On St. Joseph's Sound

In fall and winter, after a cold front blows through the Gulf, the wind shifts northwest. It's a long fetch from Texas to the Florida coast and the seas get as high as they ever get here--except when there is a hurricane offshore. With a thousand miles of deep water to cross and a constant wind behind them, the big rollers build up until they feel the tug of the shelf that extends seaward, from the surf line out to where the water gradually darkens from green to aqua and finally to inky blue. The drag of the sandy bottom on the big ones distorts and bends them but they stay together somehow until they dash themselves in a frenzy against the beach. On days like this, when the weather turns cold and the cloudless sky darkens to the most remarkable and unexpected blue, the sea shimmers a pale green from the sand kicked up by the surf while the whitecaps stretch out to the far horizon.

This is the best time to sail to the key, when the wind and cold and chop drive the power boats off Anclote Anchorage and the weather, although stiff, can be guaranteed to only get milder over the next few days. My friend and I know this. After the thunderstorms that mark the front's passage rush away to the southeast we are ready and have the boat packed; by early morning it is off the trailer and rigged and we are underway. The Pelican is small but designed precisely for this sort of adventure, strong, roomy and overbuilt. On the typical mild day on the Gulf coast she is slow and sluggish but in conditions like this she comes alive and is in her element. Just right for a crew of two, the lug-rigged cat sloop is perfect for the day: solid, dependable, and with plenty of room to carry all the additional gear safety and prudence demands we have with us on a trip like this. Where we are going there will not likely be anyone else and we need to be self-sufficient.

Anclote Key is four miles offshore, an uphill slog all the way, directly to windward. To round the southern tip as is our plan requires a series of alternating long and short tacks into wind and chop. The continuous glistening spray soon drenches the boat and its contents. The crew, in spite of the generous sun, is warmly dressed, foulies over sweaters; but the water falls everywhere, sloshing back and forth in the bilge, dripping off the sails and rigging. Wind and water are cold and the first leg of the trip will take several hours of hard beating to windward. A swift current in the Sound and the boat's flat bottom work against us; leeway pushes us south so we must tack often. My shipmate and I have been doing this for a long time so scarcely a word is required between us; the maneuvers are crisp and efficient and the boat drives on like a locomotive, with sails full and lines taut, pounding into the chop with a bone in her teeth. Slowly but inevitably, we claw our way upwind.

On gentler days the shallow water is clear; plainly visible through it are great patches of turtle grass separated by stretches of white sand. In season, clouds of scallops scatter as the boat approaches, like wind-up comic dentures swimming through the transparent water. Sometimes porpoises follow the boat, often leaping alongside it, and in their time the stingrays scurry across the bottom out of our way. But not today. When the nor'wester blows, the sea floor is turbid and the surface a tangle of ripples and foam and whitecaps. The boat is a living thing, crashing through the waves like a wild horse through tall grass; spray leaps off the blunt bow and rains in sheets on and about us. As Pelican heels hard to leeward the crew leans to weather; the helmsman looks forward and is soon drenched, but the man handling the jib stands facing aft, his back to the spray. Periodically, we change places. Conversation is possible, but soon we are hoarse from shouting over the wind and splash and the pounding of the boat. For long stretches we just do our jobs, the tillerman concentrating on rudder and mainsail trim, the man up forward minding the jib sheets. Our eyes move from the straining rig to the angle of the wind, invisible, but we can sense exactly where it is. If we keep the boat perfectly balanced on that edge, the voyage will be over much sooner. Pelican responds, a machine in tune and in harmony with her human cargo and the sea around us; under our control, but allowing us to do what we could never accomplish without her.

By lunchtime we have reached the southern end of the island. We give it a wide berth, there is a tangle of shoals and channels and confused currents there that on another day we might thread our way through, perhaps to camp on the beach for a long fishing weekend. But not now, this is a day sail and we round the southern tip, gulp down a sandwich, a candy bar and a drink and turn across the wind and steer north, parallel to the long weather side of the island. We are cold and wet but the sun is higher now and the food warms us up. Conditions are a little better too, the waves are rollers here in deeper water and the chop is not quite as bad: soon the slickers come off. We're on a port tack now and we only come about when the leeway pushes us too close to shore--that turbulent cauldron of surf is no place for a small boat. It is ironic, this boat and crew are only in real danger if they get too close to land.

The trip along the length of the three mile long island is the mirror image of the sail from the boat ramp. Now we have the wind to port, an invisible wall we slide against, as close as we dare get before it before it begins to slow us down. The little boat, despite it's deep wide centerboard, loses ground continuously to leeward towards the churning shore and we periodically have to tack and beat out to deeper water before we can come about and resume our course parallel to the beach. Ironically, during these short detours we are losing ground, traveling further from our destination. It's just part of the charm of sailing, I guess.

The sail north lets us get a good look at Anclote Key, a long thin sandbar with a glorious sandy beach and a spine of palms and scrub down the middle; there is a mangrove swamp on the lee side, but we cannot see it from here and the sand sparkles white and featureless except for the lines of weed and spindrift deposited there by the falling tide. On it the surf beats mercilessly, these days of heavy waves are infrequent and tomorrow the outline of the coast will be visibly altered. The key is a living thing, over a period of years we've seen it change and move and writhe along the surface of the sea. My friend and I have often remarked how fascinating a stop-action movie of the island might be, one frame taken every day over a century then all played back in a few minutes. The island would wriggle like an eel and swim down the Sound. Everything is alive out here, just at different time scales.

