Thanksgiving Trip 2020 Day 2 - Anclote to Clearwater

Ready for Action

    What would boating be without a little SNAFU? Just another day on land.  First thing in the morning Beth says “I hope I didn’t mess this up” “What?” I reply. “The Head, it’s not flushing” now anyone with any boating experience and a marine head never wants to hear those words uttered. Since the beginning I have been fighting a battle with the head that I thought was won. To be delicate, there was some ancient, super fossilized let’s call it Crud Mountain in the holding tank that seemed to stop future deliveries. I made a flushing device with a hose connection & a small diameter tube I could use to flush out the line. I was able to remove chunks of crud on a couple of occasions and all seemed fine. It wasn’t. What a way to start the day, elbow deep in _______ you can fill in the blank. I was able to get it cleaned out after some sad looks and frowns from my first mate and some choice words from me. This whole adventure set us back a little from our departure but Clearwater was a short distance away.

No Picture....would you really want to see it?

    We finally got moving and into the river. The wind was kicking almost straight out of the North at about 18 knots and the air was chilly.  I had to don a jacket but knew as soon as we made our turn to the South out of the Anclote River and into the Intercoastal the wind would be at our stern and the ride would be good. 

    From here South, it’s easy. The Intercoastal is well marked with red on the left & green on the right. We passed Dunedin, our intended Thanksgiving Holiday stop and headed to Clearwater. 2 hours 18 minutes. There are several marinas in Clearwater and in the past we stayed at Clearwater Beach Municipal Marina. It is within walking distance to the beach & has basically everything you need but it is a busy area. This time we chose Clearwater Harbor Marina which is the other municipal marina located at the base of the Memorial Causeway on the east side of the Intercoastal. The marina is split in two parts by the causeway. 

    We were confused as to which side we needed to go in to find our slip number. We passed the North Basin & went under the Causeway, we found you couldn’t enter there & the breeze darn near pushed us all the way in so we made a hasty retreat back into the Intercoastal & into the North Basin. As we made our way back one of the dockhands knew we were looking for F16 & pointed it out to us. Lucky for us as the wind blew us right to it. I attempted to turn the boat so I could stern into the slip but as we got closer to the slip it was apparent I wouldn’t be able to overcome the stiff wind & get the bow turned around. You know that moment when you say to yourself “I’m screwed”. I was, my last second decision was to pin the boat against both of the pilings at the slip opening on our port side. That stopped the boat and allowed us to get our lines ready for my next move. As the fear on the younger of the two dockhand’s face subsided, he commented “Well, you’re in about the best position you could be in” then he walked away. He was right, we were. With the bow against one piling & the stern against the other we looped a line from the bow to the piling it was on, I figured that would be a good safety line if the wind caught our bow once we backed in and it would prevent us from hitting the sailboat in the adjacent slip to port. Beth then handed the dockhand Steve (older guy with more sense) a starboard side stern line. From there all I had to do was slowly throttle the boat forward and the wind and a little reverse throttle did the rest. We eased in to the slip and tied tight to the floating dock on our starboard side. To the bystanders it looked pretty planned, it was but it wasn’t. Sometimes you just have to work with what you have. Steve was a first class dockhand. I say that because he didn’t try to take over and grab lines or shout orders, he waited for me to tell him what I had planned. 

    Once we got tied up Steve brought us a pigtail to connect our 30 amp to the 50 amp socket. It is a little hike to the Dockmaster’s office. There is a laundry & restroom/shower there and free Wifi. They have you download an app that unlocks the restrooms & gates to the dock. It’s $2/ft and they can accommodate up to 75’ vessels, and there were some monster sportfishermans in there. They have free day docks you can tie up to all day, nice! It is a first class municipal marina and quiet. A short walk to downtown. 

    All settled in & cleaned up some, we headed downtown to grab a bite to eat. With COVID-19 the center street in front of the restaurants is blocked off & they have outside tables in the street, pretty neat. There were quite a few places there. We chose one and relaxed.

     With a snack and a beer we were now good to go until dinner. We wanted to do a little laundry but had no detergent (that goes on the list of stuff we forgot) so we went across the street to a shop that touted having everything, they did. We bought a couple .50 baggies of laundry detergent. With our masks on and 4 small baggies of white powder discretely handed to us we left the “everything store” feeling like we just made a drug buy.

 Back at Pau Hana I checked the holding tank. In cleaning it out the day prior I had filled it with too much water. There was no room left for anything else so we had to resort to the marina restroom. I went to the marina office & inquired about a pump out. “Free” she said, “awesome” I said, “how do I get that done?” “you do it yourself, it’s pretty easy”....”OK”. So that was our plan for tomorrow on our way out.

    With a small load of laundry done, we hiked the hill downtown for a light dinner & then back to the boat to watch the sunset.

Does the sun make me look like an “Oompa Loompa”?

    Beth & I talked about how when you’re boating like this and vacationing you are constantly doing something. If you’re not planning, you’re provisioning, repairing, walking, sightseeing or doing some necessary task for this day or the next. The days are pretty filled and packed with activity. Fun. 

    Day 2 gone & some more lessons learned.