Salty Podcast #17 | ⛵🌴 Sailing & Chartering an Island Packet 349 Sailboat in Panama City Beach, FL 🌊✨

Cap'n Tinsley talks to the crew/owners Sailing & Chartering a 2020 Island Packet 349 Sailboat out of Panama City Beach, FL, S/V La Bella Vita.  Audio from video livestream April 10, 2024.  Full Vid:  https://www.youtube.com/live/QjRYgpoYaaM?si=BKHy4h4CbGlBkkbS

Emerald Coast Sailing Excursions
EmeralCoastSailingExursions.com

Transcript

Good evening, everybody.

00:08
This is Captain Tinsley, Salty Abandon with another Salty Podcast where it's always a great day to talk about sailing.

00:15
And tonight is episode 17.

00:17
And I'm going to bring out tonight's guest and we'll do the introductions with him on on the screen here.

00:25
Daniel, how are you doing tonight?

00:27
Good.

00:28
I'm doing great.

00:28
Glad to be here.

00:30
All right, so this is Daniel Snapp with La Bella Vita, which is an island packet 349.

00:38
It's a 2020 island packet 349.

00:44
Now, you're you're you're practically a neighbor of mine.

00:46
You're just down the down the coast here on the Gulf Coast, a fellow Gulf coaster and fellow northern Gulf coaster, right with at Panama City.

00:56
Yep, Panama City downtown is where we keep the boat, a little marina called Bristol Harbor Marina.

01:01
It's right by the drawbridge right off Saint Andrew's Bay.

01:04
Yeah, I was just looking at the location of that.

01:07
And I used to stay before Michael at the Panama City Marina, the the municipal Marina, which is no longer, sadly.

01:17
And I didn't know there was anything behind that.

01:19
We never went back there.

01:22
There's a drawbridge there.

01:24
Yeah, there's a little channel that goes in, there's a drawbridge, tarpon dock, I think it's a seafood/fish house is right there.

01:33
And you got the drawbridge, you go into the drawbridge and we're about six or seven slips in on the left.

01:39
So let me just show it real quick.

01:40
So here we have.

01:41
There you go.

01:43
Here's the bay, this is where you come in right here.

01:45
I don't know if you can see my cursor.

01:47
You come in here and you go all the way across here, and that's a pretty big bay, I've I've done it many times.

01:53
And this is where I used to stay right here, but you can see there's no more slips there.

01:58
So I guess they got taken out and did they sell that property?

02:02
No, they're it's still still kind of up in the air and what they're going to do with that, there's there's all kind of stuff going on.

02:09
But do you think they'll do a a Marina?

02:12
You know, I don't know.

02:13
That's the $1,000,000 question.

02:14
You get that answer.

02:15
And a lot of people in Panama City would be glad to hear it.

02:18
We do still have a boat ramp there.

02:20
They're still allowing parking for.

02:23
You know, center console, smaller boats and and things like that.

02:26
But no sailboats, nothing in either basin.

02:29
But there is a public marina right there just to the left of your cursor.

02:34
No, back to the right just a little bit.

02:35
Go right right there.

02:37
Oh, it's small.

02:38
Yeah.

02:39
OK.

02:39
And the.

02:40
No, right.

02:40
Not that.

02:41
Right here.

02:42
Left, left.

02:43
You're on the left.

02:44
Keep going.

02:45
Anyway, now you're too far.

02:46
Anyway, it's right down there in the corner.

02:49
You know, you have a small you can still access it, but.

02:53
Okay.

02:54
And then right here, oh, there's the boat launch right there.

02:57
Yep.

02:57
Okay.

02:58
All right.

02:59
And then here's the drawbridge.

03:01
Yep.

03:02
And here it is.

03:03
I never knew anything was back there.

03:04
That's pretty cool.

03:06
So that looks like a nice protected area.

03:08
It is.

03:10
It is very protected.

03:12
Okay, cool.

03:13
So So let's first talk about your boat.

03:16
Tell us about the boat.

03:18
Well, the boat is a 2020 island packet yacht 349 new generation and they changed it up with new owners on island packet.

03:28
Let's see, they introduced this particular boat at 349 back in 2018 and 2018, 2018 is when they built the first one and it won of course all the awards just like island packets do you know normally and.

03:48
They didn't really change a whole lot as far as the, you know, the meat and potatoes of the boat, but they did make some really good changes and I love it.

03:55
It's it's been a dream of mine for 2530 years.

03:59
First time I stepped on an island packet down at the Tampa St.

04:02
Pete Strictly sail show back in, gosh, I think it was early 90s.

04:08
Yeah.

04:09
Oh wow.

04:10
And you know, back then you could, you know, you could actually go and step aboard and and look at a lot of different types of makes and models.

04:17
And you know, it's strictly, strictly sale.

04:20
And as soon as I stepped on that island packet, you could just feel the difference.

04:23
And when I went down below, you know, I told Melissa, who was my girlfriend at the time, now we're married.

04:29
I told her, I said we get one, this is it.

04:31
And I've never really varied from that.

04:34
So it's been a it's been a very long time coming and a big dream of mine for years.

04:39
All right.

04:40
You see here down on your screen, Krista Kenny is saying hello.

04:43
She's saying, hey, buddy.

04:45
There she is.

04:47
She's watching live.

04:50
Yeah.

04:50
OK, so I do want to show a couple of pictures of it so people know what we're talking about.

04:58
All right, let's go back here to the boat.

05:02
My phone keeps going off.

05:04
Oh, there she is.

05:11
All right, let's go here.

05:13
So this is your slideshow on your your sailing, your charter sailing website, Emerald Coast Sailing Excursions.

05:22
And what's really cool about you guys is you charter your boat.

05:26
So people hire you to take them out on the boat in Panama City.

05:31
Can you tell us a little bit about that?

05:33
Yeah, well, we started the business about two years ago andYou know, I also run a fishing business here locally.

05:42
So, you know, I love to to share the outdoor experience, especially here locally with people, visitors from literally, we've had them from Ireland, Italy, as far as the sailing.

05:54
And, you know, we started about two years, stay fairly busy and as busy as we want to be.

06:01
And you know, other than that, we just, we love to showcase the boat.

06:06
You know the the other nice thing about our particular business here and you know having a a working relationship with Island Packet Yachts, you know the anytime Darryl who owns a packet, Darryl and Leslie anytime that someone.

06:21
Is interested in an island packet, specifically the 349, they may or may not have a boat available to show down there.

06:28
So you know, it's all I'm a phone call away and he knows, you know, Darryl knows that if there's anybody who's looking or wants to see a boat with all the accessories and stuff on it, ours is very nicely.

06:41
He calls and and anybody's welcome to come up and tour the boat.

06:44
We'll take him out sailing.

06:45
I've had numerous people on it, crawling all through it, looking in, you know, all the little cubbies under under all the hatches.

06:52
And it's fun, it's fun for me, you know the pride of ownership, you know having an island packet, that's one of the things everybody talks about.

06:58
And they're not kidding, and you've probably experienced it out, you know hitting marinas all over the place, people always come out and want to see it.

07:05
And I tell you, the the new generation island packets, everywhere we went, especially in the Bahamas last year, we were there for three months, everywhere we went, people who knew island packet wanted to tour.

07:17
So we had to keep the boat, I mean it it looked, it didn't look likeWe're gonna board it for three months because we were doing tours It's about everywhere we stopped and uh, it was a lot of fun, but pride of ownership of having an island packet is I mean it's It's it'd be hard to switch to something else now because i've had two And whether it was the 27 or the 320 even the small ones get attention in a marina and i'm talking about people on big yachts Oh, yeah, they love it.

07:46
I mean look at kristin kenny.

07:48
Uh, I mean krista kenny and andAnd they were.

07:52
Yeah, Bill, they they were on.

