Storms are scary on a boat. Your entire home rocks around like a whirly-gig, and you’re never quite sure if it’s going to stay put, or go careening off and crash into rocks, land, or another boat! Up until now, we’ve been securely tied to a dock whenever a storm has hit. This is our first time at anchor.

Fortunately the skies clear, allowing us to depart from Cayo Costa. We search for a suitable remote “office” on Captiva Island, then stop at Picnic Island (alas, not for a picnic 🙃) on our way south to Fort Myers.

Hope you enjoy!

Lauren & Kirk

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Adventures – A Himitsu https://youtu.be/8BXNwnxaVQE

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Episode Dialogue

Yes, it’s raining a little bit. Kirk, is that your first fish ever?

It’s my first fish. We don’t have to drive around the parking lot looking for a place to park for an hour. ♪ We got love that we’ll never need to hide ♪

[Lauren] Alright, so where were we. Last episode was the special one, in which we talked to you about how we make money, what type of work we do and how we afford to go cruising.

It’s windy.

We’re flying.

[Lauren] Now lets get back to where we left off, on Florida’s West Coast on the Island of Cayo Costa.

Breathe.

[Lauren] What did you catch?

Look it, I got a fish. I don’t know what it is.

[Lauren] Kirk, is that your first fish ever?

It’s my first fish, no not ever but…

[Lauren] Oh, you threw it back?

What are we gonna do?

[Lauren] I don’t know, I wanted to at least I don’t know a close up of him or something.

I’ll catch one more, it wasn’t that hard. There’s a hundred of them right here. So we were supposed to have storms for the last five days according to the weather, Weather Underground website, and it looks like we’re finally about to get hit.

I think this is our first real storm. That’s a black sky. We’ve got 30 on the knotmeter. Waves are whipping up. Yeah, it’s raining a little bit but its not pouring yet. That’s what we’re worried about, these panels up on the bow, think they should be okay. Okay, it’s wet, I’m going inside.

[Kirk] Is the dinghy on a little bit of a leash or is it really tight?

Three feet away from the stern, oh no, it’s like five feet away. Is that okay?

Yeah, yeah, that’s perfect. I just didn’t want it so tight that the waves would be like yanking on it really hard. I think once this front moves in, it’s not gonna be blasting quite so hard.

[Lauren] Yeah.

I hope.

[Lauren] Yeah.

There’s freaking breaking two foot waves in here. The only thing I think I might do is go put out more scope on the bridle

[Lauren] Okay.

So that the waves don’t shock load the anchor.

[Lauren] You gonna put that out to the end?

[Kirk] Yeah. That okay?

Yeah. Oh, that’s cold! It just dropped like 10 degrees. Got it?

[Kirk] Yeah.

It’s hail!

[Lauren] What what is that? That boat has he always been there?

Yeah, I turned on my navionics can you just make sure we’re not dragging. I think we would have gone back a little ways but yeah he’s always been there he’s anchored backwards.

[Lauren] Okay. Like from the stern?

Yeah.

[Lauren] Oh.

Yeah. Holy. Man, I’m glad we pulled everything down when we did. Can you make sure all the windows are closed.

[Lauren] Yeah.

[Kirk] Man, these boats are sailing around like crazy.

Looks good. I’m soaked.

[Kirk] Oh, there’s a guy just coming in to anchor here.

Seriously.

I need a towel, I’m cold.

You want your bath towel?

Yeah. Wow, did you get that rain, hail front come in?

[Lauren] I never turned it off.

Ugh, did you point it forward?

[Lauren] I pointed it, I don’t remember where I pointed it but…

Holy.

Well that was some excitement.

[Kirk] Yeah. We’re seeing twenty two knots.

[Woman’s Voice] Turned around and saw you coming toward the boat.

There’s a guy that was dragging his anchor, right behind us and went right past this other boat. Right past that sailboat back there, which is gonna be impossible to see with the GoPro, but there’s the sailboat and there’s the guy that dragged past him. Our boat got a fresh water wash down, and our solar panels stayed on deck which was cool. We got everything battened down in time I did kind of a botched job here with the chain but I wanted to get it locked up in case our chain hook broke loose. Luckily, everything worked just fine and nobody dragged anchor in front of us. We got lucky in the direction of the wind, there’s pretty much no one in front of us for quite a ways. We got a bunch of boats next to us and behind us, a couple. We’re supposed to get storms most of the night, so, I think that’s not gonna be everything. I’m just hoping it’s not quite as windy as it was cause we saw quite a bit of wind there. You’re gonna get pushed a little bit to the right, so I’d aim a little to the left of where we want to be center of the channel. That’s the same as our boat. I want you to grab that gas can. Completely untied. Can you hold on for a minute. We’ve made it to The Green Flash.

Green Flash. I used to come here every spring with my family. So it’s weird coming by boat, it’s like a totally different place. Look at us, in our finest dress. And our backpacks. Well, we stood at the host stand for about five minutes and no one said anything, so we decided to leave.

