know was that he was sitting there running his
propellers in reverse because there was a heavy current going under the bridge. I thought I would just pull up behind him
and wait but when I put the motor in neutral Joanna didn’t stop. Reverse quite working a few days ago so I
didn’t have that option. All I could do
was push her hard to port, put the engine in gear and rev it up turning the engine
also to help turn her quick. I missed
the big yacht, barely missed a couple of docked boats at the marina right there
and continued around the channel in a 360.
Everyone was watching my clown act… the guy on the bridge, the people on
the yacht, and the people on the dock at the marina. You all will be happy to know I wasn’t wearing the club
T-shirt! Act one was coming to a
close. I know I could keep control of
my ship if I kept going in circles in the middle of the narrow channel but I
had too much pride for that. I wanted
to do it right. But I still wasn’t
aware of the current, it all happened so fast I didn’t have time to think it
through. I figured this time I would
pull up to the side of the other boat and drop anchor. That would stop me. Everything went well until the anchor
grabbed. As soon as the anchor grabbed
the stern started coming around, and fast.
That’s when I realized there was a strong current. Wouldn’t you know the stern would come
around on the port side where that big expensive boat was? I really think I would have missed him, but
he didn’t stick around to find out. He moved way back out of the way.
Little
Card Sound N25o 18.24’ W80o 22.35’
January 9, 2001 9:04 p.m. – Little Card Sound to
Black Point, Bay of Biscayne, FL.
N25o
31.50’ W80o 17.80’
Grounded
at N25o 22.30’ W80o 15.95’
You
will be glad to know that I wasn’t wearing my club T-shirt when TowBoat U.S.
pulled me off a shoal area in Biscayne Bay South of Miami today. A cold front blew through today and I was fighting
my way North with the full main and working jib when I got to a dredged
channel. I pulled the sails down so I
could motor North through this narrow channel against the North wind. I guess I took too long getting the sails
down and drifted out of the channel and grounded in 1-1/2’ of water. The tide was still dropping so I had the
anchor in the inflatable and was going to paddle out and set it so I could
winch Joanna out when a towboat came out of nowhere. Honest, I didn’t call for help. He must have felt sorry for me, as he didn’t
charge me for his services. I finally
made it to a suburb of South Miami, Culter ridge, and found a county park with
dock space. I rented two nights so I
could get to the dentist tomorrow.
Every muscle in my body hurts tonight.
Lesson
learned:
Don’t sail if you know a front is going to hit within an hour.
You can see the boom arm in
this photo. It was made to lift the
motor down into the inflatable. When I
use it, I hook the main halyard to the end of it. I use the boom vang for lifting.
You can see it hanging down from the end of the boom arm.
January 10, 2001 7:56 a.m. – Culter Ridge
I
feel like a cripple this morning. I
have a slight limp from pulling a muscle on the inside of my left thigh somehow
in the excitement yesterday. And my
left middle finger is wrapped up from closing my yachtsman’s knife on it. But I’m going to bicycle to the dentist. I wish I could shower first but this park
doesn’t have one.
January 11, 2001 – Coconut Grove, Miami at Dinner Key
N25o
43.39’ W80o 13.89’
I sailed to a suburb of Miami called Coconut Grove today. I anchored outside Dinner Key Marina at a crowded anchorage. Now I’m a lot more careful about the weather and taking more time for the navigation. Today’s sail of just over 17 miles in 5-1/2 hours was nice. And I got to use my brand new Genoa for the first time. But the marina here is not set up for live-aboards who anchor out. I still haven’t found a shower and I’m half scared to tie my dinghy anywhere. I’ve already been warned twice, “Lock up that nice inflatable.” Maybe I should sleep on it! They have good, inexpensive Cuban food here.
January 15, 2001 – Little Card Sound
N25o
17.90’ W80o 22.30’
I’m
on my way back to the Keys. I just
discovered the real reason I grounded in the storm. I made a mistake, either entering coordinates in the GPS or
taking them off the chart.
Lesson
Learned: If you do sail knowing a storm is about to
hit, take extreme care figuring your navigation points.
January 19, 2001 8:00 p.m. – Tarpon Basin, FL.
N25o
07.75’ W80o 25.35’
I’m
now back at Tarpon Basin off Key Largo again.
Finally back in familiar waters.
I lost some self-confidence with the bad navigation, the drawbridge affair
and the grounding. I hated the thought
of coming back under that drawbridge at Hwy 1, but I reached them on channel 9,
and they opened it for me. I’m sure the
drawbridge guy remembered me.
It took two days coming back from Dinner Key marina, Coconut Grove, Miami. The first day I had to motor, but today I sailed. I installed the autohelm while anchored off Dinner Key. What a wonderful invention for the single-hander. It makes sailing a real joy. I cooked breakfast while Mr. Autohelm was hard at work. As an added safety factory, I can now leave the tiller and check my progress on the charts. As a subtraction to the safety factor, it’s real easy to keep a poor watch with an autohelm. A number of times I came up out of the cabin and thought, “Where did that boat come from?” I only took the tiller through the cuts, one of which I had a minor grounding because I turned into the wake of a large craft, lost wind, got ‘caught in irons’, and in just that short period I was out of the channel. The motor got me out of it. I didn’t even raise the keel. I didn’t figure out ‘til later that when sailing, those wakes don’t roll you around, it’s just when motoring that you roll badly on those big wakes. So, all in all, my self-confidence has really fallen. I may go to the Everglades National Park and anchor awhile and lick my wounds.