07:54
What were they on?

07:54
A leopard 44, which is.

07:58
I never saw that, but we didn't know them.

08:00
We only met them at 380.

08:03
And yeah, we met them.

08:06
Bill was looking at my boat, the 320, and and wow.

08:12
So yeah.

08:14
Yeah485.

08:17
Yeah, so it it does happen a lot when I go into a marina because I go, you know, all along the the West Coast of Florida, the Gulf Coast down to the Keys.

08:26
And I've even I even took 27 over to the Bahamas.

08:29
It always gets attention.

08:31
So it is kind of fun.

08:32
It is, absolutely.

08:34
So yeah, I highly recommend anybody that wants to try out.

08:38
And you told me a story briefly about a guy.

08:42
who contacted you and said he had never been on a on an island packet and he contacted you for a charter.

08:49
And tell me about that experience.

08:51
It actually happens quite often, believe it or not.

08:54
You know, people, you know, especially the people that don't live down here in Florida, you know, that are from, you know, Midwest states.

09:01
This particular individual is from Wisconsin and he has a sailboat up there, but he knows about an island packet, you know, on videos, but he's never been on.

09:11
And that happens a lot, where people will call, you know you've got people that's never sailed, you've got people just looking for a new experience, family.

09:20
And then you have people that know island packet yachts, but's never had an opportunity to get on one.

09:24
And you know all of a sudden they see one for charter, which makes it even better.

09:29
You know I make sure I let them know that you know our particular boat is hull number 11.

09:34
And I believe right now to date,There's 19 or 20 of the 349s that have been built since 2018.

09:42
So we have .

09:43
So I make sure I tell them, listen, you know, out of the whole world, you're, you know, you're sailing on hold number 11 of only 20, maybe 21 that's ever been built.

09:53
Now, it's not to take anything away from the older island packets because I love them all.

09:57
But, you know, I'm pretty I'm pretty proud of of our boat and what we've done with her and how she turned out, you know, once we had her made.

10:06
Well, so tell me about some of the upgrades that you that you put on and did you do it at the factory?

10:12
Yes, everything.

10:13
That was one of the things that me and my wife Melissa talked about.

10:17
Something that was very important to us was, you know, since we are technically retired, I wanted, I didn't want to have to start working on a boat or to bring a boat up to speed, you know, to meet the expectations I had.

10:30
So working with Daryl and, you know, everybody there at the shop, you know, we we laid out and planned out a boat that would be basically turnkey.

10:38
So when I left the factory, which by the way, we took delivery of the boat July 25th, 2020, which was my birthday.

10:45
So I always get, you know, always kiddingabout it that she's not to work real hard to beat that birthday present but you know we basically have just other than a water maker and let's just acknowledge bill here I love the name of the boat she's a beauty see thatAnd then Anthony Gambino says, let me tell you, great to see Daniel on the show.

11:14
Been following Captain Tinsley for a while.

11:15
Met Daniel in the Abaco last year, in the Abaco.

11:19
Yeah, hey.

11:22
We drank one or two of those cocktails over in the Bahamas.

11:24
Oh, did you?

11:25
Just a few.

11:28
Next time we get over there, but it's all about coordinating.

11:31
But anyway, back to the boat, we had everything.

11:35
Pretty much everything you could get on it, we put on it.

11:38
There is no water maker as of right now.

11:40
We're going to get a most likely we're going to do a rain man.

11:46
Haven't decided 100%, but I do like the versatility of what you can do with those.

11:51
Yeah, that's one thing I'm missing, but.

11:53
I don't I don't have to have it right now but someday next time we go to the Bahamas next year is to go central Bahamas we spent three months in the northern Bahamas last year so the further we move down we definitely want to have a water maker now we don't have a generator a built-in generator and there were several I chose not to do that but what we did instead was we I purchased a Honda actually justthis year and the last year, one of the Honda 3200 fuel injected, the little small ones.

12:24
That's what I have.

12:25
Yeah, Yeah you got a 3200 too?

12:27
I think it's a 3200.

12:29
It's It's about this big.

12:32
It fits perfectly right in front of the helm.

12:35
And that one, believe it or not, I have soft starts on both my AC units.

12:41
And we can run both those AC units with that 3200.

12:44
Nice.

12:46
Bill says, what about the ones?

12:48
What about that 170?

12:49
I'm not sure what that means.

12:50
You know what that means?

12:51
He's talking about the reacher, the the sale up front.

12:55
Yeah.

12:55
Oh, OK, OKI guess he likes that.

13:03
Well, the one, you know, the the reacher that they actually started in 2018 also.

13:09
I didn't sail an Island Packet with a cutter rig or anything like that.

13:13
So this one is the only one that I've ever been on and sailed.

13:16
But you know the funny story is me, Darryl, Leslie, Melissa, and a gentleman named Nick down at Island Packet, we all took the boat out for the first time, sea trial, down in Tampa Bay.

13:27
And there were several boats coming out behind us, coming out alongside us.

13:32
Some were our size, some were a little bigger, and everybody started putting their sails up, and we were light winds.

13:37
And you know the old story, everybody thinkspacket is slow.

13:40
Let me tell you, Daryl sell a lot better than I could at the time.

13:45
You know, we got everything trimmed in and you know, I made the comment, I'm like, dude, nobody's even coming close to us.

13:51
I mean, so the the 170 reacher definitely changed the handling and sailing characteristics, you know, of the boats.

14:01
Okay, thanks for bringing that up, Bill, thank you.

14:05
Keep those comments coming.

14:07
Everybody, please comment.

14:08
It's only it only works in Facebook and and YouTube.

14:13
So we want to see those comments.

14:16
So tell me what else.

14:17
So do you have what kind of batteries do you have?

14:20
Did you get lithium?

14:21
What'd you do?

14:22
No, we I'm I'm still not 100% on lithium yet.

14:27
I got them.

14:28
Do you?

14:30
I'll talk afterwards to end it.

14:32
Yeah.

14:33
I know a bunch of people that have them.

14:34
Actually, a friend of mine, him and his wife are down in Tampa, and I don't remember what whole number, they bought, they have a 349.

14:43
It was one of the few used ones that hit the market, and they purchased it.

14:47
He just recently upgraded to, he went away from the six AGM 125s that he had.

14:52
That's from the factory, that's what I have.

14:54
And he went with four of the lithium, changed out the inverter,You know, spent a lot of money.

15:02
I think in the long run, he's definitely gonna get his money worth out of it, I hope.

15:06
But he's also trying to run a lot of things you know off a battery.

15:12
You know But I have, to answer your question, I have the six 125 AGMs house batteries from Island Packet, one dedicated, 125 for the cranking, and then one for the bow thruster.

15:25
We got a question here from Brian Atlas Harrelson.

15:30
Do you overnight sale excursions?

15:32
Good question, Brian.

15:34
No, we don't with the business, but you know, we we have stayed out overnight with friends on numerous OK locally, but we don't currently do any overnight shorters.

15:46
OK, All right.

15:48
All rightSo solar power.

15:51
Good question.

15:52
We had a 375 that was put in from the factory when we took delivery of the boat.

15:58
And that's when we were talking about you know doing single-handed sailing and stuff.

16:02
When we got back from the Bahamas in April of last year, in May, around May 13th or so, I loaded up and went back down to Tampa.

16:13
You got another one.

16:15
No, what?

16:15
You got another panel.

16:16
I have two.

16:17
I have two on my boat.

16:18
32370 fives.

16:20
Yep.

16:20
Well, I have two 40 fives is what I put.

16:23
You tossed the 375.

16:27
Here's the deal.

16:29
375 met all of our power needs over Nepal.

16:32
Yeah.

