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Saturday, September 4, 2010

Setting Sail from Marco Island...

It is daybreak, Thursday September 2nd and I'm pulling up my anchors. I'm not convinced that either anchor ever grabbed in well when I set them the previous afternoon. I had wanted to dive on my anchors but that was before I caught a fleeting glimpse of the angular shaped dorsal fin of a shark swimming nearby the boat. It was out of sight in an instant.

Up on the beach a ways could be seen an adult couple and their three kids splashing in the water. I wondered to myself whether they knew that sharks prefer to feed early in the morning and late in the afternoon... at least that is what I seem to remember after viewing a program about sharks on the Discovery Channel.

It was somewhat of an uncomfortable anchorage and I'm not sure that I ever got in a good sleep in spite of going down below at around eight that evening. I'm thinking that I was simply too physically exhausted to ever relax after the strenuous sail earlier in the day.

It must have been around ten or so in the evening when I finally decided that I could use a cold beer. However, there is no refrigeration on board and the only beer to be found was a 32 ounce can of Miller High Life at ambient temperature. But what the heck, that beer purchased at a Seven-Eleven awhile back cost me but a buck and change so to hell with it... I popped open the tab and pour myself half a glass.

Let me tell you, that was a mighty fine tasting beer... room temperature and all. Cold beer aboard a sailboat is vastly overrated. I had a good buzz going on yet no one to talk to other than myself and with there not being a soul within sight, I entertained myself singing a few of my favorite karaoke songs at the top of my lungs.

I sang "Midnight Special" by Creedance, "Drift Away" by Doby Grey, "Honey" by Ricky Skaggs, "Maggie Mae", Rod Stewart, "Lady In Red" by somebody, "Purple Rain" by Prince and lastly "'Cause I Get High", by ..oh heck, I can't remember at this moment.

Winds were relative light as I hoisted my sails at daybreak and set off for my first way point on my nautical chart. FW0087, N25' 50.000 W081' 45.000, some eight miles south of my anchorage. Surely the winds would pick up later in the morning... or so I thought.

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