Some sailboats have an arch on their sterns to hang a dingy for quick deployment and retrieval at anchor and to mount solar panels, wind generators and antennae. The purpose of the trip was to install such an arch. The arch could have been fabricated at a shop in Texas and installed there, but I had met Howard Wells at the Annapolis Sailboat Show in October and liked him and his product. He had already made an arch for our model of boat so he could save us some money because he would not have to start from scratch with new measurements. He was willing to fabricate the arch and then cut it in half for shipping to TX. The shipping charge would be about $500 and then installation would have to include welding it back together by someone he didn’t know for some additional cost. The Texas installer could blame Howard for what ever didn’t go smoothly and Howard could blame the installer while Barbie and I would be stuck in the middle of whatever could go wrong. Remember, I was the contractor for our house and know how finger pointing works. Howard’s shop is just north of Ft. Lauderdale, in Palmetto, on the east coast of Florida. I convinced myself, and then Barbie, that I could bring the boat to Howard to install the arch by the one person with a vested interest in the success of the project besides Barbie and me. Howard had a friend to whose dock I could tie at no cost in an area where overnight docking could cost nearly $100 per day. He estimated that would save me about $700 over the week it would take to install the arch (I spent 9 days there it turned out). After the arch was installed, If I could move the boat to a less expensive part of Florida (if such a place existed) or further north (but not too far north so as to avoid freezing) and we would be getting a head start on our goal of cruising up the east coast this year. The down side was that Barbie did not want to cross the Gulf during the winter again, but it was almost too easy to assemble a crew to help me. The idea became a float plan and Barbie spent the week after Christmas cooking and freezing meals for dinners during the voyage for four men to last us a week and extra meals for me to last 5 days longer.
I left Colorado on Sunday, Jan 1 and drove to Kemah, TX arriving the next day to prepare the boat for the journey. After picking up a new spinnaker, storing the new liferaft, doing a quickhaul to clean the bottom, changing sacrificial zincs and lubricating the MaxProp and seacocks, I installed boards between the stanchions to secure 8 jugs for 35 gallons of extra diesel fuel and 5 gallons of gasoline. I hoisted my radar reflector and checked my instruments and installed waypoints on the chartplotter. My crew, two fellows from Colorado and one from Texas arrived on Thursday and we spent the rest of the day and Friday provisioning, stowing and becoming familiar with the boat and her controls. Friday evening we had a wonderful dinner at Clifton By The Sea with two other fellow sailors and Sandy Bogard. Sandy is the wonderful woman who provided me with shelter during Hurricane Rita back in September and she is like a sister to us.
We left Saturday morning, Jan 7 at 0800. We motored down the Houston Ship Channel with the barges, tankers and container ships making us feel very, very small. The sun was warm and the wind was calm so spirits were high. We hoisted sails as we approached the mouth of the channel and sailed to clear the jetty and entered the Gulf of Mexico at about 1300 hrs.
Sailing through the night we alternated watches in pairs and kept track of oil platforms and the occasional ship both visually and on the radar. The wind picked up and we were making good time at about 7 knots. I had estimated that the entire trip would take 6 days if we could average 6 knots. If we could maintain 7 knots it would save us a whole day at sea.
We hit tough weather later on the second morning out and I was the only one not seasick. I had the boat to myself for 16 hours straight in over 30-knot winds and high seas. Once two of the guys recovered I got some rest the next morning. It took another whole day for the fourth crewmember to recover. The wind continued to be strong so the seas continued to build. We had the bow light at the top of the pulpit buried into almost every wave and it finally went out and blew the circuit breaker on the third night. I hung off the anchor platform to check it and found that a wire had rusted from its connection. I rigged it back together so we would have running lights again, but by this time we heard that more weather was likely and we decided we had had enough. Even though it would take another day of sailing to near land, we changed course to run north towards Alabama. We were tired when we anchored behind Dauphin Island, but happy to be tucked into sheltered water.
We decided to stay in the Gulf Intra-Coastal Waterway to Pensacola and by then the weather would pass. We stopped at LuLu Buffet's (Jimmy's sister) restaurant along the way and at the fuel dock noticed rust stains along the hull starting at the base of each stanchion, pulpit and pushpit post where they joined the cap rail. A concern! How could stainless steel rust and leave such a stain on an Island Packet?
We pulled in at the Bear Pt. Marina to hole up for the passing front which brought a tornado a little north of us that killed a woman. We headed out the on the 14th with northerly winds around 25-30 kts, so we stayed close to shore to minimize the seas. We logged 155 nm that day hitting over 8 knots for extended runs. That was a real thrill.
On Jan 16th we sailed into Tampa Bay and the Twin Dolphin Marina in Bradenton, FL on the Manatee River. My Island Packet dealer is located there and I wanted them to check out my rust stains and as long as I was there check on some other minor items for me. The leading hypothesis to explain the rust is that either before the wire in the bow light disconnected itself or after I reconnected it there was a stray electrical current running through the rails, life lines and stanchions. This caused a de-plating process to deposit the rust. In any case the boat was fixed and cleaned of all rust under warranty (Hooray, Island Packet!!!). My crew hopped on planes and was gone by the next day. It was good to see the folks from the dealership and be able to get things squared away. They are the IPY Dealer of the Year for good reason.
I was dismayed with the number of crab pots near shore and it made me reconsider being so close to land through the nightime hours. We got about 20 miles out as we made our way southbound, clear of the crab pots. Colin Curtis had recommended anchoring in the Little Shark River and we did that for a day while weather passed by. 