16:33
ok So I really shouldn't I'm not knocking it, but I figured well heck if a 375 was good to 405s I gotta be a little bit better Tampa I got with yacht riggers right there out of a St.

16:46
Peters.

16:46
Yeah, that's who did mine Yep, and so they all my stuff my lithium batteries everything they're gonna be on the podcast by the wayReally?

16:54
Yeah, I would definitely recommend them.

16:56
We We did a lot of, nothing was wrong, but I did a bottom job down there.

17:01
We put the solar panels on.

17:02
Basically, I was just tweaking some things that we wanted to work on.

17:06
But yeah, those guys did a great job for me.

17:08
I was happy with everything.

17:09
And right now, you know, we've got two 405s.

17:14
So we'll see how that goes the next time.

17:16
Oh my gosh.

17:17
Shout out to Mike Wack.

17:18
He made a comment here.

17:20
He's local.

17:20
He lives in Orange Beach.

17:21
He has a an island packet.

17:25
Is it 29, Mike?

17:28
We both had to replace our boats at the same time after Sally.

17:31
So I got the 320 and he got the 29.

17:35
We both had 27s and then Sally changed that.

17:40
Yeah, I remember watching you on your YouTube channels back when you had the 27, you know?

17:46
Seen a whole lot of after you've got your new one, but I don't, I don't do a whole lot of TV or or radio, so I'm always out on the water.

17:56
Well, welcome to the podcast.

17:57
Yeah, you told me that you had you used to watch my videos when I had the 27.

18:00
That's pretty cool.

18:02
OK, so we have another question, Nancy Kenny.

18:05
Do you do fishing, sailing charters, or are they different things?

18:09
Ohh Good question, Nancy.

18:11
Thanks for the question.

18:12
I do do the fishing.

18:13
I have another fishing business.

18:15
A little bit about myself, 'cause we kind of missed that.

18:19
I'm a retired firefighter from Panama City.

18:21
I'm retired as a battalion chief after 32 years with the department.

18:27
I started a fishing charter business back in 09.

18:29
It's called grassyflatscharters.com.

18:32
And believe it or not, a lot of my fishing clients wind up to be my selling clients because they, you know, they followed me for for a long time.

18:40
I've got people that's come back year after year and they knew I was going to get a sailboat eventually.

18:45
And the rest of the guys that I see two or three times a year.

18:48
And you know it's just worked out great because I'll fish with them in the morning and then they wind up and they bring out their family and stuff in the afternoon, sometimes the same day.

18:57
Oh, that's cool.

18:58
During the week.

18:59
So a lot of my business actually comes from fishing clients that are here in town looking for something new to do or different to do.

19:06
And most have never sailed.

19:08
And you know you already have a rapport with them and it works out perfectly.

19:13
All right, so keep those questions coming.

19:15
I do want to go back because you are a homeboy to the Gulf Coast and I just love your story.

19:21
So you grew up in Panama, you grew up in PC.

19:25
And you talk about the first time you sail was on the Hobie's, on some Hobie's in in the 80s.

19:32
This is when I was living in Atlanta and we would come down for spring break.

19:36
So I remember Panama City in the 80s.

19:39
Well, my sister actually, the very first sailboat, my sister in Orlando had a, they purchased a Hobie 16 and I don't even remember when that was.

19:49
It was a long time ago.

19:50
I was young and I went down with a friend of mine and we took it to a lake in Orlando and nobody knew what they were doing.

19:56
I mean, we flew.

19:58
How old were you?

20:00
You know, I don't even remember it I was I was still graduated It was long I'm horrible with time.

20:08
So excuse me.

20:09
Yeah, I was young You know probably in my early teens somewhere around in there, but we spent most of the time flipping the boat back upright and But with that that little bit of exposure I knew immediately.

20:23
I'm like, wow, this is I love sailingand didn't even know what I was doing.

20:27
And then fast forward, you know after I graduated, I was lifeguarding for several years here on Panama City Beach, and we had HOBE 16s that we were actually renting out, you know being on the on the beach.

20:38
And of course, you know when it wasn't real busy, I would take a boat out.

20:42
So I kind of sharpened my skills right there on little 16.

20:46
And then you know eventually I had my sister's 16 that I brought up here to Panama City and used.

20:53
And then in 2004, I purchased a little 19 foot West Bright Potter that was made by International Marine out of California.

21:02
20 years ago.

21:03
We We had it brand new, had it built, and they shipped it here to Panama City.

21:08
And we used it, we used to do a lot of little two, three, four day, you know, you know little excursions just here locally.

21:14
But it was a trailerable sailboat.

21:16
And what it was, I mean, it's a fantastic little rig, and I sold it to a lady,Over in your neck of the woods, actually.

21:24
Oh yeah.

21:25
Or around Orange Beach or something.

21:27
It's been a while.

21:27
But anyway, that's pretty much it.

21:31
I read your bio and you've got a great bio on your on your charter, your sailing charter website.

21:40
After you graduated, you went into the local dive and fishing industry.

21:44
And then after that, you became a professional firefighter.

21:47
I'm like, you're the guy I went on the boat if there's a fire.

21:53
I used to do a lot of diving, a lot of spear fishing, you know all that stuff, a lot of fishing.

22:00
And then about that same time when I was doing that, that's when I hired on the Panama City Fire Department in 19- So what were you like, Lowell, did you dive for hire or did you do this?

22:13
I worked at a HydroSpace dive shop that used to be right there by the old treasure ship, right on top of the drive.

22:19
Ohhused to be a dive shop right there a buddy of mine from high school was one of the captains on one of the boats and back then you know heck especially once I hire on at the fire department we worked 24 48 off and on my days off I'd go out there and help out so you like like you were crewing like when you take divers out you like put people's stuff on people's okay I'm a diver too so got him in the water make some tips yeahabout tips, but last.

22:53
And then I actually had a 21-foot tape horn, the very first one in Panama City, actually.

22:58
Those used to be, or I think they're still being built over in Pensacola.

23:01
And I saw it in 1990 and started doing you know diving, though even more, and a lot of spear fishing.

23:08
And that's kind of how I got into the fishing and diving by myself, you know away from the business aspect.

23:14
And I did that for a long time.

23:16
And then the sailing come around and I've been sailing every day.

23:19
I don't dive anymore or anything like that.

23:21
So just sailing.

23:22
So you started the Grassy Flats Charters before you you retired from the-- Yes.

23:28
As a firefighter.

23:29
And that is fly and light tackle saltwater fishing.

23:34
Is that pretty much what you do still?

23:37
Yep, I started in 2009.

23:39
I actually retired in June of 2018.

23:43
So I started fishing.

23:44
18, okay.

23:45
And so you must have a lot of guys working for you.

23:48
No, No it's just me.

23:50
Just you, you do the, so you do the the fishing in the morning and then you take some people out in the afternoon sailing.

23:58
Wow.

23:59
Wide open.

24:01
I don't slow down very often, so.

24:04
Okay, and Bill has another question.

24:07
And so does Mike Wack.

24:09
Mike, I will, I'm gonna address your question here shortly.

24:12
We're still doing a little bit of background, but I know that in your bio, you said you do some deliveries.

24:18
You had, you have done deliveries.

24:20
And so Bill must know the answer to this one.

24:22
Do you have any experience doing deliveries, any funny stories?

24:26
He already knows the answer to that, doesn't he?

24:27
I got back in Houston and we had, I've got a few stories about the oil fields in Texas and Louisiana.

24:37
And we we both had a heck of an experience.

24:40
It was six days overall.

24:42
We spent one day right over there.

24:44
Ohh Did you bring his boat back with him?

24:47
Yes.

24:47
Okay, that was you.

24:49
Okay, yeah.

24:50
We went back over there, stayed one night, and boom, next day we were gone.

24:55
And let's just say, if you've never navigated the oil fields and the oilIn Texas and Louisiana, it's an experience and to do it.