We pass familiar landmarks, the automated lighthouse and the old wrecked shrimpboat, only her pilot house now visible above the sand. There is a new wreck too, a lovely yacht, her spine broken irreparably high up on the beach, her mast pointing to sea, parallel to the ground; the sand is littered with debris. A quick look through the binoculars shows she has been there for some time; scavengers have already stripped her expensive deck hardware. Almost as if we had unexpectedly stumbled across the corpse of a beautiful young woman, it shocks us, then breaks our heart. She was certainly a stranger to these waters and in the dark her skipper probably mistook the lights of the tall smokestack on the mainland for the lighthouse. The island is so low you can't see it at night and they probably sailed her right up on the beach. We hope her crew got off all right.

It takes us hours to sail down the length of the island. At the northern end, sportsmen and even professional fishermen rarely visit; there are no ports to speak of for miles further north and the mudflats and oyster bars up the coast are unfriendly to small craft. We find the deep channel between the end of the key and the sand flats and make our turn. The wind behind us now, sailing becomes a little easier so I kick up the centerboard to let us scoot through the shallows, leaving it down just far enough to warn us if we're running into shoal water. Traveling with the wind, the impression is that it has suddenly dropped to a gentle breeze--not really, we're just moving with it. My crewman stands on the foredeck with his trusty Polaroids and helps me pick our way through the shoals. The water is only a few feet deep but we're a small boat so it presents no threat, we can always jump out and push. Offshore, the big rollers crash into a long sandbar so we are protected and we know the hardest part of the trip is over. After clearing the tip of the island we turn south, with the wind behind us we glide parallel to the edge of the land along the mangrove thicket that extends the length of the bay side.

The whole character of our world suddenly changes, the wind, blocked by the land and the thick mangrove forest, dies down to the gentlest of breezes. The water is flat and serene, clear as glass, and the Pelican ghosts along quietly in less than two feet of water. We strip off our wet clothes, change into dry ones, and have another snack. My friend lights up his pipe for the first time all day, relaxes and enjoys the view, the lazy smoke from its bowl drifting along with us. It is late afternoon now and the thick mangrove passing to starboard has a primeval, prehistoric look to it. The sun low in the sky and behind the vegetation; Pelican silently drifts along in shadow, sails limp and barely pulling. It is quiet and peaceful but the mangroves, menacing and impenetrable, are only yards away. Beneath the boat is a slimy fine mud, almost quicksand, and the mangrove is as interlocked and tangled as the Devil's own basket; even a man with an axe could not hack his way through it. We are comfortable and relaxed, but without the boat around us this meeting place of land and sea is as inhospitable to us as the crashing surf on the weather side of the island. The wind is muted, but there's enough to keep the salt water marsh mosquitoes down. In a few days the crop of wrigglers hatched after yesterday's rain will make this stretch of water a living hell. We have our rods and had planned to try for snook and snapper here, but we are both too tired and without a word decide to save it for another day.

The island passes slowly by and we use the time to bail the bilge and secure the loose gear that came adrift from the almost continuous pounding we had been in all day. We discuss cutting our cruise short and setting a course back to Tarpon Springs and the boat ramp: the chart is consulted and a compass bearing laid out. It is almost night now and most of the long trip back will be in the dark. But Anclote Key has one more show to put on for us, one final act.

Out of nowhere, a school of mullet has materialized. Between us and the shore, the fish seem agitated, nervous, individuals are jumping and the school rushes about like a single panicked creature. We soon see why. A small shark has appeared, four or five feet long, perhaps a young bull or lemon, it is hard to tell in the dim light. Only the dorsal fin can be seen slicing the flat, still water, and an occasional glimpse of tail. The predator dashes through the mullet, zig and zagging while its foot-long prey scatter to confuse and avoid the assault. As he passes, they reassemble into a tight knot of swimmers, almost touching each other, and the shark circles back, again and again. The running battle continues, gradually moving south along the tangled mangrove roots where the prey huddle as best they can. By coincidence, the skirmish is moving along at about the same speed we are and for long minutes we follow and watch, transfixed. The battle continues until it is almost too dark to see and suddenly it is over as quickly as it began. Have the mullet scattered and headed for deeper water? Has the shark fed to satisfaction? We do not know, but it is over.

It is time to go. We turn away from the mangrove and head southeast into deeper water.
It is dark now and the distant lights of Tarpon Springs are winking on, our little boat picks up speed as we depart the lee of the island and pick up the northwest breeze again. This time the wind is on our quarter, the ideal point of sail, and traveling with it our speed is subtracted from the wind's to make what we feel aboard much more moderate. The seas too are now coming up behind us and rather than crashing through we lift our stern to them so they slide effortlessly beneath us to pass ahead. It's a gentler ride and a dry one, even with the quickly dropping temperature we are comfortable. The law tells us our boat is not long enough to require running lights, but we each have flashlights ready to locate gear or to shine on the sail if another boat comes near. But we have little need of them except for an occasional flash at the compass to ensure we are still on course for home. The sky quickly turns black and a blaze of stars appears overhead as they are never seen from the city. It is still almost two hours before we get back to the ramp and the bowl of night embraces us; while astern, a long trail of phosphorescence, unearthly green-glowing plankton, marks our wake, a ghostly road in the sea. We settle down for a long ride, dreading the chore of putting the boat on the trailer, the clean-up, and the long drive back to Tampa. I sip at the last of the lukewarm coffee from the Thermos and my shipmate lights his pipe and remarks that throughout the entire day we have not seen even one other boat.