S/V Blondie-Dog has finally shoved off from her pier. Yeah... when I think about it, I very well could have set sail a good three weeks ago or so had I been more diligent in getting my crud together. But screw it... it's not like I've got to commute to some crappy job and deal with a ton of bullsh*t emails and conference calls first thing in the morning.
I had planned on shoving off yesterday morning but somehow a final few preparations did not get done in time. My ground tackle for my second anchor needed a shackle and both the water and gas cans needed to be filled and besides it had rained like hell all afternoon and I needed a few cold beverages to put me in a better mood.
Well, I may have possibly gotten in too good of a better mood and may have possibly found myself regretting having imbibed the last couple of cold beverages. I do know that I simply didn't feel up to shoving off first thing in the morning... so I didn't... and so what... and like I said... I don't have an itinarary.
Nevertheless I did untie the dock lines and pulled away from the pier this morning. There was but a dead calm out there so I motored the first four or five miles down the Caloosahatchee River before putting up the sails once a slight breeze kicked up. The river is somewhat shallow for the most part so I found myself checking and rechecking my nautical chart to make sure that I was following the right channel markers and what not. Consequently my maiden voyage was not all that enjoyable. I just wanted to safely negotiate the dredged out channels and get on out to Point YBell.
Well I now find myself anchored in about of fifteen feet of water about half a mile from the lighthouse on Point Ybell on a leeward shore. The easterly wind and the northerly current has made this an unpleasant anchorage. The houses onshore are all enormous and mansion-like as one would expect on Sanibel Island. I can count six houses up on shore and all appear shuttered up and dark with but only one having any lights turned on. It feels somewhat isolated out here.
I had wanted to donn my snorkeling gear and scrape the barnacles off the hull that had grown on it in the past six weeks or so but there was simply too much chop in the water. I certainly don't need the hull of the boat slamming down on top of my head while attempting to scrape barnacles off of the keel.
It is now dusk as I write this and I keep hoping that wind lets up some.
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