25:06
Yeah, he told us a look, they both did.

25:08
They both told us a little bit about that.

25:10
And in the the when I interviewed them and I I had no idea, you know, and I guess they were their their mass was too tall to go at the intercoastal.

25:22
We want to tackle the intercoastal over that way.

25:24
I hadn't heard a whole lot of good stuff about that.

25:27
OK.

25:28
I don't have any experience over there on the intercoastal.

25:31
we had two options either to go way south and come way around and come in you know east southeast of the Mississippi Delta or build a gentleman that does deliveries from you know Pensacola area to I believe it is Houston area and he was telling him just hug the shoreline and since this was our first or you know Bill's right an open water with a new boat we wanted to make make sure we had sales service and you know close enough in case something happened yeah because he was sayinghe was saying that everybody was saying or they were reading that you had to go 100 miles offshore to avoid all the rigs all the oil rigs but then this guy said no no no you don't have to do that and yeah I like that plan a lot better well let me just say it's not for it's not something I'd recommend people just go and do you know we did it 100 miles offshore hugging the shoreline okay okay in the daytimeYes, to do it at night with no moon.

26:33
Yeah, a lot of oil rigs.

26:35
That's difficult.

26:36
But when you add in fog rolling in with zero visibility on top of the pitch blackness, let's just say, yeah, you're you're flying blind.

26:44
You're You're relying 100% on the electronics.

26:48
And that's what we did.

26:50
Don't want to do it.

26:51
They said it was a lot of fog.

26:52
And Nancy has another question about your charter.

26:55
OK, how long does a sailing charter last?

26:57
How many hours?

26:58
Is there food?

27:00
Most important part?

27:03
No, we've got if you go to the website Emerald Coast sailing excursions.com.

27:08
Oh yeah.

27:09
You can You can look read all about the excursions.

27:12
We offer a lot of different things, everything when I tell people they're all very custom.

27:16
We start with a simple 3 hour sunset cruise that's available.

27:20
We have a four hour and then an 8 hour and but if that doesn't fit people's schedule, you know, because I, you know my wife and I, we are the owners and operators of it.

27:29
We We can pretty much cater just about anything that someone wants.

27:33
Awesome food.

27:35
We have a my wife's niece here, Tana locally.

27:39
She does the, I know I'm gonna butcher this word charcuterie board, I think.

27:44
Yeah, Yeah I I know what you mean.

27:47
Yeah.

27:48
Fantastic boards for us when when people want something like that, but usually everybody brings their own snacks and what they want to drink, you know?

27:56
Okay, and we've got it scrolling across the bottom of the screen, Emerald Coast Sailing Excursions.com.

28:03
And they've got a they've got Facebook and they have Instagram and everything, but it's a very good website and you did some great bios.

28:11
Before we go to Bill's next question, because it is kind of funny, tell me about Melissa's background.

28:17
She's from Michigan.

28:19
Holy cow, you married someone from Michigan.

28:24
But she's been here a while.

28:25
She's been in her defense, she's been here a while.

28:27
I think she moved here in her early 20s, she's from Saginaw.

28:31
Michigan.

28:32
She's got family scattered all up, you know, through that area.

28:35
And she, when when we met, you know, she loves the water anyway.

28:41
And her first introduction to sailing was on my sister's 16 foot hobby cat right up here into a place called Lynnhaven North Bay.

28:49
And I took her out.

28:51
And, of course, we spent a lot of time in the water.

28:53
You know We were hiking out.

28:54
You know She was doing a lot of water stuff up there, too, wasn't she?

28:59
Yeah, she loves the water.

29:00
She grew up around the lakes and things up there, and so it was just natural.

29:05
And I've had boats ever since she's known me, and here you know we snorkel.

29:10
You know Actually, I got her into diving years ago.

29:14
But no, she loves boating, sailing.

29:16
She's great with our boat.

29:17
I mean, she can handle it all by herself, you know and, matterfact when we're when we're making our crossings and stuff, you know you know how it is, we're we're going and we don't stop.

29:27
So, and she loves the night watch.

29:29
I mean, she gets up there and runs those electronics and keeps an eye on things and does a great job and lets me get a little sleep from time to time and works out fantastic.

29:37
But yeah, so that's pretty much her background.

29:40
You know If we're not-- She's had ASA 101 and 103, and she's the first mate.

29:47
Yeah, we actually, there's a great local company here that teaches selling, it's called Reef Runners.

29:52
Okay.

29:52
Yeah, yeah they're located out of St.

29:55
Andrews.

29:56
When they first started, a gentleman named Pete owned it back in the day.

30:01
And you know, Melissa does really good with structured type classes and learning in environments like that.

30:06
So, you know, it's like, okay, well, if you're gonna do it, I'll go ahead and do it too, because I had to do those twoto get to the bareboat certification, because-- Right.

30:17
Before the-- I have that one too, 104, yeah.

30:20
Yeah So I went ahead and went through those two with her, and then she she stopped there, and I went ahead and did the the bareboat certification, and our trip was to the Key, we drove to the Keys and sailed back.

30:30
That was our trip, our certification trip.

30:33
And that worked out really well, but those guys here locally, they do, I think he's got a couple of schools, I think maybe up in Maine, if I'm not mistaken.

30:43
And he just, him and his wife did a trip from Maine to Ireland, which I followed them on Facebook.

30:48
Wow.

30:48
Yeah.

30:48
Wow.

30:48
I think it took them 28, 29 days.

30:52
But yeah, that's that's Reef Runner Savings School here locally out of St.

30:55
Andrews.

30:56
Okay.

30:57
Yeah.

30:58
All right.

30:58
Well, here's Bill's question.

31:02
Seth, question mark, duct tape survival tactics.

31:10
Duct tape does come in handy.

31:12
He's He's referring to actually a funny story, which we won't go into here.

31:18
So Bill don't bring more stories.

31:20
We can't tell that story about duct tape?

31:24
On a delivery, a gentleman literally, uh well, yeah.

31:29
Did you have to tie him up or something?

31:30
He had a little bit of injury to his ear.

31:33
And we put some duct tape on it.

31:35
How's that?

31:36
That's That's the condensed version.

31:38
And it worked out.

31:39
Wait, wait, waitYou kind of were blocked out.

31:41
You said he had something with his ear.

31:44
He had an injury to his ear.

31:46
Oh, you used it to like stop the bleeding?

31:49
Well, yeah, you could say that.

31:51
So, yeah, that's what-- Oh, ohh it was ripped off or something?

31:53
No, no, it was ripped off.

31:55
That would have been gorilla tape you needed for that.

32:01
That's That's what he's referring to.

32:02
We had a little bit of an injury and we were able to basically use duct tape as a makeshift compression.

32:09
It's also good if you if someone, if a pirate comes on the boat, you can tie them up with duct tape.

32:13
You can wrap their...

32:16
I won't be tying anybody up.

32:20
That's a whole other story.

32:22
Okay.

32:22
All right, Bill, you need to give us some more questions.

32:26
So, okay, so she took to the sailing.

32:28
No problems there.

32:29
And you both love it.

32:31
Yeah, both love it.

32:33
That's very unusual.

32:35
Because I sail by myself because my husband's not in love with it like I am.

32:39
He He comes with me some.

32:40
But I'll meet, I'll meet guys on boats all the way down to the Keys that are by themselves and they're just hoping they can meet some girl that's going to sail with them.

32:52
ButSo many of them don't want to do it.

32:54
So you were a lucky guy.

32:55
Oh, I'm lucky.

32:56
There's no doubt.

32:57
She'll tell you that.

32:58
Oh, but we've got a, yeah, we got a great relationship on and off the border, but.

33:04
Luckily for me, she does love the water.

