The BEER Cruise is something Charlie and I have been wanting to do for some time now. Usually it comes so close after the Mug Race that we are too broke and I am too whipped to make it. They changed the date this year and after much contemplation and financial finagling, we figured we could just pull it off this year. Our original plan was to do the cruise with our daughter, Killian and her fianc?Gabe. Things changed when they informed us that they were going to spend that week on a trip up the east coast. They changed even more when a couple months later they decided to tell us that the trip would be they’re honeymoon and that they had decided to move the wedding up . . . about four years . . . to the weekend before the BEER Cruise, but that’s another story. Meanwhile, my brother Andy had expressed an interest in going. Some of you know Andy from crewing with us on the Mug Race the last four or five years. He’s the one that got hit by lightening the first time he ever got on a sailboat . . . the year we got dismasted under the Buckman Bridge. With Andy on board, his wife, Leisa, decided to come along since we would all be in the Pensacola area that weekend for my Uncle Dan and Aunt Dee’s 50th Wedding Anniversary, and if she was going, we could spend an extra couple days in Biloxi because she had two free nights of room and board courtesy of the Beau Rivage Casino and Hotel along with $150 of Free Play money for the casino. I know it’s complicated, but try to keep up. Now Leisa is a true one of a kind individual. She has a heart of gold but does not suffer indignities lightly and can be very vocal about it. Her idea of roughing it is an air conditioned RV parked close enough to the casino for valet parking and a waiter to bring the drinks. I was a little concerned when she asked if the boat was air conditioned and had a shower. She likes her creature comforts’. After a couple weeks of planning, provisioning, maintenance, a wedding, a little angst, some trepidation and complete neural burnout, we hooked up the Thera-P to the old Suburban and headed to my brothers’ house in Montezuma, GA Thursday afternoon. We transferred everything to Andy’s truck, because it would actually make it down there and back, had a great steak dinner, a good nights sleep and headed out Friday morning for the Gulf Coast. We were off on our grand adventure. We arrived at the Pensacola Shipyard Marina on Bayou Chico on Friday at around scorching hot-thirty, got out of that cool air conditioned truck into the air you can wear’, and proceeded to do what needs to be done. With everybody pitching in, we got the boat rigged in record time and into the slip. Leisa had informed us on the way down that Friday night she was getting a motel room because; “dammit I’m not going to the Anniversary party sweaty with no makeup!” A little air-conditioned sleep in a nice soft bed with headroom and a long cool shower was sounding pretty damn good to me, too. Great idea, Leisa. We headed into town to find a close motel, re-provision our depleted beer and ice supply and find a restaurant. Here’s where the learning curve’ got a little slick. We made the mistake of leaving our coolers in the back of the truck. One of our food coolers was stolen when we got up Saturday morning. (We managed to fit one beer cooler in the cab of the truck and the rest we took to the room.) We headed back to the marina to drop off the coolers and stow bags and provisions on the boat and generally get things ship shape. We told some of our fellow cruisers of our plans to catch up with the fleet later that afternoon, got some important navigational instructions and headed out for Cantonment (a few miles north of Pensacola) and the 50th Wedding Anniversary Party. The party for Uncle Dan and Aunt Dee was a wonderful event and we were proud to be a part of the festivities for two truly great people. I know I had a great time and got to see some aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. that I haven’t seen, in most cases, for over thirty years. We stayed a good bit longer than I had planned and got back to the marina late. With the sun speeding toward the western horizon, a handful of fuzzy paper charts printed off the BEER Cruise website, the little pocket compass Charlie picked up at the Dollar General and my Wal-Mart handheld GPS, no depth finder or knot meter and only a handheld VHS, we headed out of Bayou Chico into Pensacola Bay to hopefully find Sailboat Cove and catch up with the fleet. I was a little nervous with never having sailed these waters and only a days worth of fiddling with the new GPS (you know how I am with things of a technical nature) and a compass that would point north, sort of, if you kept it real still. On top of that, I spilled a beer on the chart that showed the real narrow cut north of Fort McRee. Realizing that discretion is the better part of valor, I made my first command