Fri. 1/26/07

We are closing in on Tallahassee. We are staged behind Dog Island on St. George sound. About 45 m. from the Big T. Tomorrow we should get going early to make the run outside and up to St. Mark’s River mouth to catch the high tide and ride it in. They say we need high water to get into the marina.

It's a good thing we re-anchored last night. This morning we awoke and found the tide had fallen a couple of feet in the night. If we stayed put like we were going to we would still be there.

It was absolutely gorgeous this morning. We had ice on the decks; fog on the creek, the air was just barely moving. It was ghostly beautiful. We had the hook up fairly quick only to find a tree branch jammed in the fluke. It was short work for our deck crew. They had it clear in a shake and we were on our way.

We have been traveling with a couple of trawlers the last few days. Not directly with them but we are all in the same area at the same time. We have had small conversations with the different boats at different times.

One boat, '"Adventure," has passed us several times. They are doing the great circle route out of Chicago. There modus operandi is to dash from one location to the next. Never seeing what's on the banks of the waterway. They passed us yesterday and disappeared around a bend.

Today we were cruising in a canal that no one knew was even there when out of a side channel came "Adventure" balls to the wall around a corner. Never saw us at all. We called on the radio to say hello, no response. They disappeared around the bend, gone again. But not for long. We came out of the canal about an hour later into a shallow lake and...yeah you guessed it. Hard aground about 50 yards out of the channel. They called us this time wanting to know how much water we had under us. We informed them about 15 feet and did they need any help. No they had Seatow on the way. Who they know on a first name basis. We sailed on over the horizon. Later this afternoon we pulled up behind Dog island and dropped the hook. About an hour later, who comes roaring up the channel but "Adventure." I looked at Lionel and said "I guess they didn’t learn a thing this morning.” He said "those kind of boaters never do." That’s what keeps the towboat operators in business.

Happy Birthday Karen!

Capt. Bob