Goodbye Green Flash, hello Mucky Duck. We need that extra alternator it’s like a hundred extra dollars, so it’s not much, but it’s also like, we’re hardly ever gonna use I feel like the 100 amps, let alone a 120.

[Lauren] That’s kinda what I was thinking.

K.

We go exploring islands and we talk about alternators.

And voltage regulators and serpentine pulley belt kits. I’m afraid we’re gonna get cold, I forgot it gets so much warmer on land.

Hey, how are you? We are, so what’s the earliest that you’re looking for? Usually it’s a little bit over an hour. An hour and 15 minutes or so. Alright, and does he need a lockbox code?

Here we are coming for a nice lunch. Lauren is working now, and I’m going to be working in 10 minutes.

Let him know to come as early as possible. All right, what is it, 11 AM in San Diego?

[Kirk] Here it is, the Gulfs Key.

Hey gulf, hey gulf! The last time we were here, Kirk and I’d come with my parents by car. At a popular beach side place like this, there’s a benefit to arriving by boat.

[Kirk] Hey Craig, we don’t have to drive around the parking lot looking for a place to park for an hour. I think you would get a really cool angle there, just from the way that it kinda sits down in that gully, or something like it that maybe we try and set up a couple more shots after that.

[Lauren] How is it?

[Kirk] A little dense.

[Lauren] A little dense?

[Kirk] But it’s cold so that’s probably why.

Banana chia kale. Alright

Will you try on the map when you get a minute?

I will, I just wanted to say, this is probably the sketchiest anchorage we’ve ever had to come into, you think?

Mhm

And now we have to leave it, when we’ve been waiting all morning to leave because we needed to leave right at high tide because that’s gonna give us like inches underneath our keel. So, off we go.

[Kirk] Is it clean?

The bottom part of it was. You watching where we’re going?

[Kirk] Yeah.

All clean. What’re you seeing for depths?

Seven eight still.

[Lauren] It’s gonna pop right up four and a half isn’t it?

Yeah. In a way these are like projecting us it’s to go more that way. Is what I’m doing now. Eight foot, seven and a half. I think through that spot we just needed to follow more of a rather than straight, cause it didn’t get anywhere near as close this time.

[Lauren] Wow is that it, seven?

[Kirk] Yeah, that’s the lowest I’ve seen right now.

[Lauren] That was a cake walk.

[Kirk] Yeah we were just, we were over two far that way. I mean we’re not quite out yet. K, we just hit six. Nine, five, eight, five, nine, five, seven, five, six. Dammit. This is the shallow spot. Yeah, I think we’re doing okay.

[Lauren] Oh no.

[Kirk] Really?

So, sailing in the ICW is a bit tricky.

[Kirk] With the wind directly on our nose in the channel, we weren’t having much luck motor sailing. But that’s why a roller furling headsail is so nice. It doesn’t take a whole lot of work to try and see. Huh boys?

[Lauren] Apparently so. So, the engine went back on, the day heated up and with too much time spent baking in the sun at the helm, Kirk started thinking about ways to cover up and keep cool.

High performance man sarongs by Kirk. They’re gonna be longer for a man’s height, and a performance wicking material, lightweight, stretchy. Get a nice cool breeze all in the places where you need it. Bring back the old sailing attire, Men in skirts on boats. Nothing says more manly than I’m capable of wearing a skirt. Argh. What’s over there?

Huh?

[Kirk] What’s over there?

Picnic island. We’re gonna go to not have a picnic, but we’re gonna go for a swim. As it turns out I got a client email just before we anchored which meant I stayed aboard, while Kirk went ashore.

It’s not every day that I get to go play while Lauren has to work. So I took a little solo trip in the dingy over here. Brought myself a nice cold beer I’m gonna stand in the water, cause it is hot. This is a pretty dope little picnic island. How cool. I ran into a couple on the other side of the island who had miscalculated the tides and were struggling to push their jet skis off the beach. So I rounded up a few other guys and we were able to get them into deeper water. We’ve been helped so many times by other boaters, it felt good to be able to return the favor.

In our last episode, we launch our sailing Soulianis shop, and to celebrate we want to do a few giveaways.

We’re gonna be announcing a new giveaway in each of our next few episodes. We’ll choose some winners at random but others will be based on the first person to respond. So, make sure you’re subscribed to our channel and click the notification bell to be amongst the first to be notified. Today we’re gonna be giving away this shirt. We’ll choose a winner at random and to enter you must do two things.

So, this is gonna get a little bit tricky so pay attention. Number one, go to our last episode, number 46, and leave a comment telling us about something in your budget that you can’t live without.

And number two, send us an email at hello@sailingsoulianis.com with your YouTube username and the answer to this trivia question. What is the one thing in our budget that Lauren can’t live without? Hint, the answer was in the last episode.

We are sailing through the miserable mile and there’s just boats everywhere.

[Kirk] A little bit more space would have been nice if you had an 18 inch draft.