SeaTrial Trip

October 21, 2012

We are on target for leaving Bradenton for the winter near the end of October.  We just completed a short 3-night trip in which we tested as many boat systems as possible.  We were pleased that we found only a few minor problems that we should be able to resolve.

We left Twin Dolphin Marina on Thursday October 18 and traveled down the Manatee River and across Tampa Bay to anchor at Egmont Key.  Egmont Key, while interesting, is not the best anchorage - exposed to the East and 'rolly' in the best of weather due to large ship traffic transiting the Egmont Channel and boats in the Intracoastal Waterway across the Bay.  It is also home to the Tampa Bay Pilots, who guide the large ships in and out of the port, so their boats are going in and out at all hours. But the weather was settled and we had only a little rolling.  An interesting note is that Egmont was the first place we anchored in Florida on a charter here almost 25 years ago.



Pilot Boats at Egmont Key



Barge Outbound Egmont Channel

 
We go to Egmont to get a short sail across the bay and test some equipment there.  In particular, we need to purge storage chemicals from our watermaker and do a water making test.  The water at Egmont is much clearer than that in the river, where our filters would quickly clog.  Our watermaker test was good.

We also wanted to test our new satellite phone antenna, which is mounted on the arch, with a clearer horizon than we have at the marina or even in the river.  The antenna has not been performing very well at all, and unfortunately a clearer horizon did not help.  The technician is coming over on Monday to check it out.  If it can not be fixed, we can continue to use the 'hockey puck' antenna we used last year.

On Friday we returned to the Manatee River and anchored at Emerson Point for two nights.  We enjoy this anchorage a lot; there is a preserve ashore with some neat hiking trails; however, we can also easily reach it by car, so it is not that exotic an anchorage for us.  There we tested additional systems including the dinghy.

Barefoot at anchor at Emerson Point

 Above is a picture of Barefoot at anchor at Emerson Point in the lower Manatee River.  One notable addition to her equipment this year that can be easily seen in this picture is the D400 wind generator.  This will complement our existing solar panels to supply electricity when we are away from the dock (which we usually are).  It seems that when the sun doesn't shine, the wind blows, so they are a good pair. These systems minimize the amount that we need to run the ship's engine to charge batteries.

Upon arrival back at Twin Dolphin, we had a package waiting from our mailing service.  We were initially a bit surprised by the size of the box, since we only expected a dozen or so envelopes.  But inside was a great surprise.  A friend of Joyce's from high school had made her a wonderful quilt with a breast cancer awareness theme - Joyce is a breast cancer survivor.  It is really beautiful - thank you! 

Well it looks like we will be ready for our planned departure around the end of this month. The rough schedule has us transiting down to Pine Island Sound and kicking around there for a couple of weeks and then working our way to Miami, via the Keys for an early December crossing to the Bahamas. We will be exploring the Exumas and some of the far southern cays this year.

Tom
Bradenton, FL