33:06
Everything that I've always done, whether it's be fishing, you know, the diving, snorkeling, she's right there.

33:13
So look, she just commented.

33:15
Did she?

33:16
I'm watching and yes, I love sailing.

33:21
Melissa, shout out to Melissa.

33:25
She loves it.

33:25
And like I said, she can handle the boat, you know, and my sister who lives in Orlando has a place up here too.

33:31
She spends a lot of time on the boat with us also.

33:34
And she actually has her captain's license she got a couple of years ago.

33:38
And so there she is.

33:40
Yeah.

33:42
Look at her.

33:42
She looks happy.

33:43
She is happy.

33:44
Look at you.

33:45
You look happy too.

33:48
Look at that beautiful- Hey, you're on an island packet, you know, sailing around.

33:52
Andrews Bay in Panama City.

33:54
I mean, it's it's pretty nice.

33:56
Look how perfect that boat is.

33:58
I mean, and then I wanted to show this this video here.

34:03
This reel.

34:05
That's perfect.

34:07
That's Bill's boat.

34:09
That's That's the 485.

34:11
Of course it is.

34:13
OK, I see.

34:14
Let's see.

34:16
OK, let's see if I can get the other one.

34:22
Is this your?

34:23
Is this one?

34:24
That's your boat, right?

34:25
Oh, that's Bill's.

34:27
Oh, my gosh.

34:27
And you got to go back further on.

34:30
You don't have one of your boat.

34:31
Yeah, I got many of them.

34:33
They're way.

34:34
They're back in there a little bit.

34:36
OK.

34:37
Yeah, there's.

34:38
Well, everybody hears Bill's boat.

34:44
Very nice.

34:46
Yeah, because it's got that center console.

34:49
Yeah, yeahYou have to go back into my feed a little bit further than that to see.

34:53
OK, well, I told him that I had a deck space envy with his boat because he's got all that space on the back and and also he has an enclosure too, doesn't he?

35:05
And then you have the beautiful enclosure.

35:08
He didn't on a 380 and he saw ours and.

35:11
You know, like I told him back then in the Bahamas when we met, you know, I'm like, man, you have got to get an enclosure.

35:16
You know, if there's one thing that I recommend other than just general safety stuff, the the, the enclosure, it changes everything.

35:27
from you know just to you know limiting the cold.

35:32
You know But I will I will say this, on an enclosure, there's our boat.

35:37
Finally, you got a good picture of it.

35:38
A couple feet and that's in the Bahamas.

35:45
There's There's my wife eyeballing me.

35:48
The The boat is just so perfect.

35:51
Yeah.

35:52
Oh, it's beautiful.

35:52
I mean, I love it.

35:53
You know, that's that's the nice thing about it.

35:55
When people come down, you know, I tell them, listen, you know, you're going to, you know, the people who are charter and I said, you know, you're going to love the boat and especially there that that right there is in the intracoastal, right.

36:06
Just before you get the appalache.

36:09
OK.

36:09
Oh, yeah.

36:10
OK.

36:10
I've been there.

36:11
Yeah.

36:11
And now I think there's a picture in this slideshow here that shows the enclosure, but I'm sure there is.

36:19
I mean, it'sIt's beautiful.

36:22
I I have, I have a partial, like I have those windows in the front and then on the side, but not all the way around.

36:29
And it I just spent a bunch of money, so I can't spend the money now.

36:34
It costs money to make those things.

36:36
Yeah.

36:36
Oh yeah.

36:36
And it's not cheap.

36:37
But that's, you know, that's what I tell people, you know, if you're prioritizing, yeah, if if you really want to sell your boat.

36:45
sail it around you know all year and not be bundled up like an Eskimo.

36:50
You know The enclosure is the way to go, 'cause I was telling you earlier, you know we we cruise our our waterway here off the beach with northeast winds in the wintertime, and the beach is just slick glass.

37:00
We've got 10, 15 knots coming across the dunes and we'll get out there in about 10, 12 foot of water and just cruise east and west.

37:07
The enclosure, 360, it's literally like having a Florida ring.

37:11
It gives you a completely separate living space.

37:14
When we went to the Bahama, it worked out.

37:17
It worked out fantastic.

37:19
I'm coveting it.

37:19
Anybody out there want to give me a discount on the rest of my enclosure?

37:25
saltyabandon@gmail.com.

37:28
Brian Atlas Harrelson says.

37:29
What's the best part about sailing?

37:31
But Melissa already answered it.

37:33
Brian, thank you friends and sharing our love of the water and sailing, especially when they bring.

37:38
The entertainment.

37:40
What does that mean?

37:41
Well, she's referring to Brian because Brian and Nancy, Nancy is Bill's sister and they they are a local band here.

37:50
Ohh The name of their band is called Salt Rock, PCFB or PCB.

37:56
I'm thinking.

37:58
Yeah, go to them on Facebook, but yeah, Salt Rock and their local band.

38:02
You have all your fans on here tonight.

38:08
Yeah, we got about 19 people watching right now.

38:12
Well, so that's who Brian is and that's who Nancy is.

38:16
But when we all went out, we took both our boats a couple of weeks ago and out here to Shell Island.

38:22
And of course, those guys don't ever go when we're without a guitar or something.

38:26
So we had a lot of meetings.

38:28
So that's what they're referring to.

38:29
You know So he says, Jeff Lindler says, what Dan is not telling you is that he covets Bill's boat.

38:36
Yeah, that's the gentleman I was telling you about that's down south in Tampa area.

38:42
Yeah, I know him.

38:43
Yeah, he's an awesome guy.

38:45
That's an awesome couple.

38:50
But OK, anybody else got anything?

38:53
We were having fun with your comments.

38:55
Uh Let's see.

38:59
Most memorable moment from sailing.

39:02
Oh, gosh.

39:04
His account injuries or good?

39:07
No.

39:08
Well, I have.

39:09
What's the scariest moment?

39:10
But that doesn't really.

39:13
OK, wait, Bill says tell him about the about the night vision game changer.

39:17
Oh yeah, you were talking about that.

39:19
I've been wanting to get one of those and I looked at him online.

39:22
I never made the purchase.

39:24
I would like to do that because I've been in that situation where I couldn't quite see the waves coming at me and it was I was making a night crossing.

39:32
And nothing works.

39:33
Like you put the light on and it doesn't help.

39:36
Well, here's what I can tell you about night vision.

39:39
When we were setting up the boat originally, I wanted to, you know, heads up, you know, put an infrared set up on the on the mast and all that.

39:47
And the gentleman who did the work for me down in Tampa, you know, he he you know, he he made a a comment, but not the night vision, but the infrared, sorry, bear with me just a second.

40:00
TheI guess it is infrared.

40:06
But anyway, he said, Have you ever considered a handheld?

40:09
So night vision and the infrared is two different things.

40:12
I was thinking, I was imagining like goggles or something.

40:15
That's what it is.

40:16
I didn't have a monocular.

40:17
That's the night vision, okay?

40:18
Yeah.

40:19
So there's two different things and I'll tell you about both because I think if you're going to invest in safety equipment, these two things are definitely the way to go.

40:28
The night vision, what IOne of the big reasons there is, and this worked out, I can't even tell you, I mean, it was it was the perfect scenario.

40:37
We were in an anchorage in the Bahamas called a Treasure Cave.

40:41
I think it's a it's a little, it's what's left of a beautiful little basin, a little marina.

40:46
And I knew a storm was coming and we went up into this this little area and it's not, it was small, but it wasn't real small, but there were like four boats in there and I'm like, Wow, we got a great little place to ride this storm out.

41:01
Well, the evening before the storm hit, it went from- Everybody came in.

41:07
16 or so.

41:08
And I remember telling Melissa, you know I'm like, listen, this this could get ugly because there were some moorings there, mooring balls, nobody knew the condition of and boats were taking them.