January 21, 2001 – South Coast of Florida, Florida Bay, Everglades National Park
N25o
10.08’ W80o 38.82’
January 21, 2001 7:58 p.m. – Everglades National Park
A
Northern was expected to blow through Saturday night, so I spent Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday in town doing laundry, showering, grocery shopping, mail
drop, etc. before riding the South wind that precedes a Northern, North into
the Everglades national park. I needed
the South wind because with water depths of 5-6’, I was afraid to let the keel
down very far. I anchored about noon
Saturday 10 miles from civilization off a finger of land that juts out into
Florida Bay between Madeira Bay and Little Madeira Bay. I anchored off a NW shore and twenty mile
per hour winds from the South gave a pretty good chop with a 10-mile fetch for
the waves to travel but I was preparing for the wind shift to come. About an hour after anchoring down, I was in
the cabin writing a letter when there was a big whoosh and Joanna
instantly turned at anchor 90o from South to West. The waves from the South were hitting her on
the port beam and she was rolling wildly.
Somehow the boom had loosened and was swinging back and forth, the tiller
oscillating from one cockpit seat to the other, and a strong gusty West wind
was trying to blow the jib up the forestay.
I dealt with the jib first. I
had left it loosely tied to dry out as it got in the water when I was trying to
take it down. It was scary to be at the
bow with the boat rolling like it was.
On top of that, I was in my underwear and the wind had already turned
cold. A line of dark clouds was
overhead from Southwest to Northeast. I
figured myself lucky as toward the Southwest the dark clouds came all the way
to the surface. After tying the jib
down good, I secured the boom. I had it
tightened down and don’t know how it got loose. And I had bungee cords on the tiller, but I added two more and
got back into the cabin. Within a few
minutes the Southern waves had died down and I was protected to the West and
north so even though the wind was howling, Joanna laid pretty steady
until the winds got stronger about midnight.
I went out with the wind gauge.
It read 25-30 mph, (I would have estimated higher). I still slept pretty well though. I’d rather sleep on a boat bounding around
anytime than fight mosquitoes. If there
is no wind at night, there are mosquitoes.
Well,
I had been here over a day and hadn’t seen another boat since I left the ICW on
my way here, so I thought it would be safe to take a stroll down the beach in
my men’s bikini underwear, they look like a swimsuit anyway. I was about an eighth-mile away from the
dingy and my cutoffs when a motorboat came around a peninsula and down the
shoreline. All I could do was wave to
the two guys in the boat and hope they thought I was wearing a swimsuit. I’m kind of color blind but I think my
underwear had been bleached out to a pink from washing them with the
whites. The men in the boat had on
coats. If it’s under 70o,
Floridians think it’s cold.
Anyway,
coming out here I had some firsts.
First time I set sail from anchor without using the motor. First time I anchored from sail without
using the motor. I wouldn’t have used the
motor at all getting here if it wouldn’t have been for that one cut that was
just a little to close into the wind to keep the sails full.
I
sure love my auto-helm.
January 24, 2001 8:55 p.m. –
Everglades National Park
I
climbed out of the cabin to get my potty bucket today and I noticed a boat just
sitting out in the water some distance off from me. I immediately got a bad feeling about it. It looked like that boat that cruised by
while I was in my underwear. So I
grabbed my binoculars. It was the same
boat, and one of the men was staring at me with binoculars. I thought, “Those perverts! I wonder if my flare gun will reach that
far?” Soon as the guy saw I was looking
back with binoculars, he put his down and tried to act like he hadn’t been looking. A few minutes later he picked the binoculars
back up again to see if I was still looking, and I was. So, he was staring at me with his binoculars
and I was staring at him with mine.
That’s when they started moving toward me, and when I first got the idea
that it may be the park rangers. I
quickly covered my laundry bucket that had some clothes soaking in it. My potty bucket was empty but it had gray
water written on the side so I wouldn’t get it mixed up with my dishwashing
bucket. I turned it so the words didn’t
show. They weren’t even up to my boat
yet when they asked if I had any weapons on board. That’s when I thought, “Oh boy, their going to find something.” I didn’t invite them to board and they
didn’t try. They began to interrogate me
starting at the life vest, pfd, and sanitation device. I just squeaked past the sanitation device
not mentioning that it is still unopened in its original box. I got a warning ticket for not having my
registration card available, and found out the maximum stay in the park was
fourteen days.
January 30, 2001 – Everglades
National Park
I
got my power inverter installed… 1,200 watts of AC power available. Cut all my hair off with the electric hair
cutters. I had a couple pieces of
6-gauge wire left so I ran two cables between the mast step mounting bolts and
the keel bolt. I hope that if I’m hit
by lightning it will go down those cables rather than arcing from the chain
plate to my foot, or my ear, depending on which way I’m laying in bed. I did notice a ˝ volt potential difference
between the keel and the mast before I hooked up the cables. I don’t think its electrolysis as no metal
touching the mast is in the salt water.
Maybe that’s just the electrical potential difference between the water
and the air 30’ up?
The
keel bolt had been seeping water into the battery compartment. I sealed it with 3M 5200 fast cure. It took nearly a week to dry the area out. I ran a 3” flexible hose, (like clothes
dryer exhaust hose), pointed into the wind, and down to the area to help dry it
out. While I was working down in there,
I noticed a lot of space up under the port-a-potty area. So I cut a hole 5” x 10” in the port-a-potty
area sole next to the cabin sole walkway.
I was able to stow my extra anchor chains in there and when I go in for
supplies, I hope to get at least two weeks worth of canned goods stuffed down
in there.
Continue
to Chapter Two
Return to Venture/MacGregor Yacht Club
© Copyright 2001 Steven J. Hanes, All Rights Reserved