8 day trip, day 1

Saturday, Dec. 27th. Day 1 of the 8 day trip was a busy one...
I'd been working many days/hours straight... but, not, unfortunately, working at getting SV Athena ready to go sailing for 8 days...
So, with time ticking, I tried to sneak one last 1/2 hour into the office in the morning, but called by crew for the trip, my friend Nate, I left the office, 8 AM...
With my car dropped off at the marina where we'd be docking at the end of the trip, we set off to go grocery shopping! I had done a little bit of grocery shopping the night before, but there was still much to accumulate. And, with crew, we had to shop and stash food for two people aboard SV Athena for 8 days...
Food, and water. We loaded 16 gallons of water aboard SV Athena for the trip; two per person per day. We also filled up the water tanks, which total about 50 gallons on SV Athena.
Groceries included apples, oranges, pineapple, cantaloupe, bananas (even though I've heard a rumor they're bad luck on a boat... how silly is that!), peanut butter, jelly, bread, wraps, mangos, oat meal, peppers, acorn squash, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, mushrooms (white, baby bellas, and regular portabellas), asparagus, green beans, tofu, capt's cheese (fresh mozzarella - the expensive kind and Havarti with dill) and crew cheese (Colby), canned soup, canned peas, canned corn, 2 jars salsa, chips, wheat thins, triscuits, mix box rices, mix box couscouses, cereal, eggs, vegan butter, almond M&Ms, onions, soy milk, avocados, zucchini squash, box o' noodles, jar spaghetti sauce, Coca Cola (capt's treat and becoming ceremonious for sailing...), tea (chai and echinacea), and, agave nectar (natural sweetener), and towelettes (for capt's sponge baths)... I think that about covers it. I also had some stuff already on the boat (garlic, olive oil, spices, etc.)
We ate pretty good actually. I just wish I'd remembered the bagels ;)
Total for the groceries for two (plus food/litter for peppermint patty), about $300.
Then, one last stop at West Marine to pick up a new anchor... a new anchor...?!?!?
yup, a new anchor. Way back when in these blog entries one might find a story about loosing one's anchor to the "depths" of Panther Key anchorage... With angst at loosing an anchor I really liked, I bought a new anchor, the "Claw" to replace the old, but I never really felt great about the "Claw." I mean, I really enjoyed when Jim Carrey would do the "claw" in the movie "Liar Liar" (a great movie), but, the claw didn't do anything for me when it came to anchoring... and, since I was putting 90 feet of new chain onto SV Athena anyways... (a task I did manage to get done before the day of departure for the trip, see pic on right, 90 feet of chain is very heavy... gets onto boat one or two feet at a time, with tide in), I figured, why not get a new anchor too, and really feel better about anchoring!
so, back at the boat, groceries, new anchor, and crew at hand, we loaded up the boat with food and crew stuff, did a batch of laundry (yes, really behind I was), fueled up the tank and refilled the 5 gallon jug with diesel, got ice for coolers, finished installing 90 feet of new chain attached to new anchor, attempted to fix the roller furling system (note the word attempted...), washed the boat, and, oh ya, waited for the tide to come in so we could leave! okay, so, the tide might have come in a little before we were ready to go... I was running "slightly" behind schedule. With full tummies after a late lunch at a restaurant in Fishermen's Village and freshly showered (for the last time in 8 days...) we warmed up the engine and were heading out the yacht basin at around 4 pm... kinda a late start... and, did I happen to mention I only got about 4 hours of sleep the night before... another story ;)
I was hoping to get off the dock by 1pm. Regardless, we were OFF THE DOCK, yae!
Heading out the channel from the yacht basin, a breeze in the air, we turned down and let out the sails looking forward to a beautiful sail down Charlotte Harbor...
UNFORTUNATELY...
My "attempt" at fixing the roller furling that had become a little messed up during the previous trip... was now completely a disaster. I guess in the stress of trying to get everything done and off the dock, I didn't think clearly through the roller furler fix... Upon trying to open the jib, I realized I had wound the jib lines in the wrong direction thereby making it impossible to open up the jib, but for a little bit. The jib wouldn't open more unless I fully released the winding line... Anxious to sail, I foolishly decided to untie the lock knot and release the winding line, allowing the jib to open up more and the winding line to find its way wrapped fully around the roller furler drum. All seemed well and good until not much more than a few moments later the wind appeared to pick up out of no where! The winds they were a blowing and now there was a lot of pressure on the rolled out jib that I couldn't roll back in! the winding line I had allowed to let go now completely sucked into the roller furler drum with barely an inch to tug from the drum. stuck stuck stuck. Now we had too much sail up, no way to bring it in, winds whipping, shallows almost everywhere, and chop on the bay picking up and slopping SV Athena around! Well, in these cases I'd like to look around and see who, other than myself, can solve the problem...
Seeing as how my crew was more like company, still healing from a very bad shoulder injury and only able to help out with steering the boat, and pirate Peppermint Patty was not about to lend a paw, I guess it was going to have to be me to deal with the now stuck winding line in the whipping winds wracking the sails and the halyards noisily against the mast, a maddening sound when one is trying to stay calm...
We turned into the wind to ease the pressure on the jib. I made my way to the rocking bow (crowded with the dinghy) and was able (with difficulty) to pull out the stuck winding line from the roller furler drum. I pulled out just enough to bring a length back to the cockpit and re secure with locking knot sufficient to give some control to move on. I was able to completely fix the roller furler once the winds died down later in the evening. We lost about an hour with the roller furler fiasco.

I was more than mad at my self for not taking the time to really get the boat ready to go and avoid a situation that didn't need to happen. It's times like that when I wonder about my work/life balance... How could I have not taken the time to get SV Athena ready to go on a long sail? What was I thinking? I put us in jeopardy not taking care of things fully, yet work took the higher stance... hmmm.... Imagining with much sarcasm that I'm sinking below the depths of the Gulf thinking... jeez, why didn't I spend more time at work...?

It took me a little while to relax after the roller furler fiasco. In fact, I used the phrase "pure hell" to describe the scenario when I called my friend Russell to let him know we were off the dock and heading down to Panther Key. Later on my crew mentioned to me my use of the words "pure hell." From there on out, it became a trip joke; you have to go through "pure hell" in order to get to heaven. Later that evening the winds were beautiful, the sunset lovely, and the night sail with stars peacefully enjoyable. How can you know heaven without having gone through hell?
We reached anchorage east of Punta Blanca Island and the ICW under dark starry skies with no moon at 11pm.