41:17
And then everybody was anchoring.

41:18
And I said, listen, if if this goes south and these people start dragging, 'cause you know the story on that, you know a lot of people don't use the right ground tackle or don't anchor properly.

41:27
And I said, worst case scenario, we can cut the anchor, slap the night vision on, and if nothing else, we'll at least be able to maneuver all the way out of this thing.

41:35
But you know, if if you do find yourself coming in and out of marines, coming in and out of like intracoastals, things like that, I'm telling you, night vision is invaluable.

41:44
If nothing else, your stress level just goes right down.

41:47
Now, night vision, with that being said, the infrared, going with that, I chose a handheld unit from West Marine.

41:55
And it's it's it's one of their higher end units.

41:58
It's it's not the, you know, the the base model.

42:00
But the reason why the handheld made so much sense, like if I jumped on your boat, I could bring it.

42:07
If I'm on my boat, bring it.

42:08
If someone goes overboard, you can hand it to somebody else and they can scan while you maintain control of the vessel.

42:15
There it just it just goes on and on the the things that you can do with it that increases the safety both you know do you have the do you have the brand names that the one at West Marine I have to look it up it's it's been I mean I bought it when we first got the boat so yeah.

42:34
FLIR.

42:34
So the night vision is that one is from West Marine.

42:38
No, no, noThe night vision you have to, you have to special order.

42:41
All of those units, the high quality ones are all built to order.

42:44
Yeah.

42:45
Okay.

42:46
So that's a whole nother subject.

42:47
The The FLIR.

42:49
Oh, Melissa says Fleur.

42:50
I've heard of that.

42:54
Yeah, but that's that's what it is.

42:55
And West Marine has several different ones that you can buy.

42:59
Okay.

43:00
But I tell you, they're they're really nice.

43:02
If you're gonna do any cruising, long-term cruising, where you're gonna be out and about making crossings and going in and out of intracoastals.

43:09
And for like I said, no other reason, us being in the Bahamas at that anchorage.

43:12
'Cause there may have been somebody else with night vision, but at that stage of the game, the only person I cared about was us.

43:20
'Cause that way, while everybody else is you know navigating in the dark.

43:25
You know, because you know how it is during storms, you can't see and you get the wind blowing crazy in the in the rain.

43:30
Visibility goes to nothing.

43:32
And the night vision helped big time.

43:36
So it's a shout out to Melissa for remembering that.

43:41
Also, Jeff Lindler says.

43:45
Oh, Paula.

43:46
Paula says thank you for your kind words.

43:49
Oh yeah, well.

43:51
One day we'll be making some crossings with those guys.

43:53
We've been talking for a while and got big plans.

43:56
Yeah, I want to go back to Mike, Mike's question.

43:59
I don't know if you'll you'll be able to talk on this.

44:02
You probably can.

44:03
He says he's interested in his experience with your experience with refitting an engine.

44:08
He says his is 30 years old.

44:12
You got any experience with that?

44:14
No, no, I am not a mechanic.

44:15
You'd have to get Bill on here for that.

44:18
OK.

44:19
Now I will tell you this, I've got a thousand 75, I think we just rolled thousand 75 hours.

44:25
So I did a thousand hour service myself on the boat, everything, but the you do that the bowels, I actually hired that out to a gentleman.

44:36
I just did my 1500, my thousand and 1500 at the same time.

44:42
Some of that overlaps, but that was, I've mentioned that I had some some white smoke when I was coming back.

44:49
So they they all that's been fixed you know they the we had to do the you have to help me with the terminology the I'm I'm not going to be able to think of it so we'll have to move on where they send them off.

45:06
They send them off to be ground down.

45:08
Help me out.

45:09
I don't know Bill that's your that's that's his area of expertise.

45:13
I feel very stupid.

45:14
I could talk on it when it was going on, but now that I've paid the bill, I forgot all about it.

45:20
Well, anyway, all that is is fixed now.

45:23
I don't have any more smoke.

45:24
I don't have no more, you know, all the the RPMs are good and everything.

45:30
So boat's going faster.

45:32
But OK, so the most memorable moment, let's go back to that.

45:36
I don't even.

45:40
If I had to just pick one because, I mean, we have a blast just about every time.

45:44
Injectors.

45:45
Thank you, Anthony.

45:46
Injectors.

45:47
OK.

45:52
So yeah, I've got two people that I can call if I need help on things.

45:56
So but love those guys.

45:59
They're they're so expensive.

46:00
But my gosh, they they come when I call and they fix things.

46:06
So the.

46:10
I would say probably most memorable if I had to just pick one is probably the delivery or when we when we you know, when we actually got underway was sailing under the bridge there, Tampa fixing to hit the Gulf, you know, because it was the accumulation of basically 30 plus years of everything coming together.

46:30
You know, we made several trips down to the factory, you know, Darryl was awesome down there, Nick, you know, they took care of us, we'd get up from here.

46:37
You know, 1:32 in the morning, drive down, you know, be there shortly after opening.

46:41
We would take a look at things and and then we'd eat lunch and drive back home.

46:45
And we did several trips like that.

46:49
you know, one of the main reasons was the the custom enclosure that we have.

46:53
You know, that is not a, it's, I'd say it's a one-off, but there's there's several that's been built that are similar to ours.

46:59
But if you're ever over this way, you know, I'll show you what makes ours so unique because everything is tied into an arch.

47:06
Even our our stern seating is inside.

47:09
The way our enclosure goes, it runs down and then out.

47:13
And anything that we need to do as far as, you know, trimming the boat or theor you know 360 on the of the winch handles.

47:23
It can be done from the inside of the enclosure.

47:25
We don't have to anything stick our hands out or anything like that.

47:29
And then of course, in the wintertime, it's nice to have our stern seating.

47:32
It's all enclosed, you know so visibility is excellent.

47:35
Comfort is freaking excellent.

47:37
I'm jealous.

47:38
Yeah, there's there's really well.

47:39
I'm jealous.

47:44
You knowthey're not giving them away but no they're not Melissa says meeting Bill and Krista and all the other like-minded people while traveling I can definitely attest to that Melissa you know the people you know I have a lot of friends and stuff here locally and we in in our discussion that's always comes up you know what what do you enjoy the most well the sailings a no-brainer I mean we love you know love the sail love the scenery but you know the one thing that I would sayThat's probably stood out more than anything is when you meet like-minded people, all sailing community, all walks along.

48:23
And especially the island packet people, because yeah, you're already out there sailing.

48:27
You already have that in common.

48:28
But when you meet someone with an island packet, then it just takes it another step.

48:32
And that's what happened with Krista.

48:34
You know, we met them on Green Turtle sitting at a little bar and and in an hour.

48:41
So do you ever, you guys ever sail over to Fort McRae?

48:46
That's Pensacola?

48:47
Pensacola, NAS, yeah.

48:49
It's funny you say that, because when me and Bill were coming back from Texas in his 485...

48:55
Yeah, I think y'all anchored out there.

48:58
That fourth day, we had that storm system coming up behind us, and we weren't real sure what was gonna happen.

49:05
And we were both pretty tired.

49:06
That was a long trip, very stressful with all the navigating of all the oil rigs.

49:12
And so we had to make a decision.

49:14
Our plan B was to turn in to Pensacola and wait the storm out.

49:18
So we were about 100 miles from Panama City, and we were 44 miles from the mouth of Pensacola Pass.

49:24
So you know we we aired on the side of safety, which worked out beautifully, and to the left and went into Pensacola, and we went in through the intracoastal, and is that called Sand Island right there to your left?

49:36
Yes.

49:37
Yeah, the dunes.

49:39
There's a small basin.

49:40
NAS is off to your right in that little channel.

