Day 7

Woke to calm seas, bright sunshine and little wind -
lovely! No freeze last night (not that I'd noticed
anyway and it didn't seem as cold either)

Had a shower - I am now the cleanest person on the
boat!

Cooked ham and egg on toast for breakfast love the
aftertaste of eggyhammybready..yum

Teas up when Lighthouse Marina call. They have no
water. and can't take me.

'Long Hose' calls to say they can't get to me anywhere
till wednesday anyway.

So I call Clearwater Municipal Marina who tell me they
have 12' there and a 10' channel from the ICW. I doubt
this a bit because that was my original stopping off
point planned on day 5. But beggars can't be chosers
and at high tide (12.42) I shall try and get there.

I am going to start the motor in a min and see what
happens. I hope there are no airlocks, but I'd rather
clear them in dock than in that skinny waterway out
there.

being a novice sailorman, I was told that I have a
depthsounder (which is true). I have diligently turned
the thing on since day1 and treated its measurements
with something akin to worshipping a piece of the True
Cross. This, as it happens is basically bollocks. The
bottom hereabouts is soft silty sand, and I can plough
through it with my keel (within reason) so I turned it
off completely in my short hop from Marker 1 to
Clearwater, merely watching my wave out the side of
the boat to prove I'm moving. No problems at all. Huh,
maybe the sailors of yore worked on a 'need to know'
basis? So, in blissful ignorance I moored (and did it
well, as it happens) at Clearwater. I'm here till
8.30am Wednesday when Long Hose will drain all my
expensive diesel and only charge me $0.50 per gal to
do it. Plus the call out charge of course. Then I
shall fill my two tanks with 200 gals of deisel @
$2.05 gal and sail away!

Looking at the chart I see that I can exit the ICW
here and join the Gulf proper, pus there is a marked
bearing which will take me NNW towards Panama City.
Working on a basis of 6NM per hour, this means I'll be
at sea for 25 hrs till the next waypoint into Panama
City. Which makes me a little nervous. But the weather
is set fair and I think I've got to grips with Marvin
(I read the manual and it says that it can take up to
a minute for it to come to the proper bearing - which
is fine in open sea, but disaster in a 40' wide ICW)
So I have high hope of Wednesday morning, my first at
(real) sea.