decision. “Let’s just motor over to Sailboat Cove so we can find it before dark.” I decided as I stared into the setting sun trying to make out if that marker we just past was Green 3 or Green 5. The old Thera-P was handling like a slug and I was fairly concerned until I realized that we had probably upwards of 1800 lbs. or so of extra weight with all the stuff we obviously overpacked. I got a little confused once, but we finally made it with out running aground thanks to Andy and Charlie keeping me on course and out of the shallows and Leisa keeping me well lubricated with my favorite adult beverage. We threaded our way through the flotilla and rafted up to Kennifer’s Hunter 260, the “Jamie Sea”. Charlie ran everybody out of the cabin and began to set up the galley for supper. We retired to the cockpit for some serious beer drinking and tale telling. Charlie whipped the below decks into shape, got everything stowed (I still have no idea where all that crap went. She is so cute when she’s efficient) and turned out a great supper of steak and baked potato. She apologized for the lack of salad as that was in the cooler that got stolen. Like anyone cared. The food was great, the beer was cold and conversation and revelry abundant and sweet. We were having such a good time that before we knew it, we had emptied one of the beer coolers. This may have been the cause of The Asparagus Incident’. Now it seems that in the course of the evenings’ revelry, Ken Griffin had been bragging to Leisa of his prodigious culinary skills. Under cross-examination he freely admitted to his intention of making his famous grilled asparagus. Leisa, after some serious hard nosed negotiation had elicited from Ken the promise of providing her with a sample of this culinary creation for her to sample and pass judgement upon. Alas, as the evening wore on and the V.O. level descended, it seems that Ken lost track of this promise in the intoxication of the moment. Now, to be fair, it seems that Leisa, whom also was caught up in the intoxication of the moment, had retired to her slumber before this gastronomic delight was fully prepared and so, it seems, in the mutual intoxication of the moment, the deal was never consummated. The next morning, however, Leisa remembered! The berating began. Sunday morning dawned flat and still as Andy and I gathered up the flotsam and jetsam of the nights activities from the cockpit and tried to find somewhere to stow 50 lbs. of empty beer bottles along with the remains of the nights repast. The empty beer cooler proved convenient. Charlie made coffee and got breakfast started. Over coffee in the cockpit Ken informed me that Ronnie Hartley had taken a bad tumble and had very likely broken a rib or two and might need assistance getting underway. We were staring at the jellyfish in the water debating swimming over when Jeff Morrow and either John Davis or Warren Hughes dinghied over and gave him a hand. God bless em. We hung out for a while as most of the other boats headed out for Navarre hoping for the wind to fill in a little. We headed out behind Calvin & Grayson, the Kennifers and some folks in a Catalina 25 that we hadn’t met yet. We were the last group to leave Sailboat Cove. We motored through that 50 ft wide cut out into Pensacola Bay and Charlie and Andy put up sails and Leisa resumed her bartending duties. We got into an immediate tacking duel with the Kennifers while Calvin and Grayson took off like a bat out of appaloosa. After about a half-hour or so of serious competition, by mutual agreement Ken and I tacked away from each other. If we kept at it this hard we would have a mutiny among our respective crews and this was supposed to be a fun cruise. Besides, Ken was gaining ground on me. I gotta say that I was running the small jib in deference to Leisa. I didn’t figure she would be very comfortable with the rail in the water the whole way. As we headed out into Pensacola Bay, watching Kennifer and Calvin & Grayson pull away, I turned the helm over to Charlie and proceeded to do battle with the new GPS. After an hour, give or take, of careening around the learning curve with the GPS, I felt confident enough to at least keep us out of the palm trees and headed in the right general direction. As I looked up from my instructional interlude I noticed we had gained some ground on our competition, I mean fellow sailors. Maybe I got a little too excited. I proceeded to make the “Sailing with Your Wife Egregious Error # 1-C”. I commented semi-harshly, more than once, on her seeming inability to hold course, and it was all my fault . . . I got some splaining to do. We were on a close reach in about 10 or so knots of wind and the old girl (the boat, dammit. I’m in enough trouble!) was wandering about trying to round up in any little errant puff or shift when my continued comments created enough anger to induce my Darling Bride to sling the tiller extension