CHAPTER EIGHT: Manic Monday

            Another pretty morning to wake up to. I slept for a full eight hours- finally! A full night’s sleep. We were docked at Useppa's marina. It was the best place to finish off the bacon, so that we could immediately dispose of the grease. Bacon, eggs, hash browns- that was the breakfast menu this morning. Step 1 when cooking bacon on the boat:  remove the Bacon Detector from the wall and put it outside.

            We set off to return to the sand bar we found yesterday. We anchored in the same place, but this time we dinghied to Cayo Costa State Park, an uninhabited stretch of beach. Oars? Check. Lifejacket? Check. Radio? Snorkel Gear? Otterbox? Water? Towel? Check. We weren’t going to let the motor screw us over again.

            Being on the shore at Cayo Costa State Park felt like paradise. Clear water, shallow depths, white sand, grass, trees, vines. The Gulf felt amazing. Unreal. Nothing like the North Atlantic water I'm used to. A girl could get used to this.

         We looked east in the sky. Thunderstorm clouds seemed to be approaching. Terry checked the radar on his iPhone.

            Yep. Again we had limited time with which to work. We just didn’t know how much. Some Florida storms move.  Some don't. We didn't want to push our luck and have a storm knock the Argo II off her anchor while we tried to use the unreliable dinghy motor in strong winds. Playing it cautiously, we limited our stay on Cayo Costa to about a half hour or so before motoring back. After getting situated back on Argo II, it was time to start prepping the boat for a storm. Close all the hatches. Put extraneous lines away. Clear the cockpit of everything. Get the motor off the dinghy.

            Boom.

         The thunder was getting louder. We made the right call to get back when we did.

            “Should I make dinner while we’re anchored?” I asked.

            “No, wait until we’re underway to get away from these storms.”

            So I sat at the helm to position the boat while Terry went forward to raise the anchor. Anchors aweigh! When Terry was done with all of the necessary storm preparations, he took to the helm and I got started on dinner. I was hungry during the last few storms and fared terribly because of it. Now I knew better.

            I brought up a bowl of chili for each of us.  

“Thank you, Ems," Terry said. "These portion sizes are perfect. I feel my ponch going down- I’m approaching 'Meredith' abs.” With the physical exertion this week combined with healthy eating, we were doing pretty well for ourselves.

            We kept an eye on the radar. Thunderstorms to the east, thunderstorms to the south, thunderstorms to the west. They were everywhere. We needed to head south to be on track to return to Cape Coral the next day. So after we were a few miles from shore, our course turned southbound.

            We were in a pocket of storms, and all but one were going away from us. But we were in the direction of the large one, which had me worried.

            We kept moving south, as did most of the storms, fortunately. After the one storm heading toward us went off the radar, my stress eased.

            We’ll be fine, I thought, but didn’t dare tell Terry that. He was looking fearful, and his voice was one of extreme caution. Saying we’d be fine would only annoy him, so I held my tongue. After seeing cells disappear, even though one new appeared northwest of us, something was telling me we wouldn’t get hit.

            After another half hour or so, I saw the sun in the distance, rays breaking through the clouds. The radar continued to clear up, but I decided to change course and head north for some time before resuming course, to stay out of the way of the southern and western cells.

            The sun’s rays continued to grow. Things were looking good. I saw the sun’s reflection in the water coming back toward the boat.

            “Stick with me kid, and the sun will find you,” I jokingly said to Terry. We have a running theory that my mood controls the weather. If you ask Terry, he'll say it's not so farfetched. Seems our experiences have been uncannily aligned with my mood. Coincidence?  Maybe, maybe not. Last summer we had a long string of sailing days that were sunny, and the day it wasn’t was when I was stressed from schoolwork.

I was in a great mood that whole day, and we didn’t get hit with any rain or lightening. I was steering the boat at that point.

            “Thank you!” I yelled to the skies. The weather kept us safe.

            We decided to put the jib up. I had a blonde moment trying to unfurl and put up the jib. Terry teased me, which pissed me off because this was the first time I was setting up a furled jib. The J24’s have jibs you clip onto the forestay, and pull up with a halyard.

            “You want more storms? Keep it up, and that’s exactly what you’ll be getting.”

            We sailed with just the jib, so that if a storm did approach, we could quickly put it away, unlike the main, which would have taken more time and frustration on this boat. I took another look at the radar. The cell in the northwest intensified.

            “Look what you did,” I said to Terry. The waves picked up again.

            “Shit…” he paused. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look today?”

            I gave him a look of disdain.

            We got the jib up and I took the helm for some time. Terry looked at me and smiled.

            “What?” I replied.

            “You’ve got the jacket. You’ve got the look. You look like a captain. You make a hot sailor.” I smirked. I felt like a bad-ass with all the skills I gained.

            We were fine the rest of the night. Only a few minutes of rain at the beginning of the evening, but no lightening. The night was cooling off and storms were disappearing.

            “Thank you!” I yelled out again. As interesting as it would be to experience a thunderstorm on a sailboat, it was our last night, we were sailing the whole night. I just wanted an easy, relaxing night.

            I heated up our second dinner around 9, and then took the midnight shift at 11 pm. It was cooler tonight than previous nights. I brought up a bed sheet for a blanket as I sailed through the dark hours. iPod earbud in one ear, the other ear free for hearing the water pass along the boat and alert for any potential problem sounds. 
      There's a point in time when you realize how much you've bonded with your boat. You both share all these experiences. You make it through the rough and enjoy the amazing. You talk to her, because you know she's listening, even if she doesn't always respond. She appreciates the care you give her. Or at least, that's what you believe. You work with her, discovering her nuances on the water, and you don't push her, you challenge her. By the fifth day, I found myself talking to the boat and the sea and the skies. I had thoughts in my head before then, but you reach a point when you feel like one with everything around you. You're but a drop in the vastness of the water. Fighting will sink your ship. Harmony will protect you.

            The skies continued to clear up as the night when on, but I still saw a few lightning strikes out west on the Gulf. Great. I kept an occasional eye on the radar.

            Sailing with just the jib made it difficult to sail close to the direction from which the wind came. We were aiming for southeast, but were going more south-southwest. I tacked, but that didn’t help either, because now we were going north. Terry woke up around 2 am and took over. I showered and got some rest, sleeping on the cockpit bench snuggled up in my sheet.