Planned Leg 1: Galveston , TX to St. Petersburg, FL
Actual Leg 1: Galveston, TX to Port St. Joe, FL
We planned for 20 knot sustained winds with gusts to 25 and 4-7 foot seas. We know we can sail this. But what we experienced was 34 knot sustained winds with gusts of 38 and 12-15 foot seas in the middle of the night. At this point, we knew nothing. We were in "uncharted waters," in terms of our experience level. Despite our deep reef in the headsail we were still overpowered and were unable to roll it in any further. The outcome was an unbalanced sail plan therefore our wind vane could not keep up, to no fault of its own. Blake remembers us standing at the helm together and observing Josephine rounding up as he pleaded, "Come on Josephine, come on Josephine! Get back under it. Get back on your feet!"
By 2:00am Blake took the helm and channeled John Kretschmer's teachings, or at least what he could recall, and kept the waves at our stern. He didn't go to war with the waves and the wind, but let Josephine find her own groove. I was sitting across from Blake on the port side facing him. I asked him if there was anything he needed, and he said, I need you to keep talking to me. This meant that my job was to keep my nervous system calm. Through out the nearly five hours Blake was at the helm, I was across from him, reminding him that he had this, he is doing great, and that this is temporary.
Neither of us had easy jobs, but I want to be clear that I know I was the support person in this story and not the hero. Around 2:40am, I saw a wave build at our stern that was approximately 4 feet taller than our bimini. In that moment, I thought, "Dear God, what is next?" Somehow a wave of calm washed over me, no pun intended. With Blake's face of courage and determination, there was no way I was going to react to the mountain of water building behind us. Before you know it, Josephine was surfing down that wave at nearly 12 knots, almost double what we consider a "fast" speed for her. Directly after this, I threw up everything in my stomach. This was the first and last time I puked on this leg of our journey.
Four grueling hours later we were able to reengage the wind vane. Blake shuffled towards me and nearly collapsed into my arms out of exhaustion. He said that this was the scariest and hardest thing that he has ever done. The picture below was taken that morning following the gale probably after Blake puked.
In a debrief of each other's experience, we both had the running dialogue of, "I am alright right now," a mantra I learned from my yoga teacher that I taught in my yoga classes. Blake never missed a class I taught, and I'm glad to hear, that though unknowingly, we were both alright, right now.
The next day was uncomfortable but it wasn't a 38 knot gale. We didn't have an appetite and really only wanted to sleep, which we took turns doing through out the day. The following two days were met with calm seas and gentle wind. We took cockpit showers, ate breakfast, and finally felt human again.
On Monday around 12:00am, we accepted that the winds were not going to shift and would continue blowing out of the East, in the direction we needed to go.
The thing about sailboats is that you can't sail them directly into the wind, you need fuel for that. We had used fuel to get ourselves back on course after the gale and weren't planning to motor as much as we did. We were about 10 gallons short on fuel to be able to make it to St. Pete, FL. We made the decision to turn North and sail to Port St. Joe. We arrived at the mouth of the channel at 11:00pm on Wednesday and dropped anchor at 1:00am on Thursday at the St. Joseph Point. We were feeling like champions after five hours of uninterrupted sleep.
That morning we motored to Captain's Cove Marina, the only marina with fuel, due to the current rebuild of Port St. Joe Marina after being destroyed by Hurricane Michael in 2018.
Our sprits were high when we dropped anchor for the next few days off Port St. Joe Harbor. A five minute dinghy ride will get you to a public boat ramp with a pier where you can tie up and dump trash (important for cruisers). We were a quarter of a mile from a Piggly Wiggly, a gas station, and a strip of trendy locally owned boutiques, bars, and restaurants. It wasn't long before we found ourselves at the Tap Root saying cheers to teamwork and surviving the first leg of our journey! Cheers y'all!!