49:44
I had a friend, another buddy that was trying to tell us about the forts, but we stayed just to the left of that Sand Island.

49:51
And matter of fact, we were laughing because we had winds.

49:54
I don't know, they were excessive.

49:57
Yeah, he was saying they were like 30 plus and it was just as calm as can be in that big old boat.

50:04
Sitting there, you know, having a cocktail or two.

50:06
Or three.

50:07
Yeah, we just sit there and the day.

50:11
And we actually-- The reason I ask is because there was another guy that I interviewed with an island packet.

50:17
He's in Gulf Breeze.

50:18
And we're going to, we're going to, when my boat was at a boat prison, which it is now, we're going to organize a gathering of all the local island packet people and do like our own rendezvous there.

50:32
Minibu or whatever it's called.

50:34
Yeah, we met actually at him in Venice.

50:36
Him and his wife had dinner with him.

50:37
His name's Chuck.

50:38
I can't remember his last name.

50:40
Chuck Howard.

50:41
That's him.

50:42
Chuck Howard.

50:42
He's in Gulf Breeze.

50:44
44646 or something like that.

50:48
I'm.

50:49
I'm getting them all confused now.

50:50
Was it like a three?

50:52
No, it's a center cockpit.

50:53
I mean, a 445 or something.

50:56
A 445.

50:57
Yeah, 440 is 445 is the center console, right?

51:01
I believe there's like a 440 and a 445.

51:04
The difference is the center call.

51:06
Anyway, if Chuck's listening, sorry, but yeah, is that is that a a trip y'all would make?

51:13
Because it's about 3 or 4 hours for me, depending on the weather.

51:17
Is that a so it's it's not the Gulf breeze, but to to Fort McRae.

51:23
What the area you're talking about?

51:25
I mean, it's 100 miles from here.

51:26
So, you know, I mean, we could get over there, you know, no no problem.

51:30
All right, we're going to hold you to it.

51:33
We've got a lot of island packets in the northern Gulf Coast.

51:36
So, you know, we can we can have a nice little gathering over there.

51:41
Well, there's several right here in my local area.

51:44
You know, we've got a beautiful one, I think it's 44 foot, 40, 42, maybe.

51:51
It's right across the basin for me.

51:53
And but I bet you probably got five or six island packets running around here just locally.

51:58
You know, no.

52:00
You know you know what?

52:03
No 34 nines, no new generation island packets.

52:06
They're rare.

52:07
Yeah, I saw one.

52:08
I think I went to the 2019 Annapolis show and they had one there.

52:13
Yeah.

52:13
No.

52:15
well was it there or was it in St.

52:16
Pete I went to one and say it was new so it must have been 2018 when I went to the St.

52:21
Petersburg show you know they're currently making the 349 the 439 if you haven't seen it oh my god don't go look at the videos because it'll make you want to get your checkbook out and II actually got on my first one when I had the boat up on the horror down in Tampa, doing the bottom job and getting solar panels done, and there was one there that they had done some, was doing some hurricane damage work, and one of the gentlemen from Island Packet came up, and I jumped, 'cause I wanted to see one in the water.

52:53
They had one, you know I don't remember the marina, but were they actually commissioner boats?

52:58
I didn't have time, but that other one was literally right in front of my boat, so I jumped on it and looked at it, andIt's gorgeous.

53:07
I mean, it is a very, very pretty boat.

53:09
Lots of room.

53:11
Yeah, it's it's nice.

53:12
But so they make those two, they've got a motor sailor that's coming out hopefully within the next year and-- Yeah, you know, I had Bill Bolan on here.

53:20
You know him?

53:21
I don't know.

53:21
I don't know who he is.

53:23
I've never met him though.

53:25
Yeah, so yeah, oh yeah.

53:27
And Jeff is saying, okay, well, Nancy says we need Billy Kenny and Krista Kennedy to come back to the Gulf Coast permanently.

53:34
And Jeff says, Jeff Lindler, I think IP Leslie has rescheduled the rendezvous for June 15th.

53:40
And yes, I spoke with Leslie.

53:42
She's gonna come on the podcast and she was saying you have to come, you have to come.

53:46
So I'm gonna try to get down there for that.

53:48
But we'll have something before then, you know, just a casual get together over here.

53:54
If you guys can make it, that would be awesome.

53:56
I mean, we're good for anything.

53:58
You know, the biggest thing on my schedule this time of the year, you know, things are getting really, really busy, so it's hard to.

54:04
you know, kind of get away.

54:05
So it's like when we go to the Bahamas, we want to leave you know towards the end of the year.

54:10
Last year, we left on the 5th of January and we actually returned on April 5th.

54:15
So we were going three months.

54:17
We had a beautiful crossing from here.

54:19
I mean, the weather was just gorgeous.

54:22
We hit the weather windows perfectly andYou couldn't ask for better.

54:26
You know Went down under a full moon, came up under a full moon.

54:29
And for marathon, straight through, we made two quick fuel stops, one in Venice, one in Carrabelle.

54:35
Didn't really need the Carrabelle one, but we went ahead and did it just for the heck of it.

54:39
But 72 hours is what it took us.

54:41
We're motor sailing into the whole time, too.

54:43
So you went from Carrabelle to Venice?

54:47
Well, going down, but coming back, when we come to back down from, let's see, we went from West End to West Palm, West Palm,To South Beach, actually Anchorage that Hayden recommended.

54:59
Hayden Cochran.

55:00
Yeah, yeahShout out to Hayden and Radine.

55:03
Yeah, great.

55:05
You know, I've talked to him a few times on the phone.

55:06
I've never met him.

55:07
But you know, I had to.

55:08
He was on.

55:09
They were on the podcast and I'm good.

55:11
They're going to be on again because I told them when they get to, I forget where they're they're going to keep their boat for the winter.

55:17
I'm trying to remember the name.

55:19
But they I wanted to when they when they before they come back, I wanted them to come on and talk about all the different anchorages because people love to hear about what what are the great anchorages and in the Bahamas or not just Obamas, but in where they are in the Caribbean.

55:34
Well, you know that's why I just felt compelled to call him and thank him you know the first time I talked with him, because I'm like, you know man, you know everything is posted on this website.

55:43
And I mean, you've got routes, you know you've got anchorages, you know you got information about it.

55:48
And really, you could literally not know anything about any anchorages, you know up and down the Bahamas, go to his site, bam, it's a one-stop shop.

55:57
he's full of information who you know may not have the time to invest in you know exactly where to go or what more importantly what time of year to go that's what I really enjoyed looking at but you know you know it's it's it's awesome I definitely recommend anybody to go to it Nancy are you talking about the the gathering that we're talking about it up here on the northern Gulf Coast are you talking about the oneat the at the factory.

56:28
Probably talking about up here.

56:30
Oh ohh good.

56:33
So Nancy, would you be interested in coming to Fort McRae too?

56:38
Well, if she jumped on our boat or Billy's boat, she would.

56:42
OK, what do they have?

56:44
No, Nancy is Bill's sister.

56:46
Oh, OK, same name, of course.

56:49
OK, thank you for clearing that up.

56:52
Where do you go to next?

56:54
Oh, by the way, Nancy says, Yes, you're gathering.

56:56
Oh, good.

56:56
Okay, so we're gonna have to do this.

56:59
Hey, they can do the entertainment, too.

57:01
Oh, ohh yeah, that's right.

57:04
Okay, so Brian says, Where are you sailing to next?

57:09
Well, first of all, he's coming over here to fence Cola.

57:13
Cola, our next, this year we're gonna be staying locally, and and I was hoping to sail down to Steinhatchee, actually, I don't know.

57:22
I've never been any of those places.

57:24
Maybe you can shed some light on that if you have.

57:26
I've been kind of nervous to go in there.

57:29
I mean, I I went to Steinhachie by car just to check it out.