at my head (didn’t miss by much) and storm below to leave me with it. This happened after she had informed me that the boat was handling like s**t. I grabbed the tiller and sure enough, I didn’t do any better. A little investigation revealed that the rudder tie down had loosened up because someone (who, me?) didn’t tie it down very well and the rudder was bouncing up just enough to make the boat handle like a monkey shooting the rapids on an empty oil drum. She was pissed for a while. She did come up to watch us race a large barge to the Pensacola Beach Bridge. I think she was rooting for the barge. After we passed under the bridge and headed up Santa Rosa Sound, Charlie finally forgave me and took back the helm. We had a great sail to Navarre. The wind stayed out of the S-SE at about 8 to 10 is my best guess with some runs a little higher. Kept us all cool and moving smartly. Leisa even took the helm a couple times. She did very well. She also took time to make us all a very delicious and colorful brunch. It involved hors d’ouvres served skewered on colorful flamingo and umbrella toothpicks served on tropical themed paper plates with matching napkins. A treat for the eyes and the palate. We made pretty good time for an overloaded boat with a crew of mainly drunks. Damn good thing we had a designated helmswoman! The GPS said we had a max speed of 8.3 knots somewhere on the run but I think that might have happened when Charlie threw it at me. Every time I checked we were hitting between 3.8 and 5.2 knots. I gotta get my knot meter fixed. We arrived at Navarre sometime around 3 p.m. or so and anchored up Bahamian style close to Juanas Pagodas, with the stern to the beach beside Kennifer. Getting in was tricky due to the jet skis and ski boats. With the board up in any kind of breeze the Thera-P handles like a styrofoam cup. With all the swimmers, jet skis and ski boats, we finally just tossed the anchor out and jumped in and took the stern line and walked her in. We helped some friends of Kennifer in a MacGregor 26X or M, (one of the motor sailer models, you know, the Winneblowboat) back in and raft up to us. I think his name was Dale and I can’t remember his lovely wife’s name. (God, I’m terrible with names) Then another 26X, old whats-his-name and his lovely wife rafted up to them. Then another MacGregor 26D came in and rafted up on the outside. We had to do some serious housekeeping before we could relax. I swear we carted off over a hundred pounds of empty beer bottles. A check of the coolers revealed that just maybe we had enough beer for the night. The decision was made to re-provision in the morning, besides we still had a bottle of Makers Mark bourbon, a fifth of rum and two or three bottles of wine. We could make do. With my chores done for a while, I sat back with a cold beer from the dwindling supply and smiled as Leisa berated Ken once again over the Asparagus Incident’. My irrepressible and inexhaustible Darling Bride whipped up some of her famous enchiladas for our supper, after a taste of which, Ken the gourmet pronounced “Damn good!” Ken then proceeded to inform us of his intentions for supper on the Jamie Sea’ which induced another hilarious round of berating from Leisa over the Asparagus Incident’. Somewhere in this altercation I heard something about marinated saut? Brussels sprouts and a promise of a sample for Leisa to make up for the Asparagus Incident’. I could be wrong, but I was pretty sure supper on the Jamie Sea’ would await the proper marinating of the chef. Alas, I was correct in my assumption as the Swilling of the Grog and the Telling of Tall Tales’ continued long into the night . . . accompanied by occasional admonishments over the Asparagus Incident’. Sometime late in the evening a greenish silvery missile came lobbing into the cockpit of the Thera-P from the direction of the Jamie Sea. The marinated chef made good on his promise. It was the promised Brussels sprouts in a sandwich baggie. Alas, poor Leisa had already retired for the night. As I was sitting in the cockpit the next morning sipping coffee and waiting on Leisa to awaken and claim her long awaited gift of a well cooked green vegetable I began to discern a discordant mumbling from below where Charlie was preparing pancakes and sausage. I poked my head through the companionway to see Charlie on her hands and knees sponging water from the bilge. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “I told you last year that the sink leaked. No telling what all its ruined.” she replied grumpily. “Want me to get the bilge pump?” I asked. “No, I got it. Just make me a cup of coffee and get out of my way!” she grumbled. “Yes dear.” I replied. Years of experience has taught me not to piss off the hardest working, most experienced crew member . . . especially if you sleep with her! The damage wasn’t too bad, Charlie had to repack a couple clothes bags and a couple of boxes of provisions got a little soggy but the contents were OK. While Andy and I went off to re-beer and re-ice, Charlie took the breakfast dishes with her to the showers. We got showered, provisioned and got the boat shipshape and ready to depart before Leisa discovered her Brussels sprouts. Now I don’t know how Brussels sprouts sit as a dessert to pancakes and sausage, but she ate ’em, pronounced them delicious and put a happy ending to the ‘Asparagus Incident’. As usual, we were one of the last boats to leave Navarre on Monday morning headed for a place marked Quiet Water on the north side of Pensacola Beach at the southern end of the Pensacola Beach Bridge. After looking at the charts and watching some of the other boats I decided we could cut across the southern side of Santa Rosa Sound instead taking the channel north beside the bridge to the ICW. The shallowest areas on the chart were marked at 3 ft. so I yanked the board up about 10 inches. The weather station called for winds out of the south at 10 to 15 so we set for a reach and let the old girl run. About thirty minutes later Andy pointed back towards the Navarre Bridge and asked, “What’s that?” I turned and saw what appeared to be the bottom of a boat with what appeared to be another sailboat close alongside. I replied “That is somebody having a bad day.” Found out a little later it was John and Sherrie in their O’day 272 and they were hard aground. But that’s John and Sherrie’s story and
‘ll let them tell it. We had another great day of sailing with consistent, steady winds that allowed us to catch several boats in the fleet. I had a hell of a crew. Andy is getting to be a damn good sailor. Charlie is as good as they come. If my male ego would let me admit it, I’d probably have to admit she’s better than I am at several aspects of seamanship. And Leisa, what a gal. I know this wasn’t exactly her cup of tea but she came through like a trooper. She never let us run dry as the official bartender and whipped up some damn fine lunches. At one point during a screaming reach, she couldn’t hold it anymore and went below to the head to pay the rent on the beer, so to speak. We were heeled over at about 12 or so degrees and she’d been down long enough for me to get a little worried. I heard her holler up “How fast are we going?” I looked down at the GPS and yelled back “6.2 knots!” There was a short silence and then we heard her holler “Hot damn, I’m gonna call my friends and tell ’em I peed on a sailboat at 6.2 knots!” Now there’s an experience that you just don’t get any old where! Not long after that, Andy looked behind us and said “Isn’t that Ken and Jennifer gaining on us?” Damn! They had beaten us on every leg of this cruise so far, I couldn’t let ’em take me this time. We had got the jump on them when they went north through the cut out of Navarre and stopped to help John and Sherrie. We got serious. The crew got into the spirit and we worked that boat like it was the America’s Cup. We began to pull away. We had a good hour’s worth of hard sailing before Kennifer eased up, I think to talk with Dale and his wife on the MacGregor 26X. Truth be told, I’m sure Kennifer could have taken us if they really tried. I’ve seen them make that 260 scream, and we were still flying the small jib so we probably weren’t serious competition for them. But it sure felt good to be anchored up at Quiet Water waiting on them for a change! After the hassle we had getting to the beach at Navarre, we decided to anchor out about 350 to 400 feet from the beach. We had a little trouble getting the anchor to set. It was probably a little light for the sandy conditions. We ended up wading in and setting it by hand. We got Kennifer to come in and anchor close by and rafted up, hoping 2 anchors would hold us both better than one. We eventually got them set with enough spread to hopefully hold us if the wind shifted. John and Sherrie came in and anchored close by. They dinghied over to join us in a little post sail celebration and also because it was Sherrie’s birthday and John had acquired a little celebratory present for Sherrie while we were at Navarre and stashed it with us so Sherrie wouldn’t find it. Sherrie brought her martini shaker and offered me one. Thus began my downward spiral. I remember the martinis, chased with beer. And I sorta remember the popping the cork on a magnum of Chardonnay, and chasing it with beer. I start getting fuzzy about the time everyone decided to dinghy in to the beach for supper at the restaurant. I vaguely remember sitting at the bar waiting for a table and someone saying something about “He’s gotta leave.” Not because I was rowdy or anything, I just couldn’t seem to keep my eyes open. I’ve been told bits and pieces of my debacle, but for the real lowdown, I’m no help at all. So you’ll just have to get the rest of the story from someone else. I hear Grayson has pictures and they came out great. Not sure I wanna see em. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my crew and my friends for not leaving me stretched out on the beach with pink flamingo swizzle sticks braided in my hair. Oh wait, my hair’s to short to braid anymore! Whew!!! I woke up the next morning not feeling too terribly bad, under the circumstances. Charlie tells me at some point during the late hours I roused myself enough to take the “Cure.” The “Cure” consists of two Goody Powders chased with half a beer followed by one of the pills I take for my back, chased with the other half of the beer. Usually works. At any rate, Andy and I were sitting in the cockpit finishing off our morning coffee when a rainsquall came roaring in out of the west with a vengeance. Actually felt pretty good. The rain and wind sure cooled things down. Didn’t do much for the anchor situation. As we swung smartly eastward, my anchor pulled out and we wrapped Kennifer’s anchor rode around the post with the No Wake’ sign. This proved to be a blessing as it kept Kennifer’s anchor pulling from the direction it was originally set and it stayed put. After the squall, the wind clocked around to the northwest causing us to swing uncomfortably close to a couple boats that had set their anchors in a much more proper manner and hadn’t moved at all. Wanting to be good neighbors, Ken and I bravely jumped in and reset our anchors to avoid any territorial disputes or damaged fiberglass. We returned to our respective boats, sat in our respective cockpits and drip dried as we sipped our respective adult beverages and told respectable lies until it became apparent that Leisa was beginning to get that Air Conditioned Casino Itch’. It was time to pull anchor on our last day on the boat and head back to the Pensacola Shipyard Marina, put the boat on the trailer and head to Biloxi for a little of Leisa’s R-n-R. The trip back was uneventful and a little boring. We fired up the motor and raised sail just because, but the waters in Santa Rosa Sound were like glass. We started to get just a little breeze as we got out to the passage under the Pensacola Beach Bridge. Once we got out into Pensacola Bay the breeze freshened just enough to occasionally fill the sails. We ended up motor sailing pretty much all the way back, which is kinda like having a platonic relationship with a supermodel. Looks good from a distance I suppose. I finally ran aground . . . twice. Once as we were coming up to the slips at the marina in that really narrow channel as you approach the marina. Of course the wind decided to pick up about that time and as soon as the board came up I lost all steerage, went careening out of the narrow channel and had to lean out over the transom and wrassle with the motor to regain any directional stability. I fought her back into the channel and dropped the board a couple feet just to regain steerage. As I carefully nosed her into the slip she grounded again. That’s when I realized that my stern line was hooked to the port side cleat instead of the starboard side. After an embarrassing amount of fumbling, we finally got her tied to the dock and commenced to prepare the old girl for the trailer. After another embarrassing board up approach to the dock at boat ramp, and a little help from some new friends in a beautifully restored old MacGregor 22, we managed to wrassle the old girl back onto the trailer. She fought us every inch of the way, guess she didn’t really want to leave. In the process of loading the boat we managed to bend the left side trailer fender down onto the tire and cut a groove in it as we hauled her out. We unloaded the boat and then Andy and I proceeded to grunt and sweat in the hot humid air to try and pry the fender off the tire. We did manage to break the rear mounting bracket but that worked out fine. I just took a length of line and a half a handful of zip ties and utilizing a trucker’s hitch managed to get the fender tied up and away from the tire. Worked out OK. We got the boat washed but we were just too damn tired to step the mast. We just left the old girl rigged and parked in the lot, and then I had the 2nd best shower of the trip. We loaded up in the truck and headed for Biloxi. After a semi-monotonous 2-hour ride we checked into the luxurious Beau Rivage Casino and Hotel where I had the best shower of the trip. Yes friends, we wallowed in opulent decadence for two nights and two and a half days of pure self indulgence on the 25th floor with a Gulf side view. We ate too much seafood, drank too much free liquor and I re-learned why I don’t gamble. All too soon it was time to pack it in, head back to Pensacola, retrieve the old Thera-P from her lonely solitude in the marina parking lot, step the mast tie everything down, hitch her to the truck and point it toward Georgia. I was bone tired and my butt was draggin’ . . . but my, my . . . we had us a time, didn’t we? Gimp