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Apalachicola Trip - Sailing on St Georges Bay - 4-27-7

Part of the reason for bringing NSA down was to sail her. We put in at Deep Water Marina almost under the 98 bridge around noon.

After motoring out of the marina I put the jib and mizzen up. The wind was about 20 knots out of the south east. Debbie steered. I started putting up the main and decided we didn't need it. I went back to the cockpit and took over steering. We headed out into Apalachicola Bay.

The jib looks to be in good form.

The mizzen is about the best I can manage for now.

Debbie takes in the view. The waters here are generally less than 10 feet deep - and in a lot of places shallow enough to stand up in. So the wind put up a short, steep chop. This is about the most that NSA should be sailed in.

After an hour we got close to the Government Cut. We decided to head back. We sailed as high into the wind as possible and made it back near the mouth of the Apalachicola River but east of where we put in. We tacked a couple of times. I wondered if the wind was blowing the water toward the east. If enough wind goes on for long enough it will do that. Then I would have had to put in at a different boat ramp and take a taxi back.

I watched pelicans dive for food. They fly along. When they see a fish they sort of fly into the water to catch it.

I put the trolling motor in gear and doused the sails. The power is graduated from 0 to 100. 100 is the rated 80 lbs of thrust. I noticed that with 20 knots of wind the motor had to be set at 100 to point the boat into it. Also since the motor is offset about 8" to port of the centerline it is easier to turn the boat to starboard. This is true even when running at full power and speed. I got the boat pointed into the wind - and toward Deep Water Marina and then throttled back to 75. We ran along like this until we got past the spoil islands. Then we turned into the channel for the trip to the put in point. At this time we made very little speed over ground. The current from the Apalachicola River was significant here. There was an outgoing tide. The significant rains Thursday were adding to the river's flow.

By now the trolling motor had been running at 75 to 100 for about an hour and a half. The batteries were getting low and the output started diminshing. By now, the motor would throttle up to about 50. Past that it ran at the same speed. I put the mizzen up to help.

I saw the marina get closer but extremely slowly to not at all. But we were moving through the water at a good clip. I sighted from a channel marker bouy to an island and noticed we were going backwards. I put the jib back up. We started moving forward. I told Debbie she'd be amazed at how fast we moved once we were in the marina. Sure enough. Some folks on a nice big pretty houseboat remarked about the trolling motor.

After entering the marina we were back at the ramp within about 5 minutes. The boat had a good coating of salt. I had the satisfaction of having met a challenge. I was quite pleased with the performance of this trolling motor. As I had predicted it put out more thrust and ran for 3 or 4 times longer than the Endura 55 I used before. Also the batteries did not "get tired" as quickly. My last task was to lug the batteries into the hotel room to charge. I set them on a plastic bag to protect the carpet.

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