57:33
And they are they got really damaged during-- what is it, Ida?

57:38
What was it?

57:38
I don't know.

57:41
When I drove through there like in November or something, I stopped in there just to put eyeballs on it.

57:46
And they didn't have any power, but they were taking reservations, but no power.

57:50
And their their little shop was like in a trailer.

57:53
So they were still rebuilding.

57:56
Well I'm really, I don't have any problems getting in and out of there.

57:59
I've talked to, there's a couple people at our marina that's been there and they they they've had nothing but good stuff to say about it.

58:05
But you know, our next big trip is going to be back to the Bahamas and hopefully we'll be heading back.

58:12
Adelia.

58:13
That's what Jeff said.

58:14
Is that what it was called?

58:15
Okay, go ahead.

58:17
These These storms all run together to me.

58:18
We have so many up here.

58:20
Ida, Ian.

58:24
We had Ivan, remember that one?

58:25
I can't remember the names, but I could tell you pretty much where I was at and the damages.

58:31
Yeah.

58:32
But you know, so we'll be going back to the Bahamas.

58:36
Probably mid March of next year and staying through hopefully the 1st of June.

58:40
We'll be back here, you know, the 1st of June and get get back for the hurricanes.

58:47
All right, I I need to do one thing.

58:49
I need to introduce tonight's sponsor, which is me.

58:54
Um Let me get that pulled up here.

58:57
So in case you didn't know.

58:59
I am a real estate agent, RE/MAX of Orange Beach here in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, and Perdido Key, Florida.

59:05
I am licensed in Florida.

59:07
I don't go further than Gulf Breeze, but my name is Tinsley Myrick, and there's the info.

59:13
And also, I have, I just started with a colleague of mine, the Get and Beat You Real Estate Lifestyle podcast.

59:23
So if you enjoy this podcast, please tune in on Thursday night at 6:00 PM, the same time.

59:29
and learn about some real estate in this area.

59:32
Okay, had to get that in there.

59:33
Oh yeah.

59:34
We've We've been doing some plugging for your businesses.

59:36
I had to get mine in there.

59:40
I've been selling real estate for 20, 21 years here, so we're good at it.

59:46
Scott is also a real estate agent.

59:50
So, but anyway, so you're you're thinking about going down in a year from now.

59:57
Well, next March, yeah.

59:59
Yep.

59:59
Okay.

60:00
That's That's the plan.

60:03
And, you know, last year we went to Bimini, Northern Berry's Great Harbor area, and then we went to the north part of Berry Islands and shot a round hole in the wall, the southern tip of the Abacos, and wound up in the Sea of Abacos, and we stayed there for about two months or so.

60:22
That's where we met Bill and Krista, andThen we made our way up around the Little Abaco Island and went all the way to West End, and then from West End back to the States.

60:36
But it's beautiful.

60:38
I love that.

60:39
Heck, I could go back to the Abacos, you know, tomorrow and just stay.

60:42
But next next trip, we wanna, you know, we wanna probably check in at Bimini and run the route that Hayden actually run and went down to Chubcay, I think is on the the southern part of the berries and maybe-- Up in there.

60:54
or hit that and then turn south and go down to the Exumas.

60:58
And if everything goes good, hopefully we'll be running back into Bill and Krista on their way back up from, you know, I don't know where they're going next year, you know, it's it's still a lot of planning, but ultimately, hopefully to get back down there and run the, you know, kind of central, southern area, I don't know how far we'll get, don't want to rush it, and then the 2026,will probably be lower Bahamas into the Turks and Caicos.

61:25
That's That's the plan as of right now.

61:28
So you don't really have, you don't really wanna go any further than that, or?

61:32
I wanna go to a lot of places, but I mean, like, you know, hurricane season, insurance, you know the deal with with everything, you know, they want you basically either below the hurricane, you know, what is it?

61:46
Below, do you have to get to Grenada, I think I think that's a.

61:50
Yep, you have to go down there.

61:52
So anything other than that, insurance wants you back in the states.

61:56
Right.

61:56
It's bad enough living here in Florida, Northwest Florida.

61:59
You know yeah They don't even, you knowNot a lot of places to hide and when hurricanes come.

62:06
You know, you're locally or big hurricane, the whole, you know, for anything big is you know intercoastal between here and Choctawatchee Bay, you know, that's probably the best safest place.

62:18
you know, to be other than you know getting it out of the water.

62:21
But you know, nowadays it's hard to even, you know, if you're if you don't have a reservation at a boat door or something like that, there's really not a whole lot you can do.

62:30
You know, you don't want to be in a marina, that's for sure.

62:33
I think you you found that out the hard way on one of your boats, didn't you?

62:36
Yeah, well, well we weren't really expecting it to come here.

62:39
That was part of the problem.

62:42
It falls into marina, though.

62:43
It used to be, for sure.

62:46
Yeah, yeahNow they here they have a program at Barber Marina and I don't know what the price is now.

62:53
It went up tremendously.

62:54
It was like.

62:55
A couple of years ago, it was like $5,500 for you to be on their plan and you'll be a guaranteed haul out, you know, in the yard.

63:04
But they, you know, you can it can only take so much, but but I was never I wasn't even able to get on the list on the waiting list.

63:15
So it's it's difficult.

63:18
There's no guarantee with that either.

63:20
I mean, if a cat fire like Michael did, there's-- It'll knock you off the stands.

63:26
Yeah, oh yeah, it, well, all of the boatyards here that had boats, you know, up on the hard, you know, during Michael, most of them were damaged or most of them were destroyed, you know, so that just, there's not a whole lot of places.

63:37
You either need to leave or be, like I said, in the intracoastal, you know, that's gonna be your best protection.

63:44
But of course, you know the the problem with leaving, you know, if you go W, if you get out, change directions, that's right.

63:51
You just don't never know which way on the Gulf Coast it's going.

63:53
So that's why we're very fortunate here locally to have an area where we can go.

63:58
And if you're going to ride one out, that's about the safe.

64:01
Well, it is the safest place to be, you know, because there was nothing here in Panama City that.

64:06
I don't think any boats anchored out in the open or even in the base systems.

64:10
There might've been a handful of them that survived with no damage or very little, but most everything was sunk, damaged, you know flipped upside down.

64:18
And you know the deal with the marinas, you know they they break loose as a group.

64:21
That's what happened in our little marina.

64:23
You know There's some boats in that basin back to the, I guess it'd be the west or northwest of where my boat's at.

64:32
they would have they would have rode it out, believe it or not, but the boats in the marina across the way broke loose or literally pulled the, you know, I don't know exactly what happened, but anyway, they all came over and they just all started crushing each other.

64:44
So it's, well, the barber, they're on the intercoastal, so they're, you know, you'd think they were protected, but the floating docks, they're all all the boats and the docks were in a pile on the intercoastal, you know,that comes in or a cat five, you got to be gone.

65:04
Yeah, that's all there is to it.

65:06
I mean, it was a high, too.

65:08
But yeah, the waves, even from the intercoastal, not even near a pass on or if you look at a map more barber marinas, but there's kind of a wide opening there.

65:19
And they just I don't know.

65:20
I they were all in a big pile.

65:22
Well, oh, does it feel OK.

65:28
Look, does the inner coast of fill up or is there enough room to anchor there during a storm?

65:32
How far in advance do you leave?

65:34
Do you stay with the boat?

65:36
Hey, look at all these questions.

65:38
Yeah.

65:39
So here there is.

65:41
There's a couple places you can go that are off the intercoastal and the best thing to do.

65:46
I understand I didn't do this.

65:48
Well, I did do it once in Pirates Cove is to tie off to some trees and hope that not a lot of people come back there, you know, tie up in the middleAnd have tied off to the trees.

66:01
I know a guy went back there and didn't do.